My university is kicking me off their free creative cloud by the end of the summer. What are the best Lightroom alternatives?
You could just download a cracked Lightroom.
I used Darktable for a few years, and while it is a very powerful tool, it was taking me a long time to edit a few pictures because of all the trial and error. I spend several hours watching YouTube tutorials to get the hang of it. But I decided to try Lightroom Classic again (you can get it for free if you know how) and I was surprised with all the new AI capabilities, it takes me a few clicks to get a very similar result to what I got in 10 minutes using Darktable. You definitely have more control on Darktable, but if you are already used to Lightroom, you can try to have a look at the Classic version. There are other alternatives that you can use for a trial period and see if you make the compromise and stick to a new workflow, all of these programs are the same but they will require slightly different skills from you. Mind you, I am not a Pro photographer and this is just my experience.
Which features of Lightroom are important to you? The editing capabilities? Organizational capabilities? Cloud sync?
Just the editing. I guess enough organization to look at one set of photos at a time. Don’t care about cloud sync.
