[This topic has been discussed to death on the various photography forums, and I risk being lynched if I bring it up there. Also, I'm interested in the mustachian perspective on this.]
I have been an avid nature, landscape, and travel photographer since the age of 10. I have a number of museum/gallery exhibits with some of the scientific micrography I have done.
I shoot exclusively raw images when using a dSLR or compact digital camera, and I have used and liked Adobe Lightroom since version 1 in 2007, up through version 6 in 2020. A few years ago, Adobe decided to stop supporting/releasing stand-alone versions of this software, but rather to offer it only with the Creative Cloud suite 10$/mo (as of now). Now that I have switched over to a new PC, I am looking at alternatives.
As much as I like and appreciate LR, I really, really, really dislike the "software as a service" model, along with anything else I have to pay for on a recurring basis. Some of these things are actually really cheap, but they ADD UP very quickly, and are usually a PITA to cancel. Additionally, most of the BEST software I have ever used is FREE SOFTWARE: Audacity, Foobar 2000, Libre Office, EPIM (Free version), so why not explore some free versions of raw development?
I am especially interested in RawTherapee and DarkTable (both free), as well as paid, stand-alone versions by Corel (forget the name) and Phase One.
I have a ton of .ORF Olympus raw files from 2007 - 2017, and now, that I use mostly Nikon, I have a ton of .nef Nikon raw files. So, I would need the software to develop both. I was not a super-advanced user of LR, but I did know how to use most of the post-processing features, if not the DAM and library features. I never liked the requirement to import images in order to work on them. Some images I just want to edit once, export, and never see again (documents I photograph instead of scan). I need lens profiles to correct distortion in my Nikon 18-140-a great walk-around lens, but, prone to pincushion and barrel distortion like any long zoom.
Does any one have thoughts on RawTherapee, Dark Table, PhaseOne/Capture One, or any other such raw development software?
Thanks.