Best Raw Editing Software

Here we go without another “it depends” answer.

When it comes to picking a raw editor it depends on your editing goals and your budget. The good news is a lot of software manufacturers offer free trials to test out their app before you get your wallet out.

If all you need is an editor that will do the basics of cropping and changing the exposure and maybe it comes with some pre-sets and works just great with JPGs and raw files then you’re in luck.

Several camera manufacturers offer free editing software designed to work with JPGs and their file formats (all camera manufacturers have their own proprietary raw formats). Olympus OMWorkspace is one I’ve used as is Nikon NX Studio and both are very competent basic raw editors and come with the added advantage of being free for these camera owners.

I also use Alien Skin’s Exposure 7 which is a very simple but competent raw editor that features a huge library of photo looks and presets. It’s a very good choice for someone not needing or wanting the complexity of some of the other software out there but still wants to produce professional-quality images. I like it a lot but it does come with a cost.

Raw editing software comes in two distinct varieties that involves money. Some are one-time cost products with the ability to upgrade every couple of years or you can just stay with the excellent original version. The other option is an annual subscription model which means your software will be continuously updated so long as you keep paying the annual fee.

There are free open-source raw editors and some find the price position worth the limitations that often come with anything that’s free. One exception is Affinity from England which is now free and is a very competitive option worth considering. I’ve used it and like it very much.

Information on pricing and features about raw editors are available online and there’s way too information to share here but the following are the basic differences:

Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop are the industry’s standard when it comes to raw editing. There a couple of ways of paying for Adobe apps including a subscription model which keeps the software continuously updated. One of the features of Lightroom is it is also a very powerful database capable of storing and sorting thousands of images and galleries. While perhaps too much complexity for amateur photography it’s very popular with commercial and wedding photographers.

Capture One Pro is another high-end and very popular raw editor with very good colour grading features. I’ve used it and liked it but it is a somewhat more technical raw editor than I needed.

DXO PhotoLab 9 and the NIK Collection of external editors plus some additional companion software is my current raw editor. Simpler to use than Lightroom it features advanced AI masking (the ability to pick out specific parts of your image such as skies, background, people etc. and make individual changes to those parts). There’s no subscription but the one-time cost for all this software power is not cheap and you will likely want to take advantage of price reductions for current owners of future updates.

Two other major players Skylum Luminar Neo and ON1 Photo RAW are both very popular editors with advanced AI special effects and advanced masking opportunities.

There are of course many other products out there and your choice is going to depend on how much editing you really want to do. Some people love editing their raw images and some don’t.

As we talked about before some photographers don’t shoot raw format at all but have their camera setup to shoot JPG format and do very little if anything to these finished files.

Another consideration we discussed is a lot of new photographers over use the powerful features of their expensive software. Spend anytime on Facebook or Instagram of Flickr and you’re going to see a lot of overly processed images.

I believe the best editing is editing that you can’t see. It’s editing that makes your original vision prettier when you post or print it but does not draw attention to itself.

One caveat to consider is some of this software requires a significantly decent computer to run effectively. Nothing is more frustrating than having to wait minutes or hours for your underpowered computer to render an image or transfer a large gallery. So in addition to your costly software a $2,000 to $3,000 computer like a Mac Mini (my current rig) or a PC or PC laptop with a decent graphics card is essential.

One final thought: Pasting in a better looking sky or deleting people or stuff like electrical wires or garbage cans just because you can isn’t my idea of great photography. But remember like everything here this is just my opinion and your mileage should vary.