Lightroom for Linux - is it possible? Most my friends and I need it, because of not using Windows and current Linux tools can't get so great instruments for raw preprocessing and organizing...
I've installed Windows 10 dozens of times and I've upgraded many machines to Windows 10 from Windows 7/8. If the upgrade fails for some reason, I'd recommend doing a clean installation of your existing OS and then trying to upgrade from there. Once you have a legal copy of Windows 10 on the machine, you can wipe the hard drive and do a fresh installation and you won't need a license key on that machine any more.
That said, I'd still like to see Lightroom on Linux. I paid for Lightroom, then I paid for an upgrade, then I paid for a Creative Cloud subscription. But, I'm tired of using Windows just for the sake of Lightroom and I'm no longer doing photography professionally. I've cancelled my subscription and I have no interest in subscribing again unless I can install it on Linux (I'm willing to install any mainstream distribution that would be supported).
I don't expect that will happen. I purchased an alternative from Corel called AfterShot Pro, because it has a Linux version, but unfortunately it crashes constantly, so that isn't a viable option. I'm perfectly willing to pay for good software. For now, I'll try to see if I can make do with the available options on Linux.
Thanks Nathan. I was afraid we'd started moving off topic, so thanks for bringing us back. Like you, I'm willing to install any mainstream distribution that Adobe might select.
How about the rest of you? Is Lightroom on Linux something you would pay for? I'm hoping for "yes", and I've seen some likes. But I would count Brian's response as a "no", and that's fine, too. I welcome all responses. Thanks!
I gave up on Windows years ago and switched to Linux for our web server and OS X for almost everything else. Mac's UI is far better than anything I've seen on any Linux distro since Linux still has UI problems working with LED monitors. OS X is very Linux-like and that is one of its attractions; alsoI can get most of Linux's abilities by running it as a virtual machine on my Mac that has LR and Photoshop. So my short answer is no, I wouldn't pay for LR on Linux. Linux doesn't support the display quality that I need.
I'm wondering what distros you are using and with what kind of LED monitors? At the computer shop I work for we sell Dell computers with Linux Mint Cinnamon using LCD and LED monitors and they work great and the displays are gorgeous!
If someone likes the Mac UI you can using Linux Mint Cinnamon with Compiz and make it look and work almost exactly the same as a Mac.
I'll revisit the Linux options. My server runs SUSE 15 and I haven't recently tried anything graphically fancy with it. I'll try Mint Cinnamon as a VM on my iMac and see how it feels.
Jack, Troy, I've been enjoying reading your posts. Jack, I'd love to hear your feedback on Mint Cinnamon. I've heard good things about it but haven't yet tried it myself.
Sorry for the late reply, but no alternate software is going to help. All my existing stuff is still in Lightroom catalogs, and even *with* some conversion tool, I pretty much guarantee a conversion will not be without loss of at least some edits.
I had Lightroom and Photoshop licenses for the last three years. Since 1 year, I fully switched to Linux and used Adobe in dual boot or in a VM. Now, as it annoys me too much to have to reboot or launch Virtualbox, I haven't renewed my subscription, so Adobe has lost a customer. I am now discovering Darktable, RawTherapee, AfterShot, Gimp, etc. But, if Adobe finally manages to deliver native apps for Linux, I would consider purchasing again.
If Adobe can make money porting to Linux I'm sure they would, but with the current market share of less than 1% it's unlikely especially since the development effort is likely more rather than less due to all the flavors of Linux, and imagine all the driver issues where not using the GPU for many things causes excessive slowness:
And anyway darktable is far more superior at this time so you can all dump Lr for something better. No need to beg Adobe which has always shown some hate (see Flash story for example) for Linux.
I literally made a post to request Linux support for Adobe software on this forum on 28 September but moderators/Adobe removed it without notice(on my profile you can see I have 1 post(s) but it's nowhere to be found).
Maybe because I've included a quote from when Adobe joined the Linux foundation in 2008 and that it would be a natural step for them to include Linux as an environment:
“Adobe’s decision to join the LF is a natural extension of its commitment to open standards and open source, which demonstrates its leadership and foresight in the software industry,”
I have no idea. But anyways I'll vote for my Linux support on this thread then.
pascal_obry, Darktable is nice, but I'm not sure it is necessarily superior to Lightroom.....yet.
Most people who have used it say the images tend to process a little darker than Lightroom and in some cases not quite as crisp. They also say Lightroom is still a little more user friendly inn its layout and tools. In what ways do you find Darktable more superior? I'm really curious.
will_de-jong, Mint Cinnamon (which is a Debian based distro) is excellent and beautiful looking and out customers using it really like it.
In response to jack_nilles, it sounds like he is running SUSE which, I believe, is a Red hat distro.
I've tried both and found I like Debian based distros better. So I tend to stick more with Ubuntu/Mint. It's more user friendly and seems to have broader compatibility with different hardware.
It always difficult to compare, but I would list the following features that you don't have in Lr and where you need Photoshop:
- Liquify module (moving pixel around) non descructive
- Retouch module based on wavelet scales
- Parametric masks (even if I think Lr added this recently) it is far more versatile in dt with more way to select pixels
- Mixing drawn masks together and possibly with parametric masks
- The filmic & tone equalizer module in linear RGB are a must
- The contrast equalizer again based on wavelet scales
- The Negadoctor module to handle san of film negatives
- And probably many more...
Some of those modules are unique to dt like Filmic & Tone Equalizer.
And yes, Lr is a probably easier to use but again some actions require Photoshop (which is far more difficult to master). With dt you can do lot more directly on the RAW, all this is non destructive and does not break the workflow.
And don't take my word for it, you can download and test all this for free.
@troy and @pascal. I agree with both of you. Darktable is great in that is has many modules and options that LR lacks and is capable of producing very good images, but LR gives better results overall and is much quicker and easier to use. I'm a professional photographer and have been using/testing Darktable for about 3 years now, but still use LR for my regular work. I'm a Linux user but have a seperate pc just for LR. The LR colors and 'crisp' images (as mentioned by Troy) are still better and almost instant when opening an image. Images opened in LR need very little adjustment, and in 99% of all cases the tools in LR, using local adjustments and gradient tool) almost always give me the result I want and the images are very 'touchable', as in real, close. For now I have just renewed my subscription of LR for another year. It gives me very good images in almost no time, thus gives me more time to take new pictures instead of time behind the computer. And yes, I have experimented a lot with DT and have many presets. So I keep following DT and in my heart I have a big desire to only use DT, but still prefer LR.
I doubt that even if Linux users wanted to pay double the price that they would pay for Windows and/or Mac, that it would be a good business decision for Adobe.
I think the larger issue here is that Linux has very poor desktop/laptop usage. Certainly the MacOS market size is much bigger, to say nothing of the Windows market size.
It's no problem of price of License. It's a strategy. Corel go to Linux. It's a philosophy of company. If company is in Linux Foundation but no offer Software for that Operative System. Why is there?
Linux sure is not rentable but for Adobe is a Strategy if have not the strategy never could be a market. The opportunities is not only view the market share. Maybe Windows has a lot but the most is using a pirate software when maybe in Linux that 2% buy the Licence.
Is superficial say that all people is equal no exist comparative in a number of percentage of market share more when a Company is big than Adobe.
Not that it'll do any good, but I'll chime in. I ditched my last mac about 3 years ago and now run Linux on Dell XPS. Since then I've been using Darktable and RawTherapee. While they do well, they can't produce the same image quality that I could get with Lightroom. The noise in DT and RT just can't be reduced and turned into something artistic the way it can in Lightroom. That's my main issue. Lightroom seems to turn the noise into something that resembles real film grain with evenly spread noise. DT and RT turn it into blotches of greens and reds that aren't uniform. Not sure what algorithm is at work. I've tweaked all the sliders and pushed all the buttons I can find, but I've found no comparison. Adobe products are provided by my employer, and I'd use them if they worked on Linux. I'd even pay for a personal copy at this point. But, until they support Linux, I'm boycotting them. I'll keep searching for the magic combination of artistic noise reduction I'm after in the tools available on Linux. Come on Adobe, there are obviously a lot of people who want to use Linux, but don't because of your refusal to support us. Market share and use of Linux would no doubt increase if you supported us. Lots of good points in this thread too. Thanks!
This has been an ongoing thing for so many years, and now LR and PS are being ported to ARM (Apple M1 and Windows for ARM) but Adobe STILL can't provide us with a Linux version? C'mon now Adobe!
I am a adobe Customer for 2-3 years now.. but adobe is going to loose me. I am getting used to Darktable / Raw Therapee in order to get rid of my Dual Boot / VM Construct. It is just anyoing. But i would love to use LR under Linux. I would play glady the same price i am paying for Lightroom and Photoshop right now, JUST for lightroom.. so adobe please make it hapen! there are more users out there that would pay for Linux Lightroom!
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