Is There a Free Alternative to Lightroom or Aperture?
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If you are a professional photographer, you’re either using Apple’s Aperture or Adobe’s Lightroom, I’m sure. This is for hard-core digital photo management. Both of these programs work well, but they are quite expensive. So, what can you do instead?
blueMarine is a cross-platform, open-source application that will give you a full-on digital photo workflow experience. The closest thing I could equate to this is Aperture or Lightroom. blueMarine is pretty much the same thing. You can sort by different variables, and increase or decrease the size of the results returned. It’s insanely easy to work with, and organize all of the photos in a professional manner.
As with most photo workflow apps, you have several methods of inspecting your image collection. Icons in the top left corner switch the app between filesystem tree, calendar, and tag views, and you can sift through the assorted photos in a 2-D grid, or a single “filmstrip” along the bottom of the screen.
You have full control over how much information blueMarine displays for each image, courtesy of the View -> Decorators menu. You can show file properties such as size and filename, image properties such as camera settings, and any metadata you assign to the file.
You can also assign basic one-through-five-star ratings for each image, and mark “keepers” and “trash” with simple keyboard shortcuts. Although blueMarine does not include editing functionality, the beginnings of such features are found in the image inspections tools, with which you can zoom in and out and magnify selected images.
I’m not a professional photographer, I’m just a hobbyist. If I hadn’t already paid for Aperture, I’d be using blueMarine myself on a regular basis. I’m glad I found it, and could pass it along to all of you.
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10 Comments
Outsanity
July 6th, 2008
at 11:43pm
It’s a bit confusing to me but I just started playing with it. It does seem to be good. They have geotagging which is even better. I need to test if that will actually work on Flickr and Zooomr. The one thing missing, unless i missed it, is a tagging feature. Like in Lightroom, you can set tags for the image and when you upload it, they will already be set.
A.M. Kirchner
July 7th, 2008
at 12:02am
Hey, the website link does not contain ‘www’ in it like you posted. It’s simply http://bluemarine.tidalwave.it/ without the ‘www’.
DimensionX
July 7th, 2008
at 9:54am
RawShooter had one of the very best RAW engines out there. It was actually so good that it was aquired by Adobe and implemented in Lightroom. Free RawShooter version here.
RawShooter essentials 1.1.3
http://www.brothersoft.com/rawshooter-essentials-download-43454.html
vistadude
July 7th, 2008
at 10:51am
How can you saying you don’t GIMP, just spend a day in gimp using the filters, they are some of the best out there, just try the alpha to logo filters, they are the best, I use them every day. look at this image I made from scratch in gimp, http://tinyurl.com/6kdxm5 I used only the alpha to logo filters, and the text effect, plus that wall paper I made for you was done in gimp, plus that HD wallpaper I made for you was done in gimp, http://tinyurl.com/6cq8ug, that is the lower quality png image, but still.
Chris Hansen
July 7th, 2008
at 11:28am
I haven’t tried it yet - website is having trouble loading at the moment.
For those of you that have tried it, how does it compare to Picasa?
cbpbiz
July 7th, 2008
at 6:00pm
is download site is down i can’ access it from any browsers
Scoreless Tie
July 7th, 2008
at 7:35pm
is also a nice idea. I just wish I had the time to practice with Audacity to get good at using it. I’ve messed around, but I still can’t take the ideas in my head and come up with the sound files. Chris Pirillo asked the question, “Is There a Free Alternative to Lightroom or Aperture?” The answer is “yes,” it’s a program called blueMarine (that I can’t seem to link to right now). Football season is fast approaching. Here are directions to the Liberty High School football fields, site of North Penn’s first football game of the
Martin Williams
July 7th, 2008
at 8:32pm
I lately got Photoshop Elements 6, and impressed by Bridge, which comes with it - also allows you to categorise images as keep or reject, as well as give stars, assign keywords and so forth.
Hardly free; but to me makes Elements esp good value.
Haven’t tried bluemarine (link not working for me just now; but even so, maybe wouldn’t dovetail w Bridge, say); and though I sell some photos, Aperture beyond my needs I think.
Michael
July 14th, 2008
at 8:27pm
It is still hard to beat Picasa.
l0ckergn0me - FriendFeed
July 31st, 2008
at 1:17pm
[...] The ISP Conundrum July 6 at 10:40 pm - Link posted an entry on Chris Pirillo Is There a Free Alternative to Lightroom or Aperture? July 6 at 9:49 pm - Link Glenn Batuyong and Matt Horton liked this posted two entries on [...]
wikili
August 14th, 2008
at 7:03am
stir up your curiosity and will cause you to learn more. There is nothing like doing something you love to do. Outdoor Photography Tips Are Your Photos Boring? Has a Wrist Strap Ever Saved Your Camera? What Software do you use for Digital Photos?Is There a Free Alternative to Lightroom or Aperture?Upload Digital Photos to Web Albums for Free! Camcorder Buying Tips Photoshop Video Wireless Camera NAPP: Photoshop Association a Are You an Amateur Photographer? [IMG Permalink for