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With the 50% price increase in the monthly Creative Cloud Photography Plan, while the annual option remains the same cost as before, some photographers are reconsidering their photo editing options. Since many photographers only use Lightroom with little to no need for Photoshop, free Raw processing software such as RawTherapee offers similar functionality to Lightroom without the expense of a subscription. It almost sounds too good to be true.

The software offers a huge amount of control over image processing including localized adjustment tools, but the adjustments are complex due to the sheer number of controls available. It's not often I find myself saying this, if ever, but the complexity of the software in part comes from possibly having too many controls. That's not to say it's unusable because there are aspects of the software that in some ways make editing easier, but the user workflow undoubtedly takes some getting used to.

RawTherapee is a great Raw processing software solution if you use the free photo editing software GIMP since it works as a Raw plugin; GIMP doesn’t offer Raw support natively. Plus, if you use Affinity Photo 2, which does offer Raw Processing, the Develop Persona doesn’t offer an image browser and the controls available are minimal in comparison to RawTherapee. The Develop Persona is, however, much easier to use and results can’t be faulted.