Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

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Yadullah Abidi is a Computer Science graduate from the University of Delhi and holds a postgraduate degree in Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. With over a decade of experience in Windows and Linux systems, programming, PC hardware, cybersecurity, malware analysis, and gaming, he combines deep technical knowledge with strong editorial instincts.

Yadullah currently writes for MakeUseOf as a Staff Writer, covering cybersecurity, gaming, and consumer tech. He formerly worked as Associate Editor at Candid.Technology and as News Editor at The Mac Observer, where he reported on everything from raging cyberattacks to the latest in Apple tech.

In addition to his journalism work, Yadullah is a full-stack developer with experience in JavaScript/TypeScript, Next.js, the MERN stack, Python, C/C++, and AI/ML. Whether he’s analyzing malware, reviewing hardware, or building tools on GitHub, he brings a hands-on, developer’s perspective to tech journalism.

For years, I’ve accepted the Adobe tax as the cost of editing photos well. Monthly subscriptions, locked ecosystems, Adobe has me locked down, and I hate it. But Lightroom and Photoshop can be overkill for most photographers, and for someone who doesn’t need pixel-perfect images to pay the bills, the subscription cost has gotten out of hand.

Thankfully, there’s a potentially better solution. There are some great free and open-source alternatives for every Adobe app out there, and Lightroom’s no different. I’m glad to report that I’ve finally found a free photo-editing app so good, I’ve sent Lightroom for a toss.

Why Darktable finally replaced Lightroom for me

Freedom, control, and no subscription strings attached

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Darktable doesn’t want to be Lightroom, and its developers are rather explicit about this. They’re not chasing feature parity with Adobe. They’re building something fundamentally different—a RAW editor designed for people who want control, not convenience. It’s a tool built by photographers, for photographers.

Lightroom optimizes for speed and consistency. You import, apply a preset, you hit develop, maybe tweak a few sliders, and you’re done. That workflow is great when you’re processing hundreds of photos and need them to be good enough fast. Darktable, on the other hand, is built for photographers who’d rather obsess over an image to extract every last ounce of quality from their shots.

Darktable is also free. Lightroom costs $10/month or $120/year. Darktable has no subscriptions, no cloud lock-in, and no random payment requirements that can stop your editing workflow in its tracks. The source code is also public. You can audit it, modify it, or contribute to it. Open-source software may not always be the best choice, but it’s pretty damn close in this case.

Darktable

OS Windows, Linux, macOS

Developer Johannes Hanika

Price model Free, Open-source

Darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer.

The editing depth goes far beyond the basics

Professional-grade tools without artificial limits

The biggest examples of the editing depth you get are the masking and local adjustment tools that Darktable gives you. Lightroom’s adjustment tools are decent but relatively simple. Darktable’s masking system is miles ahead by comparison. You’ve got parametric masts based on luminance, color ranges, hue, and more. There are path-based masks, radial and gradient masks, and freehand brush masks. You can also stack and combine these to adjust with as much precision as you like.

If you get too lost in the details, it quickly tends to become a very time-consuming process. However, the depth of Darktable’s adjustment tools make this intuitive in ways Lightroom can struggle with. I’ve used free Lightroom alternatives that changed how I develop photos, but Darktable has changed how I approach retouching. The result is an ability to fix photos that would’ve otherwise ended up in the trash bin.

Darktable has over 30 editing modules, and they’re deep. Consider noise reduction: Lightroom has one slider, while Darktable has a comprehensive module with separate controls for luminance and chroma noise, threshold adjustments, and wavelet decomposition options. It’s the difference between a light switch and a dimmer.

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

The same applies to virtually any adjustment. The curves tool works in multiple color spaces. You’ve got shadow and highlight recovery that can resurrect blown-out skies. The color balance system offers controls that rival professional color-grading software. Even the tone equalizer is phenomenal.

Performance is also reasonably good, especially if you’re on weaker hardware. Darktable has also added GPU acceleration via OpenCL and performance optimizations to make the editor faster. If you’re working on high-resolution files or batch-processing hundreds of images, Darktable won’t feel as instant as Lightroom’s polished UI, but the gap is pretty small.

Power comes with a real learning curve

Darktable rewards patience, not quick presets

All that extra editing power comes with added complexity. Darktable has a far steeper learning curve than Lightroom. The UI isn’t as polished. The workflows are different. The community is smaller than Adobe’s sprawling ecosystem. And sure, if you want the best results, you’ll spend time learning, but if you need to process hundreds of photos for a quick turnaround after a shoot, Lightroom might be the better choice.

Credit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf

Additionally, Darktable is a Linux-native application that has been ported to Windows and macOS. It’s stable now and works relatively well, but it doesn’t feel quite as refined as native software or Adobe’s well-polished interfaces.

Lightroom isn’t the only serious photo editor anymore

There are better options if you’re willing to learn

I stopped using Lightroom because Darktable showed me a new way to edit, without costing a cent. Every image I work on gets my full attention, and I can fix things I thought were unfixable. Is it faster? Not always. Is it easier? Absolutely not. But is it better for the kind of photography and editing I do? Without question.

If you’re a casual photographer looking to process a wedding shoot over the weekend, stick with Lightroom. But if you’re serious about image quality, suspicious of subscriptions, or just exhausted by Adobe’s approach to business. Darktable will surprise you. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best tools aren’t the most expensive—they’re the ones designed with genuine passion by the people who actually use them.