The Best Photo Editors to Process RAW Images

From beginners to photography enthusiasts, they always look for the best photo editors with whom they can create incredible images to upload to social networks, sell them or deliver them to their customers.

Basically we talk about photographs taken with cameras, although each time, these photos are made with mobiles have higher quality. Even many of them already allow you to save photos in RAW format. Therefore with these programs that we will talk about, we will be able to retouch any photo taken from any device.

Edit RAW photos like a pro with these programs

This format is quite advanced and highly recommended for this technology sector, since it is perfect for editing our photos. It contains more information than other formats, which means that these programs read the information and are capable of altering more accurately the parameters that we indicate. So, below, we show you what are the best programs of this type.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

This software developed by Adobe is one of the most used in this industry, because thanks to its appreciated interface and the large number of options and tools that it incorporates, we can create incredible professional photographs. This is used by both beginners and professionals, as it has a fairly simple operation, so with some practice you can get good results. We have a free trial , although later we will have to adopt one of your payment plans to continue using the program.

The main features that Lightroom offers us are:

• Automatic editing based on the AI of the Adobe Sensei cloud to enhance photos.
• Possibility of configuring program presets to use it comfortably.
• Corrective brush for minor retouching of the photos.
• Color mixing tools to give a more professional finish.
• Adjusting clarity, texture and deletion of photos.
• Selective adjustments according to the type of touch-up that we have to do.
• Edition without destruction.
• Possibility of creating different profiles.
• Adjustment by changing curves.
• Panoramic HDR.

It is worth mentioning that in order to access the free 7-day trial we are talking about, you can do it from this link .

Adobe Camera Raw

Camera Raw is a tool, included in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, After Effects and Bridge, specially designed to allow us to import all types of photos into RAW and retouch them at an intermediate step before loading them into Photoshop. This plugin is compatible with all RAW formats on the market, in addition to being with most lenses that can be attached to cameras.

Camera Raw is usually installed as standard in the latest versions of Photoshop, so we do not have to download or install anything at all. And if you have to, the plugin is available in Creative Cloud.

Darktable

This is considered the best free alternative to Adobe Lightroom. It has a distribution and appearance similar to the one mentioned above. Therefore we can say that this cross-platform program offers us a series of quite interesting features, all at no cost. In this way we will have the possibility to edit the tones of the images, their colors, correct defects of them, add effects, etc.

Some of the best features offered by Darktable are:

• Non destructive photo editing.
• Hardware acceleration for better performance.
• Professional color management.
• Multiple filters
• Compatible with any image format, and with all types of RAW.
• Changes in real time, without latency.
• It allows you to automate repetitive tasks.
• Customizable through plugins and modules.
• Multiplatform (Windows, macOS, Linux).

In fact it could be said that we will not miss practically any function that we would find in payment programs, more if we use it at personal level rather than professional use. Therefore if you want to try it right now, you can do it from this link .

RawTherapee

This is a program designed for use by both beginners and professionals who require a powerful and intuitive touch-up application. By this we do not mean that we cannot achieve very good results, on the contrary. Moreover, we have all the most common touch-up functions, all at your fingertips.

In addition its simplicity of use is based on the fact that the vast majority of the functions are adjusted by sliding the corresponding bars, nothing complicated. Thus, it can be said that this is a program in general is quite complete, in addition to being free, so we recommend its use to any user who is a solution for editing their photographs.

Other features offered by RawTherapee are:

• Very high quality image retouching.
• Compatible with all types of RAW images.
• It has one of the best user interfaces for amateurs and professionals.
• Excellent performance when editing and processing images.
• Totally free and open source.

If you want to try it right now, you can do it from here .

Luminar

This program is quite useful for users dedicated or passionate about editing photography, since it is not only a program, but also a plugin . With this we can edit our photos without the need to use other applications, and take it into account as one of our favorite editing programs. Thus, it puts at our disposal several presets very similar to those we have in Adobe Lightroom, in addition its interface is quite intuitive and powerful, allowing us an efficient and simple edition.

They highlight the intelligent algorithms that you have, for example one with which we can replace the sky of a photograph automatically . At the same time, among other retouching options we find the detection of faces in our portraits. This is a program that you can get through this link .

PhotoPad

Here we find a fairly simple and simple image editor. Thus, with this solution we can make adjustments and retouching in our photos and images, including RAW formats. We have very simple options and it is recommended for inexperienced users who want to change their photos without leaving the basics .

PhotoPad offers us:

• It has a large number of crop, rotate and resize tools.
• Effects and filters of all kinds to customize our photos.
• Create collages, embroideries, paintings and much more.
• Photo editing functions.
• Tools to modify color, brightness and contrast.

We can add several effects, or even create collages, among other functions. Also if we want to practice, it gives us a choice between its clip art bank to check its operation mode. This is a program that you can download from this link .

Zoner Photo Studio X

Here we see a little known program for how interesting it can be for many users. It is a powerful alternative to Lightroom or Photoshop and allows us to retouch and edit our photos. With this solution we can not only adjust parameters to retouch our photos, as we would do with Lightroom, but also allows us to edit them as we would with Photoshop. In this way, if we use it and it seems useful, we will avoid using different programs for editing our images.

It should be mentioned that it has a fairly developed and current interface, but at the same time intuitive. On the other hand, thanks to its powerful engine, we can edit many photos at once in the event that the resources of our team allow us. And, finally, we can add that it also allows us to make small videos with some basic editing tasks. In this way we can make small assemblies and editions. from here. To download the program and install it, we can do it from this link .

Photivo

Another free and open source alternative to retouch and edit RAW images from our PC is Photivo. This software is, in broad strokes, very similar to the previous ones, offering a professional interface from which to make all kinds of non-destructive changes.

Some of its best features are:

• It integrates with GIMP.
• It is compatible with all types of RAY images and bitmaps.
• It has many tools for correction and improvement of images.
• Allows batch image editing.

We can download Photivo for free from the following link .

Lightzone

Finally, another OpenSource alternative for retouching and editing RAW images is LightZone. This non-destructive editor is characterized by being compatible with virtually all image formats, no matter the camera from which they were shot, and has a very clear, polished and well-designed interface, from which both amateurs and professionals can give Unleash your skills to improve the look of your photos.

If we want to try this software for retouching RAW images, we can download it from their website . Of course, we will have to register to download this program.