Looking for free/low cost alternative to Lightroom?

[michaelmorris]

I want to do some batch processing of a large number of images.  This will include levels, resizing, noise reduction and colour saturation, Can anyone recommend  any free/low cost alternative to Adobe Lightroom?

Thanks

[cgarry]

http://www.irfanview.com/?

Cheers,

Chris

[pete_l]

Not a recommendation, as I have never used it. But you could investigate Ashampoo's Photo Optimizer product. Version 6 is £15 and version 5 is free.

https://www.ashampoo.com/en/eur/pin/1157/multimedia-software/photo-optimizer-6

I'll leave it as an exercise to find out how to get v5.

[Mr Spock]

I use a really old version of Paintshop Pro - 7.0 anniversary. I've never felt the need to move to a newer version.

[opticalpath]

If you have any old version of Photoshop, it's quite easy to perform a series of operations on a batch of files. You need to record a new PS 'action' that contains all the processing steps, then invoke it on a batch of images in a folder using File/ Automate/ Batch ... It's described here, for example:
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/photoshop/how-resize-multiple-images-in-photoshop/


Adrian

[happy-kat]

The other thing with PaintShop Pro even the versonn mentioned above is it can run many Adobe Photoshop plugins, not the scripts just the plugins.

[The Admiral]

I use Picture Window Pro for my pixel level manipulation from Digital Light and Color. The current version is $80. Rather clunky I have to admit, but never the less extremely powerful, and a lot cheaper than Photoshop. It doesn't work in layers though, which you might find a handicap. Still, don't dismiss it out of hand.

Ian

[michaelmorris]

Thanks for the ideas folks. In the end I've decided to go for Lightroom.