ERIC KIM

Why I Prefer Apple Photos over Adobe Lightroom

The other day I was using Adobe Lightroom, and for some reason, got kicked out. I forgot my login id/password, and thought:

Damn it, I don’t want to go through the bother of recovering my ID/password, etc.

I then thought:

Hmmm — if Adobe has these kind of annoying lock-out things, perhaps it is best to NOT use it at all, and discover some sort of alternative.

Thus, I tried using Apple Photos instead. And honestly, I think I prefer Apple Photos over Adobe Lightroom. Why? Let me explain:

1.Integration with MacBook and Apple products

apple photos

What is actually very impressive is that Apple Photos is very very well-integrated with the Touch Bar for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar. And Apple Photos is insanely fast! Far faster than Lightroom Classic, and I believe Apple Photos is even faster than Adobe Lightroom CC (the new one for Desktop).

2.Easy to favorite and pick photos

apple photos picks favorites

When looking through photos, I just press the little heart (favorite/pick) icon in the MacBook Pro Touch Bar, and it is a joy to use! Furthermore, to filter your photos based on your ‘Favorites’ is super easy.

Also, the rotating function in the MacBook Pro Touch Bar is super useful!

3.It is FREE!

apple photos

You cannot beat the price of free.

Adobe is great, and Lightroom and Photoshop is great, but still — paying a monthly subscription is quite annoying. I am more of the old-school “buy once, own forever” mentality.

Anyways, Apple Photos will remain free. And I doubt I will ever replace my MacBook laptop with a PC laptop (ever).

Another idea: If one day I end up using a Chromebook or something, I might just only use Google Photos for everything.

4.Workflow tips

I keep it super simple:

  1. I shoot JPEG on RICOH GR III. Thus, I just import JPEG photos (makes life much easier).
  2. Go through each photo one by one (reverse chronological order, from newest to oldest photo), and when I see a photo I like that catches my eye, I use the MacBook Pro Touch Bar “Favorite” function (on the Touch Bar).
  3. At the end, I select all the favorited photos, and export them as JPEG onto a Dropbox Folder.

Some recent photos: