It’s no secret that there is a plethora of photo editing software out there. While most photographers are enamored by Lightroom and Capture One Pro, you should know that other options such as CameraBag Photo exist–and they’re honestly not too shabby. In many ways, it resembles Lightroom but also includes its own customized interface that is easier to work with. Though Lightroom has always been king of the hill in many ways, I never thought I’d find an even simpler way of working with images.
Features
150+ built-in high-quality adjustable filters
Full suite of 30+ photographic tools, including advanced curve editors
Build your own entirely new filters from scratch or from existing filters
Elegant, modern interface
Innovative tools not found anywhere else, such as CameraBag’s curve-based color corrector
Fast image processing via the revolutionary Analog Engine
32-bits-per-component color depth
Entirely non-destructive editing process
Easy layering of filters and adjustments
Quicklooks and previews for fast visual decision-making
Masks: Hue, HSV, Luminance
Multi-Document Tabs
Watermarking and custom image-based borders
Batch processing
RAW format support
Available for Mac and PC
Ease of Use
CameraBag Photo is in some ways minimal; actually, come to think of it, it’s incredibly minimal. Where Lightroom has whole interfaces dedicated to image management and printing, CameraBag Photo focuses on editing and exporting. You can surely load up more than one image at a time, but I’d really just focus on a few good photos that you want to tweak.
While you’ve got the option to do most of what Lightroom does and a bit more, you’ve also got some other options like using loads of different presets.
CameraBag Photo can also edit lots of different RAW image file types.
Just like Lightroom, you’ll also be able to do weird and cool things to your images like adding a gaussian blur or tilt shift effect, etc. Most people though I’m sure are going to do the very basics.
What’s also really nice is that the interface gives you a preview of what’s possible in case you don’t know what an operation does. For example, I’m sure lots of people don’t really know what color temperature is, though smarter people indeed will.
The RAW file engine is pretty powerful overall when it comes to working with shadows and midtones. But I don’t feel it can create a better image when trying to pull more information from the highlights. For that, Lightroom and Capture One are kings.
Image Quality
Conclusions
This program is mostly just a photo editor. It’s fun, and for anyone that doesn’t want to work with Adobe’s platform because they find it too complicated or hate the fact that they’re putting everything in the cloud, this is a nice option. It isn’t as powerful as what Adobe and Capture One offer, but it’s also not targeted to the semi-professional photographer in any way. Instead, I recommend that you get it right in camera as best as you can and then utilize a bit of creative freedom to get the most from it.