The BEST Photography Editing Software For Churches

In photography, taking stunning photos is only half the equation, the other half is editing them to look good, be consistent, and be in a shareable format. To do this, you’ll need high-quality photography editing software.

There are many options for photo editing software in various price ranges. Three of the best programs include; Adobe Lightroom, Luminar Neo, and RawTherapee. Lightroom costs $9.99 per month with an annual commitment, Luminar Neo is a one-time payment of $149.99, and Raw Therapee is completely Free.

The “best” software depends on what your specific needs are as a photographer. Keep reading as I break down who each of these editing programs is best suited for.

What Does A Church Need From A Good Editing Software?

In this article, we are looking strictly at photo processing and editing, not image manipulation as you would find in software such as Photoshop. I’m focusing my recommendations on image adjustments like exposure, colour, noise reduction, etc.

Adobe Lightroom costs $9.99 per month with a one-year commitment, for a total of $119.88 for one year of access. It is worth it to note that the Lightroom & Photoshop bundle also costs $9.99 per month, so that is what I recommend if you choose to go with this software.

Lightroom is MacOS and Windows compatible and works smoothly on both. It requires a minimum of 8GB of RAM and an Intel or AMD processor 2GHz or above with SSE 4.2 or later. I have found that to prevent the program from freezing and stuttering while editing, Adobe’s recommended 16GB of RAM works just fine; though more RAM wouldn’t hurt, 16GB is plenty.

Luminar Neo is different from Lightroom because you have the option to buy a lifetime license instead of subscribing. To subscribe monthly, Luminar Neo costs $9.95 per month, and a lifetime license will cost $200. Keep in mind this is just for the software, with no extensions included (more on those later).

Luminar Neo is compatible with MacOS and Widows and is well on both. The company behind Luminar Neo, Skylum, recommends 8GB RAM minimum. For processors, they recommend an Intel i5 or better, an AMD Ryzen 5 or better, or any Apple Silicon chip.

RawTherapee is completely free and open-source software. This means that although the developers are constantly updating the software, its community of users is also given the software’s code. Since it is free and open-source, RawTherapee doesn’t have much in terms of system requirements. The best recommendation I have is to follow the same recommendations that are given for Lightroom and Luminar Neo.

Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, or just Lightroom, is an industry-standard photo editing software that gives users the ability to make basic adjustments, do basic masking, and more.

There are two versions of Lightroom; Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic. Lightroom CC is cloud-based making it good for syncing across multiple devices like between desktops and tablets. It is designed to be streamlined and intuitive.

Lightroom Classic is what most professionals use because it allows you to work using a local drive instead of over the cloud and because it is more comprehensive.

All three of my recommended software can do basic adjustments and masking. There are a few things that set Lightroom apart from the rest.

The integration between Lightroom and Photoshop is done well, as you would expect since both are made by Adobe and are part of Creative Cloud.

Unlike Luminar Neo, with Lightroom, there are no extra add-ons to buy after the fact, unless you would like to buy third-party presets.

If your goal is to edit and develop the creative vision of a professional, then check out our Church Photography Lightroom Presets in the Creatives for Christ shop.

That brings me to a feature that most professional photographers use; Lightroom presets. When I’m editing a church service shoot, I want all of my photos to look consistent. Also, since I typically have a few thousand of them, I want to save time while editing.

Lightroom makes it easy to create settings presets and have them automatically apply to imported photos. With one click, I have my exposure settings, tone curve, HSL sliders, and even lens distortion correction set.

Overall if it is within your budget Adobe Lightroom is an excellent choice for editing your images. If you have multiple photographers on your team, sharing Lightroom catalogues is a great way to collaborate.

Luminar Neo

Skylum’s Luminar Neo is a photo editing software that primarily uses AI-driven tools. It can do basic adjustments such as exposure, contrast, etc. It also can do advanced AI-driven edits like AI masking, or AI detection.

AI-driven editing is the main distinguishing factor when it comes to Luminar Neo, along with basic adjustments you can easily do image manipulation similar to what is possible with Photoshop.

Luminar Neo gives you the ability to shape light, replace the sky, and change the lighting to look light your image was shot at golden hour, all with AI.

Light Lightroom, Luminar Neo has presets built-in for quick editing, it also has a marketplace for purchasable presets in case you would like to try some new ones out.

There is also the option for paid extensions like Magic Light AI, Supersharp AI, Focus Stacking, Upscale AI, Background Removal AI, Noiseless AI, and HDR Merge.

If you would like some of the AI tools but prefer Lightroom, Luminar Neo can be used as a plugin for Lightroom. This means you can send photos from Lightroom to Luminar Neo to be edited, then back to Lightroom for exporting.

Luminar Neo is a great software, especially for beginner to intermediate photographers. I find it particularly helpful while editing portraits. It has the capability to be a primary photo editor and the one-time payment option is a great alternative to Adobe’s subscription-based model.

If you’re looking for more information on portraits, I wrote an article outlining how your church can use portraits.

RawTherapee

RawTherapee is a free, open-source, photo editor designed to work with RAW files from different camera manufacturers. It is quite capable of basic adjustments and edits.

The main issue with RawTherapee is that it is not streamlined, so it can be tough and even intimidating for beginners. That being said, it is not impossible for beginners to grasp, though it has a steep learning curve, there is a forum and RawTherapee “encyclopedia” for anyone wanting to learn how to use the software.

It, like Lightroom and Luminar Neo, can adjust exposure, adjust colour, create masks, correct for lens distortion, and other basic edits.

It overall has enough control and features that intermediate photographers could use as a primary photo editor. Though it lacks the distinguishing features of the other two software like Luminar Neo’s AI-driven editing tools or Lightrooms Creative Cloud integration.