The most annoying part was the video playback, since I also shoot and edit videos, and I used Lightroom to manage them together with my images.
DIGIKAM ONLY SHOWS DIRECTORIES OR ALBUMS MAC
Until I updated my Mac to Catalina that is, then I realized that some parts of Lightroom 6 were still in 32bit, which support has been dropped by Apple in the transition from Mojave to Catalina.
It was obviously a dead-end, but since I use the same hardware and features (mainly importing, tagging, cropping, white balance and exposure corrections), it was good enough. So I got stuck with Lightroom 6 since 2017, the last version with an acceptable licensing scheme. The confusion around the product name and strategy didn’t help. I don’t have any problem to pay to use software, and I accept the dependency to a proprietary solution up to a point, but having to pay a monthly fee is a deal breaker. That was a no-go for me, financially, but also out of principle. I bought all the updates, until Adobe introduced the subscription model. I started with version 4 back in 2012, and invested quite some money and time in it, at least as hobby photograph. So I would say it’s “stable enough” on macOS, I assume the stability is even better on Linux
In Digikam, the raw processing is an extra step when opening the image editor, before getting to the other usual tools. In Lightroom, I couldn’t tell where pre or post-processing started. While Digikam supports raw files, this feature is not as good and integrated as in Lightroom.I find it easier to comprehend and explore Digikam’s user interface is more structured than Lightroom’s.I actually catch myself browsing and rediscovering my files in Digikam just out of pleasure and curiosity, while I used Lightroom only when I had to, even though my Mac is not a clunker (quad-core i7 with 16GB of RAM) I don’t know when it started, but Lightroom was very sluggish. Digikam is faster than Lightroom to browse, tag and screen.I had to write a Lightroom plugin for the migration process to circumvent some of Lightroom’s limitations, not so with Digikam The import/export functions are also very good and flexible. For instance, it supports MP3 files (including playback) while Lightroom didn’t.
It is more versatile than Lightroom in terms of file formats. Digikam is a great DAM (Digital Asset Manager) software.Even though I don’t have adapted all my workflows yet, I have a good impression of Digikam and I am convinced that it will be a loyal workhorse for many years This page is to share my experience with the Lightroom users out there who might consider this step. The process was not trivial but no big headache either, the hardest part was just, as often, to start. End of 2020, I migrated my collection of photos (JPEG, RAW), videos (MOV, MP4, DV and others) and own audio recordings (MP3) from Lightroom 6.14 to Digikam 7.1 on my Mac running Catalina.
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