The best raw editor is the one that you are comfortable using.
Raw editors come in many flavors. The right raw editor for you will depend on your needs and your skill level. Infrared photography complicates this by requiring features less commonly used in visible light photography, such as unusual white balancing and color swapping. Here is a summary of raw editors to help you find the best raw editor for you.
| Desktop | Mobile | Color Swap Methods | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | License | Mac | Win | Linux | Android | iPad | iPhone | White Balance | Channel Mixer | Invert | Hue | LUTs | Video | Notes |
| Adobe Lightroom | subscription | Needs DCP profiles | via XMP profiles | Great ecosystem, leading masking | ||||||||||
| Adobe Lightroom Classic | subscription | Needs DCP profiles | via XMP profiles | LR plus better catalog, printing, import, & export | ||||||||||
| Adobe Photoshop | subscription | Needs DCP profiles | Yes | Industry standard for desktop, IR Actions, iPad app bad for IR | ||||||||||
| Affinity Photo 2 | separate license each platform | Yes | Great non-subscription PS alternative | |||||||||||
| Canon Digital Photo Professional | desktop free, mobile subscription | Limited | For Canon pixel-peepers making large prints | |||||||||||
| Capture One | license or subscription | Pass for IR unless you already own C1 | ||||||||||||
| darktable | free open source | Yes | Excellent free open source | |||||||||||
| DxO PhotoLab | license | & DCP | Yes | Easy to use, but need Elite edition | ||||||||||
| ON1 Photo RAW | license or subscription | Yes | Easy to use, IR Presets | |||||||||||
| Photomator | license | Yes | Great Mac-only solution cross-device | |||||||||||
| Pixelmator Pro | license | Yes | Great Mac-only solution with layers | |||||||||||
| RawTherapee | free open source | Yes | Excellent free open source, great for monochrome | |||||||||||
Reviews Coming Soon
Notes
- DCP profile - A custom digital negative camera profile can be used to adjust the color temperature slider to set a good white balance in infrared. The Infrared Profile Pack includes custom profiles for hundreds of cameras.
- Channel Mixer - The ability to assign different red, green, or blue values to pixels. A common color swap is to assign blue to the red channel and red to the blue channel which results in a blue sky.
- Invert - The ability to invert the hues or colors of an image via an invert adjustment layer, curves invert, or levels invert.
- Hue - The ability to globally rotate hues by 180 degrees.
- LUTs - Color lookup table files with a .cube extension. Free LUTs are availlable at Updated Color Infrared LUTs v2.
- XMP - Adobe Enhanced profiles that can combine DCP files and LUTs. Build or buy enhanced profiles at Lightroom Infrared Color Swap Profiles.