this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Photography
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Moving your Photos to a new Tool
There is no such thing as a drop-in replacement for Lightroom. Most edits from Lightroom do not transfer to non-Adobe products because how they render is proprietary. You could export all edited files in Lightroom to 16-bit TIFFs and then you can put those TIFFs and the corresponding RAWs into some other tool. The TIFF will be already rendered by Lightroom so it will contain all the edits. You can then either edit the TIFF some more in another tool or you can go back to the RAW and redo your edits in your new editing tool.
Other Tools
Capture One Pro: If your father is using the Lightroom catalog to organize his photos, then the most similar (in concept) tool would probably be Capture One Pro. It has an excellent RAW editor, though not as many extra features as Lightroom. It is available either as subscription (like Lightroom) or as a perpetual license. One of the problems is that it's more expensive than Lightroom. List price for a perpetual license is $299, though it sometimes goes on sale for $179. You can use that license for as long as you have hardware that it runs on (e.g. many years). There's currently a new version coming (probably by the end of the year) so I wouldn't buy a new license right now unless it was a deal that includes the upcoming new version.
DarkTable: On the other end of the pricing spectrum is DarkTable which is open source and thus available without paying, though if you make regular use of it, you will probably want to support the ongoing project. DarkTable has a rich set of RAW editing tools and a catalog, but it is not known for its ease of use. When I'm frustrated with both Lightroom and Capture One (for one reason or another), I've played with DarkTable a few times, but never took the plunge to commit to really learning it.
DXO PhotoLab: Available as a perpetual license (non-subscription), the DXO products are known for their RAW processing, particularly their DeepPRIME denoising technology and their lens correction profiles. I've played with a trial version and found it very capable, but haven't used it day to day myself.
Affinity Photo: It's worth mentioning Affinity Photo because it is such high value ($69.99 for perpetual license). It's not a direct Lightroom replacement as it doesn't include a catalog, but it can edit RAW files. You essentially open a RAW file you want to edit, make the edits and then save the edits and they are saved to a sidecar file. Affinity Photo is more analogous to a replacement for Photoshop (tons and tons of pixel editing features), but it can also do RAW editing. I use it in conjunction with Capture One and go to Affinity Photo when I need occasionally need pixel editing capabilities beyond what Capture One Pro can do.
Photoshop Elements: If super advanced editing features are not a requirement and ease of use and perpetual license are the main driving needs, then you should consider Photoshop Elements ($99) which is kind of a mini-version of Lightroom.
I bought DxO and it does the job very nicely. Bought it at a discount with Nik collection, and you can do whatever you want with the files.
Does DXO have any type of catalog or is it just edit individual images?
I do not know what catalog means, but you can try it for free for a month and see what it does. It is mostly for color correcting, etc, not really for layers and extensive editing like Photoshop. Give it a try, you may just like it.
A catalog is a structure by which you can organize your photos, create collections, search, keyword, etc... Both Lightroom and Capture One have catalogs and it becomes your primary mechanism for finding and managing your images. The RAW files themselves can still be stored in the regular file system, but you don't generally access them direct from the file system - you access them through the catalog which you structure the way you want your images organized.
If you don't know what a catalog is, then I'll assume that DXO isn't offering one and you just open images one at a time directly from the file system (much like you would do in Photoshop).
Found this : PhotoLab has its own internal database, which holds all image edits. There is no such concept as catalogues. Personally, I activate and us DOP sidecar files, which can then be transferred with the image file, to other locations on disk without messing up things like catalogues.

Even if the database were to ever corrupt, normally, these DOP files will ensure that your edits are safe
That's exactly my method.
I don't use or manage a vast library in software, preferring instead to organise my shots chronologically in folders by year, month, then individual shoot date.
I can move the DOP files along with the Raw (CR3 in my case) files wherever and retain those edits every time I reload them in Photolab.
Plus Photolab doesn't get so bogged down as a result, with loading entire libraries of photos. It only loads the ones I want to work out.