Polarr vs Lightroom: What Program to Choose?

Comparing Polarr vs Lightroom, it is worth noting that both programs are popular among photographers and allow them to perform plenty of photo manipulations, starting from layering, to basic portrait adjustments and image editing. Both programs are compatible with various devices.

Polarr is a free editor that allows users to apply layers, filters, and masks to their images. Thus, users can create various photo effects and integrate them later into graphic design projects. The software is available online and as apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

Lightroom is a cloud-based service that gives you everything you need to create, edit, arrange, store and share photos on any device. Easy-to-use tools like sliders and presets let you improve photos exactly the way you want. It works great with Photoshop and has a user-friendly interface.

Polarr offers users many great options for editing, such as cropping and resizing, color-changing, and automatic image enhancement. Even a free version of Polarr includes all these features. Also, this photo editing software for PC has vignetting and lens distortion filters as well as blending and overlay masks. Watermarks and one-time 3-bar graphs are also included in the feature set.

The premium version will please with additional filters and layers, as well as batch photo editing and Apple Photos extensions. Polarr allows users to customize their workspace with individual themes and tool settings. The system keeps track of all previous changes and makes them available. Both free and premium versions include twelve interactive step-by-step sessions that make mastering this photo editing software for beginners a breeze.

1/2

1/2
2/2

Great collection of filters. The program has three categories of filters: Standard, Premium, and Custom filters. Just choose the filter you want to use. What’s more, the program puts the used filters in favorites in the “My Filter” section, which makes the image editing process streamlined. Also, here you can save any custom filters that you’ve created.

Simple portrait correction. Several great tools are available in this section to automatically detect faces and retouch various facial features. You can work on facial features, adjust contrast and brightness, etc. There is also an option to manually select a face in case the automatic detection fails.

Quick photo cropping. Polarr makes it easy to crop, rotate and flip your image. You can use the most common aspect ratios available as presets in landscape and portrait form. You can choose square (1:1), wide (16:10, 16:9), or standard (3:2, 4:3, 5:4) options. As soon as you start framing, there appears an overlay grid for more accurate cropping.

Excellent set of color correction features. The free version offers a set of color correction tools, however, it can be somehow limited when considering the detailed Polarr vs Photoshop comparison. There is an RGB curve that helps photographers adjust contrast in images. Using color correction tools, you can remove shades from images and add shadows or highlights. There is also a live preview that helps track the correlation between curve modifications and shot changes.

Image editing history. You can have an unlimited number of undoes using the edit history, which you won’t find in other similar programs. For example, you can check out Pixlr vs Polarr comparison to better understand the advantages of such a feature. In Polarr, you can see the entire image editing list and simply jump back to the step you want, which gives the program an additional point in the Polarr vs Lightroom battle.

Issues when using on Android devices. Polarr cannot edit raw files on Android.

Sometimes ads interfere with the work. There are annoying periodically pop-up ads.

Lightroom is Adobe’s software, which is often used by pro-grade photographers for color correction and preparing pictures for further development. Lightroom integrates with other Adobe products into a single ecosystem for an even greater user experience. Thanks to this connection, you can work on one file in several programs at once. But even without this integration, Lightroom is a full-featured program with plenty of features.

The functionality in Lightroom is controlled by convenient sliders and circles. It is especially convenient to use the color wheel for more precise image editing. Users can download filters, plug-ins, and presets from the net or create on their own. This is especially convenient for those people who work with a large number of projects of the same type. There is a special version of the program for mobile devices. It is slightly reduced compared to the desktop version, but it retains the main properties, and most importantly, user-friendliness.

1/2

1/2
2/2

Module for creating photobooks. With Lightroom, users can create unique photobooks. This possibility will especially interest professional wedding photographers, who compare Polarr vs Lightroom. You can’t make one-of-a-kind designs, but the program comes with plenty of templates that were developed by professional designers.

Filling pages is extremely simple and you can immediately send the finished template to the Blurb printing service, and they will send your printed version. Users can drag the content between pages and replace it, move photos inside templates, zoom them in, etc. In general, the feature set of this module is fantastic.

Soft proofing function. Soft proofing is a great feature for those who print their photos. With this feature, you can see how the printed image will look on paper. The program takes into account profiles, paper type, and ink type, and also allows you to correct a profile in such a way as to make the printed version as close to the original as possible.

Nice collection of Presets. Lightroom stands out with its Presets. Each photographer has some basic presets kit for certain photography genres, and it is convenient to use presets for batch image editing.

In Develop mode, the preset group is located in the left block. To add a new preset, you just need to click on the plus sign located in the top-right block and then mark which parameters of the changes applied you want to include in this preset. You can also use Lightroom presets when importing and exporting photos.

RAW support. A RAW file saves all the data that was received by the device’s matrix, which sets a program apart when comparing Luminar vs Lightroom. Because of this, such a file weighs more than ф usual JPEG. Due to this, RAW opens up more opportunities for photo editing.

Some users like to shoot in RAW. You can edit RAW files from your smartphone camera, as well as from other cameras, including DSLRs and mirrorless ones.

Easy photo viewing. Lightroom is developed on a catalog database, which makes it easy to view photos in the program. You can see something similar in other Adobe products; just check out Lightroom vs Photoshop comparison. This database stores information about all photos and their attributes. It also creates image previews and helps users sort images quickly and easily.

Cloud sync. This is one of the advantages of the software, described in detail in the Lightroom vs Snapseed analysis. All files and changes are stored in the cloud, so you can access your images from any device. This makes it easy to continue photo editing on a computer or vice versa on a smartphone or tablet. Plus, you can access Lightroom from your browser, so you don’t even have to install it on your PC.

No way to add a logo. The software provides a feature to export watermarked images, but it’s limited to text only. Unfortunately, you can’t add a logo.

You can use Polarr for free online. If you want to get access to even more features, then you should get a paid version. Polarr costs $3.99/mo (a monthly plan) and $2.49/mo (an annual plan). You can also get the software paying $29.99 once/year.

Lightroom plan with 1TB storage starts at $9.99/mo. You can also learn how to get Lightroom for free to take a look at the program functionality without spending a cent. You can also get Lightroom as a part of Creative Cloud plans. There’s a special plan for students and teachers starting at $19.99/mo that includes over 20 desktop apps, mobile apps, web services, and 1 TB of storage. For business and teamwork, there is a plan that includes everything from the previous plan, as well as a management console and instant resource synchronization between devices. You can get it for $79.99/mo.

There’s a plan for Schools and Universities that also includes over 20 desktop apps, mobile apps, and web services for small workgroups, departments, classrooms, labs, and even entire institutions, as well as managing license deployments and upgrades from one central console. This plan starts at $34.99/mo. Before you decide on a plan, you can test a free trial version.

Polarr is such a photo editing app for Mac and Windows using which you can enhance your images like a pro. With all the variety of tools, the interface isn’t too overloaded with controls and menus. In addition to standard functions (cropping, scaling, rotating, etc.), the software includes several ready-made filters divided into categories. What’s more, you can create your own filters.

Lightroom is a simple yet powerful all-in-one program for passionate photographers, allowing them to batch import, edit, arrange and display images from a single window. It also offers additional tools and output options for creating prints or photobooks. A wide range of transformational effects and extra plug-ins offer unlimited photo editing possibilities.

Polarr or Lightroom – the latter offers users a more extensive feature set and more options for working with photos, including batch image editing. Polarr is inferior to the competitor in terms of features and a set of filters even though it has a decent photo editing set.

Thanks to these filters, you can make your photos look fantastic without going the extra mile. Using such presets, you can improve a pack of photos in one go and achieve terrific results.

Polarr vs Lightroom: Which Software is Better

What Is Polarr?

Polarr: Pros and Cons

What Is Lightroom?

Lightroom: Pros and Cons

Polarr vs Lightroom: Price

Polarr vs Lightroom: Who Wins?

Bonus Tools