Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is the professional photographer's choice for processing raw images files, but it's not the only option. There are many great alternatives available completely free. Lightroom has two main functions: processing images, and organizing them (through tags, naming, rating and other metadata). Like Lightroom, all the image editors we’ve featured here are capable of processing raw files straight from your camera.
• Want to edit pictures in JPG format? Raw files contain all the data captured by your camera’s sensor, and all camera manufacturers have their own format for storing it. No screen or printer can reproduce that much detail, so it’s necessary to compress them into a format like JPG before you can display or use them.