Update on Alien Skin Exposure X3...

It’s been about a week and a half since I installed the trial version of Alien Skin Exposure X3. After using it exclusively as my image editor, I am going to buy it and replace Lightroom for 95% of what I do with a RAW processor. There are some things that Exposure X3 does not have yet, but an upgrade in on the way next month.

I like that there is no catalog thus no need to import images. In some cases people have multiple catalogs and since you can only have one catalog open at a time, it can be a real pain when you need images that are in different catalogs. Now, you don’t need separate catalogs, but the larger the catalog is, the more time it takes to load and display the previews. The catalog has been replaced by the concept of Bookmarks. You can bookmark any folder on a local or external hard drive. 

Folders bookmarked on the local C drive and an external drive.

All of the options are available for RAW processing as in the Develop module in Lightroom.

Exposure X3 also ships with an amazing number of Presets you can use as a starting point for processing images. You can also create your own presets.

There are some things missing in the current release and one of the most important for me is printing. But there is an upgrade coming next month with printing and other enhancements.

So all in all, I think it’s a great RAW processing application for not only those proficient with Lightroom, but perhaps even better if you’re just starting to process your RAW images.

“Tri-X, f/8, and be there.”