Jay Cassario

Lightroom is used by the majority of photographers. Why? Because it’s all they know. It’s easy to use and for the most part does a decent job. The problem, it’s extremely limited. It’s still using the some of the same algorithms from 10 years ago. But, who has time to learn a whole new software? I sure as shit don’t. But, once I saw how much Lightroom was holding me back from achieving the end result I was looking for, I took the time to learn Alien Skin Exposure. Which, surprisingly.... looks identical to Lightroom. No learning curve. But, there are still things that I do like about Lightroom and it’s what I’m comfortable with. You know what they say about comfort. I forget, but they say something. So, I use Lightroom for organization, outsourcing, smart previews, and applying a Base preset. Alien Skin Exposure can be used as a stand-alone or as a plug-in. A plug-in means I can take my Base edits, tell Lightroom to open them as tiff files in ASE (Exposure), add a “layered” preset I designed over the course of 3 years, typically with just one click, and BOOM