Lightroom vs VSCO – Editing Features Compared
Do you want a realistic and eye-catching design, but don’t know the right editing app? Lightroom and VSCO are the best options when it comes to getting efficient and attractive results. Lightroom is used for high-level projects with features like color correction and precise editing controls. VSCO, on the other hand, promotes simplicity with its easy-to-use interface and quick edits with pre-defined presets.
Lightroom vs VSCO Overview
Lightroom and VSCO are the top-most used applications around the globe. Comparing both of them based on the features is a difficult job. Here we will compare both applications, which will give you a clear way of choosing the right editing application based on your requirements and needs. This comparison is based on real-time scenarios that faced by the editors.
User Interface & Ease of Use
Lightroom:
Are you the one who likes clean and organized software, with countless features? Lightroom is the solution to your problem. In this application, you can organize tools based on your choice and accessibility. The Lightroom interface might look difficult to new users, but once you understand, you are one step away from your achievements.
VSCO:
VSCO offers the simplest and easiest-to-use interface for beginner editors. Handling of tools using this interface makes editing easier for every user. You can easily navigate from one tool to another. You don’t need to have editing knowledge to use VSCO, as it contains basic editing features.
Editing Tools & Features in Lightroom vs VSCO
Lightroom:
Did you know Lightroom took advantage in the field of editing? Lightroom is the only editing app that contains countless features that help the user for professional designs and make the application more reliable. It contains features like exposure, color grading, gradient filters, and spot healing, giving complete control over the photos. Lightroom saves users precious time by editing multiple images at once. Using quick tips, you can make editing smoother.
VSCO:
Looking for quick and simple edits for completion of your daily life tasks? VSCO is used by low-end business owners to run their business without paying a huge amount to the editors. You can select any preset from the list based on your work and start editing. It also offers some basic tools like saturation, contrast, cropping, and much more. This not only saves your time but also gives you efficient results will help to run your business.
Speed and Stability
Lightroom:
Lightroom offers speed and enhancement of features after every deployment. Lightroom offers high-speed optimization that helps the editor to have a smooth editing experience. While loading the application, it took some time and loads all the tools and features at once, so that users don’t need to wait for the loading of tools.
It offers smooth and fluent speed, whether you are working on one image or editing multiple images at once. The higher your system’s specifications, the better the speed and stability you’ll experience.
VSCO:
VSCO is a lightweight editing application with limited features and tools. It offers smooth performance across different devices. Whether you are using a low-end device, it will give smoothness and responsiveness for better results.
VSCO focuses more on speed as compared to scalability, as their motive is to give quick edits. If you have a hundred photos, you need to edit them one by one, as there is no RAW management in VSCO. If you are looking for a simple and quick edit, VSCO is there to help you.
Pricing & Subscription Plans
Both application offers different subscription plans based on features and tools. You can choose any of them if you want to unlock and use the premium features of the application. Let’s get deep into it to understand which application offers more affordable plans?
Lightroom:
Lightroom Mobile (Free)
- Basic and simple editing tools
- You will get cloud storage for up to 1,000 photos
- Adobe Photography Plan ($9.99/month)
- Includes Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop
- Offers 20GB of cloud storage
- Lightroom Plan ($9.99/month)
- Includes Lightroom only
- Access to 1TB of cloud storage
- Creative Cloud All Apps Plan ($52.99/month)
- Offering features that include Lightroom, Photoshop, and all Adobe Creative Cloud apps
- 100GB of cloud storage
Free Trial: You can use any of the above plans and try it for free for 7 days. It will be a trial to check the features and services that were offered in the selected plan. You can also cancel the subscription within 7 days if you don’t like the features.
VSCO:
Free Version
- Basic editing tools
- Limited selection of filters
- Ability to save and share edits
- VSCO Membership ($7.99/month or $19.99/year)
- Access to premium filters
- Advanced editing tools
- Sync photos across devices
- VSCO X ($19.99/year)
- Full suite of filters
- Exclusive editing tools
- Video editing features
Free Trial: VSCO gives a free 7-day trial period to its users to check and use its premium features. If it fulfills your demand and need, you can start using it, end the subscription.
Pros and Cons of Lightroom vs VSCO
Every editing app has its pros and cons, but who cares when you have high-quality features offered by Lightroom? Let’s check the pros and cons of both applications to understand which one we should rely on.
Lightroom:
| Pros | Cons |
| Offers professional tools like color grading, exposure adjustment, and spot healing. | It can be overwhelming for beginners due to its feature-rich setup. |
| Supports editing of RAW files, offering the highest image quality. | Subscription costs are high, so be careful before buying any plans. |
| Edit multiple photos at once, saving time on large projects, and get high-quality results. | It requires higher system specifications, especially when working with large image files. |
| Highly customizable workspaces and tools allow you to organize them according to your specific requirements and needs. | It might slow down or give poor performance on low-end devices, especially with large files. |
VSCO:
| Pros | Cons |
| Offer a simple and easy-to-use interface for beginners and casual users. | Offers limited features and a lack of professional tools available in Lightroom. |
| It offers a countless variety of high-quality presets for quick, stylish edits. | It does not support editing RAW files. You need to edit each image individually.. |
| It runs smoothly even on low-end devices and provides fast edits. | It is only available for mobile editing. There is no official desktop version for VSCO, |
| Offers a low-cost subscription and a free version with basic features. | Basic tools like contrast, saturation, and cropping. |
Conclusion
Lightroom vs VSCO is the most favorite comparison for editors. Lightroom and VSCO both help to achieve professional and realistic results. There are some features where Lightroom beats VSCO. Lightroom offers a customizable toolbar, giving free hands to the user to do anything they want to. VSCO offers a limited toolbar with a simple and beginner-friendly interface. Lightroom offers more editing tools and features compared to VSCO.
Lightroom offers more speed and scalability because of its rich features. The subscription plans of VSCO are more affordable as compared to those of Lightroom. In comparison of Lightroom vs VSCO, we concluded that if you are looking for high-quality and professional design, you can work on Lightroom, and if you want quick and simple edits, you can use VSCO. You have to face the pros and cons of each application before starting the work.
