Software
There are many, many options for a photographer from full standalone software to Photoshop plugins. Evaluating them all exhaustively is far beyond my budget and attention span. But I still want to help. I bought all these programs with my own money quite some time ago. I've watched them evolve and have grown familiar with them. I think I can help you make a decision on who deserves your hard-earned money. I am an affiliate of some of these, but not all. My goal is to write so you can't tell which and to help you find the right software. The tricky part in evaluating them is that wedding, portrait, street, travel, product, fashion, and landscape photographers will all value different features. To further complicate this, many of us don't make money with photography (and don't need or want to). So, a software that is fun and easy to learn while also addressing the complex needs of a working professional is tricky business indeed. Add in a layer of relentless I'm-the-best marketing and we can all be quite confused. I've shot a very wide variety of genres in my career as a hobbyist and as a professional but you're here because you're primarily a landscape photographer. I'll tailor my opinions accordingly.
$9.99/month
+Photoshop
The gold standard - and for good reason. The user interface is easy to understand and the tools are plentiful and powerful. For cataloging and batch editing, it is awesome - probably the very best. It will not focus stack. It's sharpness slider is okay. Denoise AI is second only to Topaz Photo AI. A subscription comes with an unrivaled professional program: Photoshop.
$99.99 standalone app
$199.99 standalone + plugin ability
The program is meant to take you all the way from RAW processing to a final, print-worthy or shareable image. It's easy to learn and does a solid job. It is nice to never need to hop between apps for programs in order to achieve certain results. It's all in one interface. ON1 features HDR, focus stacking, panorama stitching, layer editing, easy masking and cataloging. AI is infused throughout the program and generally offers good results. My only two concerns are first, that ON1 is slow - everything seems to take longer than in other programs. Second, the user interface/experience is a little chaotic.
$139 Essential (half the tools)
$229 Elite (full software)
This is likely my favorite RAW processing software - speaking as a fine art landscape photographer. The color management workflow and lens corrections are the best of the best. It has a very good denoise AI. It doesn't do a few of the essentials though like panorama stitching or focus stacking.
$95.40/year
$7.95/month
Award-winning interface and deservedly so. It flows very well while being fun to use. It focus stacks and stitches panoramas better than Photoshop and Lightroom. The AI sharpening and AI denoise are not great. There are a couple gimmicky features that are fun. The cataloging process doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but maybe I'm not smart. There are a lot of portrait and landscape photography features that make editing a breeze. The program is geared towards dedicated enthusiasts who want professional-level edits to share with friends and family.
$199
$99 renewal after major updates
The frontrunner in AI denoise and AI sharpening. It operates as a standalone app or as a Lightroom/Photoshop plugin. To me, it makes the most sense as a plugin. The Denoise AI is significantly faster and offers far more control than Lightroom's Denoise AI. It has a suite of powerful AI-driven enhancements including Balance Color, Face Recovery, Adjust Lighting, Preserve Text, Upscale, and Generative Fill. When a portrait is soft or slightly low res, the Face Recovery tool is magic. If the portrait is too far gone, the results will understandably be very odd. The Upscale may not be quite as good as Gigapixel AI. The Balance Color tool is a bit weak. Overall though, it's the best money can buy.
$159
This is a suite of 7 powerful and versatile plugins bought and developed by DxO from Google. I don't love the user interface but it is a quality software. The plugins offer a very wide variety of tools with a ton of control: color grading, film simulations, black & white conversions, additional global adjustments in RAW processing, noise reduction, sharpening, and HDR imaging. Is it a must-have? Ehhhhh maybe not. I personally love the Silver Efex (black & white editor - it's so good) but that's pretty much it. The others I don't really have a use for right now.