Lightroom v6.7 perpetual - where to go from here (don’t want subscription Adobe CC)

[menos I M6]

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I am a long time Adobe Lightroom user (using Lightroom since v1.x).
I absolutely loooooove Lightroom and am using it basically blindfolded with keyboard shortcuts and using it’s DAM aspect extensively, rating, keyboarding and archiving mostly still photographs from a large number of digital cameras and film scans.

Since Adobe has pushed users into their cloud based product I have been looking into replacing Lightroom (I have bought every license up to v6.7 which I am currently still using on MacOS).

Over the years I have looked into Aperture (which got discontinued sadly), Capture One, ON One (is that what it’s called ?) and several pure standalone RAW developer apps.

I have had a quick look into Photo Mechanic for the super fast ingestion and rating workflow a few years ago and basically liked it but then the all-around Lightroom only use for DAM and basic editing and printing was just always in every way superior as a package.


Currently I need to manage my archive from about 15 years of photography, need to regularly ingest digital still photographs, film scans (which I prepare via VueScan and prepare the files to be treated by the DAM essential as digital image files) and I want to always archive video files I produce with digital cameras.

I want the Lightroom replacement first and foremost to be a robust, secure and rock solid DAM software.
I do not mind to have to do my editing in a standalone software if I absolutely have to.

I do not want to do any video editing in my Lightroom replacement but do this solely in Final Cut Pro.
I do want to archive, rate and keyword my video files with the Lightroom replacement though.

I understand that Adobe CC is THE PERFECT product for me, given how fluent I am in Lightroom + I get the latest builds of Photoshop to use for what its worth and get to have more powerful tools across devices (iPhone 11 Pro, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, all of which would be nicely integrated which currently is a bit messy).

I do have an incredible hard time to accept the cloud aspect and PARTICULARLY the subscription based payment aspect and more aggressive DRM aspect with necessary internet connectivity (I live in a place with censored internet and very often have a hard time to get a secure internet connection at all and would hate to be stranded in a “license check internet connectivity issue” which currently on perpetual license software is no issue at all).

I have recently tested extensively On One which promises with big words to be a great, modern Lightroom replacement but sadly it doesn’t even come close, being EXTREMELY slow ans sluggish to use (on a fully maxed out BTO MacBook Pro none the less which FLIES in Lightroom).

I see ON One not as a valid Lightroom replacement for that matter (I want at least the same speed I get from Lightroom 6.7.


Is there any valid option in 2019/20 as a Lightroom replacement for those needs?
Is moving to the Adobe CC jailhouse the only way to go from here (I am stuck with old Lightroom in terms of OS upgrade path and some of my newer cameras and file formats are not properly supported by Lightroom 6.7).

Please discuss 😉 I am curious what you guys are doing who were / are in the same situation.

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[frame-it]

capture one doesn't work for you? import with previous adjustments enabled, each batch of images into a new catalog, by year or month or whatever you like. and C1 also has a LR style workspace.

 

and use these so you have the almost same keyboard shortcuts as lightroom

https://captone.wpengine.com/theblog/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/Bobs-Keyboard-Shortcut-Comparison-Chart.xlsx

https://captone.wpengine.com/theblog/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/Bobs-workspace-and-Shortcuts-plists.zip

 

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Edited December 12, 2019 by frame-it

[wda]

Have you tried Exposure software? It would be worth a free trial. It is on my shortlist but have not needed it so far.

[Exodies]

Your best option is Lightroom classic. You know how to use it, it isn’t anything to do with the cloud and you only need to have your license checked over the Internet every 90 days. 
The suppliers of alternative solutions will obviously have to switch to a monthly fee in order to survive once they have reached their maximum number of customers and income growth stops.

[Jager]

I'm a week into my 30-day free trial of Capture One Pro (v20) and am really liking what I am seeing (and learning).

Like the OP, and many others, I refuse on philosophical grounds to support either subscription or cloud-based software products.  I've used Lightroom since its inception and LOVE the program.  But like a long-suffering husband who just found out his wife has been fooling around with the plumber, I'm done.  

The move to MacOS Catalina was the thing that forced the decision for me.  Adobe's last standalone versions (6) of Lightroom and Photoshop are 64-bit, but their installer isn't.  You can't do a clean install of those programs (or a reinstall, should that ever be necessary).  So, after gritting my teeth at their direction in recent years, I've finally served divorce papers to Adobe.

My plan is to continue accessing my previous, very large, photo archive using Lightroom 6 and Photoshop 6 inside a virtual machine running High Sierra.  Current and future projects will be edited and managed with Capture One.  And if I ever have need to re-edit an old image/shoot, I'll simply import it fresh into Capture One.

The move brings some ancillary benefits.  Capture One renders better color than does Lightroom (as does Hasselblad's Phocus, the RAW developer I use for medium format).  The improvement isn't profound, but is very noticeable.  Capture One is also much faster than Lightroom, which gets quite sluggish as your catalog grows.  With Capture One I will be managing via Sessions rather than an all-encompassing catalog - a change that lines up nicely for me since I do all my raw media management at an operating system level, anyway - so that marked performance improvement will remain as my Capture One archive expands over time.

I've used Photoshop since its early days.  And Lightroom, when it was introduced a decade later, quickly became my most-used and most-loved software, ever.  For many long years Adobe was my favorite software company, full stop.

But the world turns.  Adobe got way too big for their britches.  The sense of being free again, of not being beholden to a company that clearly has lost its way, was so refreshing.

I'm excited about my digital photo processing framework for the first time in a long while...

 

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb menos I M6:

I am a long time Adobe Lightroom user (using Lightroom since v1.x).

I have the same background like you, Lightroom from 1.0, all versions, all paid

My reason to switch to other software is a stupid bug using Lightroom for PC on 4K Monitors as the WB eyedropper has a offset what makes picking color difficult.
Even if this bug is known to Adobe for more than 3 years, Adobe never fixed that what is a problem for a lot of users.
After installing all recent softwares i pulled the trigger and paid for Capture One Pro 20 as it seems to me as the most professional and fastest to load and use.
The learning curve is steep to use Capture One, but i belive that it's worth it.

However, as already written, i use Lightroom Classic and that works standalone but i fear that Adobe will drop it soon.

Chris

Edited December 12, 2019 by PhotoCruiser

[jaapv]

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Photoshop Elements offers virtually the same options as Lightroom and is not a subscription. Otherwise have a look at ON1, which is designed to appeal to former Lightroom users.

[Guest]

I'm in the same quandary.....I hate subscription based software, now I'm stuck with Lightroom 6.1 despite the "free" trail of Adobe's CC that came with the M10-D I bought earlier this year. I declined to pick-up the Adobe offer.

So, thanks to jaapv's post here I am interested in ON1, went to their website but it's all flash and little substance so I thought I'd ask if any of you are working with the software, if so what's your impressions vis-a-vis Lightroom 6**

Thanks......

Edited December 12, 2019 by petermullett

[jaapv]

You'll have to delve deeper, basically it is in two levels. Presets for convenience and controls for more serious processing. There are interesting tutorials on their website.. There is also Affinity, quite good, but it still feels a bit Beta.

[Guest]

Thanks jaapv, I've got / tried Affinity but just couldn't get into it, I kept swinging back to LR......Maybe I'll give the 30 day trial of ON1 a spin.

[Jeff S]

Lightroom Classic for me; there is no mandated cloud storage.  If and when Adobe mandates cloud storage,  I’ll likely switch.  But the controls and features are the same as the standalone product, but even better since there have been many useful features added that haven’t been  provided with the perpetual license version.  For 10 bucks a month, including Photoshop, a no-brainer for me.  I used to spend far more on film and darkroom supplies.

Jeff

[Tom R]

This might depend upon what you really need to do. I use Photo Mechanic for both scans and digitally created images because it handles large quantities flexibly and reliably. I use Capture One for digitally created images and Affinity for negative scans. With a little forethought and planning, you can devise a relatively transparent and efficient workflow using these software products.

If you're doing large quantity commercial work, for example, then Capture One is essential--although I would still prefer PM's workflow to the somewhat opaque mechanism provided by Capture One (caveat here: I'm using Capture 12 and NOT Capture 20 ... haven't decided if it's worth the upgrade at this time given that most of my work is scans).

I'm sure that many on this forum will be able to give you more directed an detailed feedback.

 

T

[Chuck Albertson]

Like Tom, I use Photo Mechanic for keywording/captioning, etc. They have a version in beta testing that adds DAM, though I haven't tried it.

[ramarren]

In looking for an LR replacement, I decided to try On1 Photo RAW 2020. 

I've now been through all of the foundation course videos for On1 Photo RAW 2020. The software impresses me in many ways, but irritates me in others. The courseware is not particularly good ... It has little sense, to me, of building on the fundamentals and expanding your understanding of 1) how the app operates and 2) how to use it effectively in a good workflow ... It's too much "Oh and you can do this this way and it's really cool" rather than "here's what this does, and after you do that try this or that to get to the next step..." 

The toolset is scattered (literally) all around the UI and not well organized in flow or order of use. I have spent a lot of time trying to remember which edge of the window to look at to find the next tool I need to use. Etc. 

The long and the short of it is that I think it's a decent app but I'm not thrilled with the UI, the tutorials, or the workflow at this point, after four days of study and practice. It's not by any means intuitive or simple to get a simple task done. It seems to make some difficult  tasks a bit easier if you're willing to forgo actually understanding the details and just slap a "style" on, then tweak that until you get something you like. But that's not the way I tend to work. I develop my own 'styles' from first rendering principles, and I need to understand how the app works in terms of where it's storing its information and what it's doing to my files. 

The long and the short of it is that while I don't think On1 was wasted money, it's not getting the job I need done. Time to move on to the next contender and see whether it does me better. 

Meanwhile, I actually have a couple of projects that need to be done now. I guess I can use Lightroom Classic for a couple of months and see whether it still works the way I expect. Of course, Adobe will do their damnedest to try to pull me into their Creative Cloud thing, which I have no use for whatever. LR Classic should allow me to ignore CC entirely, but I have to pay $10 every month for the boon of using it. Sigh. 

I enjoy the challenge of all this, but there comes a point where I just want to my work done and stop futzing about with awkward tools. LR perpetual license did that for me for a very long time... It's a shame Adobe just can't leave it well enough to alone.

G

[Exodies]

I keep banging on about this but never mind. Adobe can’t just leave it well enough alone. Perpetually working software is an illusion. The hardware breaks, the os changes. Software needs constant tinkering to keep it running. Nobody will do that for free.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Exodies

[zeitz]

50 minutes ago, Exodies said:

I keep banging on about this but never mind. Adobe can’t just leave it well enough alone. Perpetually working software is an illusion. The hardware breaks, the os changes. Software needs constant tinkering to keep it running. Nobody will do that for free.

Darktable is free and will remain free as long as it exists.

[Exodies]

You have a point. There is open sores software.

[zeitz]

A large selection of free open source software including Darktable and GIMP and be found at:

https://pixls.us

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[Guest]

On 12/12/2019 at 12:42 PM, jaapv said:

Photoshop Elements offers virtually the same options as Lightroom and is not a subscription. Otherwise have a look at ON1, which is designed to appeal to former Lightroom users.

This is interesting to re-read your comment jaapv....Last evening I was at an exhibition of a photographer's work, pretty much all landscape and all of the photographs in the show were A2 size prints or larger and comprised of a technique of combining a number of layers that resulted in the final image looking like a meld of double, multiple exposures. I loved the work and actually bought one from the show. When I talked to the photographer I congratulated him on his technique and asked him what software he used to create the images, he replied Adobe Elements and an old copy at that! He found Photoshop and Lightroom way too complicated for his use, and anyway he would have nothing to do with any subscription scheme. Seeing what he can do with Elements encourages me to take a look at it.

[jaapv]

Get the Scott Kelby book with, ignore the awful jokes and you are set to go.