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

[rramesh]

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Replaced Lightroom with On1 Raw. Quite pleased with it.

[Richardgb]

Another LR to Capture One 20 convertee here as I bought it at half-price (£149 instead of £299) with my S1. There's a lot to learn; the online videos are helpful, and quite a few on the change from LR to C1, but they don't entirely do away with the 'Where can I find X?' / or 'How do I do Y?' when actually using it.

LR (now C1) has always been just one stage in my post-processing. I export 16-bit TIFF files and then work on these in Photoshop Elements, though the latter converts the files to 8-bit in use. But as a workflow it works.

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[PhotoCruiser]

I work from Lightroom 1 Beta till now with it and all versions paid and registered.
I still have the latest Lightroom Classic buy standalone version but a boring bug with the eydropper tool who is offset.
So i pulled the trigger and bought Capture One and i'm very pleased.

Chris

[zeitz]

7 hours ago, Noctifuxx said:

Darktable is pretty terrible compared to Rawtherapee, if you are going to recommend free options

I didn't recommend Darktable.  I only pointed out it was free.  I don't make recommendations on software because everyone has different needs and skills.

[rob_w]

After six months with Luminar 3 and 4 I have decided I cannot get along with it. The philosophy is just too different from what I want in post processing - no doubt influenced by my years of using LR.  For some images I also struggled to produce satisfactory results (I.e. matching the results I am used to obtaining from LR).  That was the final decider.

I pondered giving up and going to Capture One, which consistently produces excellent results but feels unfriendly and complicated to me.  Then I decided to try one more alternative: ON1 RAW 2020.   Jaap V and others here have consistently nominated this program as a good LR alternative.  I suppose my earlier resistance to trying it came from fatigue — each alternative requires a considerable investment of time to give it a fair trial.

Well, I have been trialling ON1 over the holiday period and the results are very positive so far.  I decided to buy a copy ($75 on holiday special offer).   Working style is easy to learn if coming from LR.  IQ is excellent and, what’s more important compared to Luminar, if a result is not right it’s easy to see what further adjustment will help.  There is a good user guide and library of training materials.  The program is fast and has no bugs so far.

So my working recommendation is ON1, or Capture One for its consistently high quality.  

[rob_w]

Some of my photographer friends have said, why not give up and pay the LR subscription?  After all, Adobe is just another capitalist company and they are all driven to behave in the same way.

I do notice, though, that using LR perpetual over the last couple of years has been just fine for me.  I don’t need any of the enhancements or improvements the subscription price is meant to make available.  If it were not for the MacOS 64-bit upgrade I would be content to continue with LR.  But as we all know, that is not possible in the long term.  So what would I have got for my subscription fees other than a program which bricks my collection the moment I stop paying?

[jaapv]

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Why should it brick your collection? Don't you save your raws and processed images to your hard drive?

[marchyman]

9 hours ago, rob_w said:

other than a program which bricks my collection the moment I stop paying?

When you stop paying you can still use Lightroom to access your catalog.  You can not make further adjustments; the Develop module is disabled and you lose access to maps if you use the Map Module.   You can still print. You can still export.

[Exodies]

13 hours ago, rob_w said:

<snip>
So what would I have got for my subscription fees other than a program which bricks my collection the moment I stop paying?

Where did you get this information from?

[rob_w]

Of course I will always have the RAWs.  Come on guys, get real.  Who do you know who has exported 40,000 or 50,000 processed images from Lightroom?  Yes, I can still look at the pictures in processed form, but I can’t touch them.   That’s bricked as far as I am concerned.  There is nothing else that can be done.  Once you adopt the subscription model you are held to ransom.

Now let me ask a question.  Why this rush to defend Adobe’s obvious greed?  Since the demise of LR perpetual I would have paid over £300 in subscription fees if I had gone with the subscription model.  Name me one feature Adobe has added to Lightroom which you consider worth the £300?

[jaapv]

Why can't you touch them? They are on your drive, aren't they, hopefully in a more or less organized manner? The only thing you cannot do is develop them further in Lightroom, but that is not unreasonable if you stopped your subscription.

[Exodies]

Have you never lost the use of any software or hardware (due to drivers needing replacement) because of operating system changes? 
Do you know why the software or driver suppliers didn’t upgrade their product? That’s right, they weren’t being paid to.

You won’t have to export 50000 images, only those you want to edit.

ETA oh, and one feature added to Lightroom which is worth 10€/month - the mobile version and access from tablet, phone and desktop.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Exodies

[Jeff S]

4 hours ago, rob_w said:

Now let me ask a question.  Why this rush to defend Adobe’s obvious greed?  Since the demise of LR perpetual I would have paid over £300 in subscription fees if I had gone with the subscription model.  Name me one feature Adobe has added to Lightroom which you consider worth the £300?

Well, you also get the latest Photoshop for that 10 bucks a month, and never have to pay additional fees or spend time dealing with major upgrades to LR or PS, which I was doing anyway every few years.  

I also appreciate many of the improvements since LR 6.14... faster operation and newer  process version, dehaze slider, texture slider, more local adjustment capabilities for former global-only controls, new camera and lens profiles, and a host of other refinements. No different than going from LR 3 to LR6; one tends to forget all the enhancements and increased flexibility.

There is no best software solution; we each make our choice, and tend to embrace the familiar. For me, LR Classic still provides the best editing and file management (I don’t use cloud storage) of any software.  And given my annual photo related expenditures, now and in darkroom days, I consider $120 per year peanuts given the value of a satisfying back-end workflow (often as important for me as the front end camera/lens selection).  

Jeff

[RoySmith]

I too hesitated on subscribing to LR and PS. When I learned that a major reason for companies to move to the subscription model was to combat software piracy, and comparing the monthly cost vs the upgrade fees every few years, allowed me to accept the monthly subscription fee, and enjoy always being up to date.

 Roy

[zeitz]

One company's "corporate greed" is another company's "business model".  Most of us on this Forum live in countries where capitalism (companies owned by non-government entities such as individuals and private institutions) is the economic basis of society.  In the US a for-profit corporation's board of directors is required by law to act in the best interests of the stockholders, not the best interests of the customers.  I looked up the Stock Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio for several companies of interest to us.  P/E is an indicator of the expectations of stock buyers to see increased earnings in the fairly near future.  14 to 16 is a normal P/E.

Apple P/E = 25.26; Microsoft P/E = 30.31; Adobe P/E = 55.74; Nikon P/E = 8.85; Canon P/E = 13.91.  As a comparison to other industries, Fiat Chrysler Autos = 6.50; InBev = 17.70; Amazon P/E = 84.10.

So how to you read Adobe's very high 55.74 P/E?  Does it reflect corporate greed or does it reflect a company that has found a way to grow in the maturing software market and growing cloud service market?  But should we also avoid buying from Amazon with its huge 84.10 P/E because it is causing our favorite camera stores to close?  Should we each buy a new Nikon camera this year to insure a continued flow of their new products or even parts to fix current cameras?

The consumer has the ultimate say in all of this.  If we don't like the product value, we can buy another product.  Makes you wonder what Leica AG's return of investment is.

[Jeff S]

1 hour ago, zeitz said:

 ......

14 to 16 is a normal P/E.

........

So how to you read Adobe's very high 55.74 P/E.....

Makes you wonder what Leica AG's return of investment is.

P/E varies significantly by industry.  I would hesitate to compare ratios across sectors.  A high relative P/E may also indicate that a company is simply overvalued.

FWIW, Leica Camera reported significantly higher revenues and earnings in both 2016/2017 and 2017/2018.  This is good news within an industry in decline.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/leicarumors.com/2018/06/22/the-latest-2017-2018-leica-financial-statements-sales-increased-for-the-fifth-year-in-a-row.aspx/amp/

Jeff

 

 

[rob_w]

I must apologise if I took this thread off topic with my comment about Adobe’s “greed”.   It’s not an argument I want to win — I’m not even sure it is an argument at all.  I don’t use Photoshop and don’t care about iOS editing.  I have a limited window of time to spend on post-processing compared to a professional who may be rewarded for making finer adjustments using Photoshop or Capture One.  I don’t want to be trapped in a situation where I must keep paying a subscription forever or face a cliff-edge jump to another system.  That’s just me.  Clearly, and appropriately, others feel different.

This thread was started by someone looking for alternatives.  I have examined DxO, RawPower, Capture One, Luminar and now ON1.  All of those by downloading the trial and using it for a month to process and/or re-process files.  If it helps the OP and others with the same question, my findings can be summarised as:

DxO, good editing but no library management

RawPower, mediocre editing; has the mixed blessing of Apple Photos’ library management

Capture One, excellent editing results and good library management; expensive and rather complicated to learn

Luminar, can get good results quickly but designed to operate using ‘looks’ and not easy to fine tune; simple library management

ON1 (still in progress), good editing results and familiar interface/keystrokes for LR users, good library management; LR migration plug-in reported to work well (I have not tested this yet)

I repeat, these are my evaluations for my circumstances.  They represent a significant amount of work so I thought it might be helpful to others to share them.  But I’m not setting myself up as an expert on these matters, by any means.

Cheers

Robert

 

[marchyman]

11 hours ago, rob_w said:

Capture One, excellent editing results and good library management; expensive and rather complicated to learn

The "complicated to learn" factor is the daunting task of figuring out were to start as you first look at the Interface.  I found with a few tweaks to make the interface more to my liking that it wasn't all that complicated after all.  Less complicated than Photoshop in my opinion.  Within 3-4 days I was comfortable making edits.

Alas, with use I've also discovered that "good library management" is not quite accurate.  Capture One handling of dates is incomplete.   Switching from folder to folder takes longer than I'd like.   The user interface does not give adequate feedback that something is going on making you wonder if you actually clicked a button.  And library size may be limited because of performance woes.

But, yeah... excellent editing results.

 

[Guest]

Well I noticed that ON1 had/has a decent  "sale" on right now, so I bought into the App. Another piece of software to try to learn dammit, let's hope it won't be too painful. But I have cancelled out the automatic LR subscription renewal, so that's step one.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

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[Chuck Albertson]

On 1/2/2020 at 2:06 PM, zeitz said:

So how to you read Adobe's very high 55.74 P/E?  Does it reflect corporate greed or does it reflect a company that has found a way to grow in the maturing software market and growing cloud service market? 

It might have something to do with the $8 billion (authorized) in share buybacks.