Sheltering from the rain – Scheveningen, The Netherlands 2013
Preparing To Wave Adobe Goodbye 3
Contingency
So as a contingency it may be wise to think about what may potentially happen in a few years time when the Lightroom Classic goes the way of Lightroom 6. What are the alternatives in the market now? There are some people who have always been against the subscription model and moved away from Adobe.
This post is pointing in the direction of the early adopters of new or different technology. Please give us your experiences of the products that you have used to continue your image management and post-processing.
Library Issues
For me, the biggest issue is how easy is it to migrate my current Lightroom catalogue to a different software provider and still retain all the current features of Lightroom. Capture One allows you to import your Lightroom catalogue into Capture One but you will find many features missing once the migration is complete, Smart Collections are an obvious example.
What else is good out there?
We who are currently loyal to Adobe would like to hear about your experiences of what else is out there and how easy or difficult it may be too migrate away from Lightroom Classic. I said in an email to a friend yesterday that I felt that there was no one product out there that is capable of providing the equal capability to Lightroom. Many companies offer equal or better post-processing but the image management Library options are severely lacking in its ability to mimic Lightroom.
So please tell us what you use as an alternative to Lightroom Classic, what’s good, what’s bad in the current market?
Thank you for sharing your hard-won experience with us.
One key problem with CC is that it assumes reliable, high-speed broadband connections – which undoubtedly is the case for somewhat blinkered software developers in Silicon Valley. However… rural Britain? Forget it. Many software developers are going down the ‘cloud’ path – we’re running a small business and using Quickbooks Online means that occasionally it takes 2 or 3 days wait (sometimes more) until the broadband speed is fast enough just to pay an invoice. Given that situation Adobe CC is a total no-no.
Incidentally listening to Radio 4 this morning there was an article on broadband in South Korea – fibre-optics to the premises across the country with speeds 4 or 5 times higher than BT fibre here – clearly they see superfast broadband as essential to having a thriving economy. Here? Hmmm… this country seems to be heading in the opposite direction of the banana state.
Hi Andy,
I’m not sure exactly what people perceive the problem to be. If you have a complete photographic system which works based upon a purchased product/s then it works. If you want to have every new gadget going you have to pay for( rent or buy), these and suffer other issues.
Full Adobe CC subscription for a business still represents good value for business users in my opinion. Other industries are following this lead. The main selling point being convenience and peace of mind.
However private individuals often jump with fright at the cost ,& terms and conditions, of what are principally commercial business solutions.
Professional small town photographers get by with a fraction of the equipment and facilities many amateurs have at their disposal. The cost of the latest convenience has never been cheap.
I should declare that I use Lightroon 5 with old cameras but that I am told that ACR is available as a free download. And that I keep all original camera files even though in years to come they may be unreadable.
Shiny
Hi Steve thanks for the updates,most useful.
I got a response from MacPhun… sadly no more info at the moment. They do say there will be an announcement soon though.
I’m going to be keeping an eye on this product:
https://macphun.com/optimizelr
It has a good reputation with Mac users and has come to Windows and they claim it will handle LR catalogues in a release coming early next year – how well or completely remains to be seen. I’ve asked them for more information about what they plan to support – simply importing edits or providing full asset management. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.
Another possible is Serif Affinity Photo – they don’t have asset management at the moment, but they are working on it, apparently.
In the meantime, I’ll stick with LR 6.13.