[Adam]

I find it interesting that $10 a month is too much in this hobby. Processing film was far more expensive especially on a per image basis. Let the flames rain down. Sigh.

Haha yeah. That's the equivalent of almost 16 years of CC access for the cost of one K-1.

Plus, if you factor in the promotional rate of $99/year which is regularly available during holiday periods, and which can be pre-paid to lock in the price, you're looking at 19 years of service for the cost of one pro body.

Adam
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[stevebrot]

indefinitely adverb

1. In a manner that is not definite.

ex. "an indefinitely determined fossil"

2. For a long time, with no defined end.
3. Forever.

lit. without definition

In vernacular English the common sense is "without foreseeable end".

A few things to remember: many of our cameras output DNG files if we so choose, so we don't need a converter if running an older version of LR.

This is a common misconception. Tool compatibility for DNG in Adobe product is not fully reliable for other than Adobe-generated DNG and even then backward compatibility depends on how the DNG was made. (DNG is not intrinsically source or backward lenient.) Such is easily demonstrated by attempting to import a Pentax HDR DNG into any version of Lightroom. The exact extent of backward support for various DNG target versions and/or ACR versions is poorly defined and reportedly camera specific. Go figure.

If Ricoh/Pentax continues with DNG 1.2.0.0 as its backward target and also supports the optional embedded profiles, compatibility to most versions of Lightroom should remain good*. Even better would be if compatible camera/lens profiles continue to be available through download or the DNG Converter utility. With any luck, the format for .acp files themselves will remain fairly static and backdoor access to new profiles will continue to be an option.

As for Chicken Little...There are good reasons why many of us have not moved to the subscription and why software as service has been a hard sell for core business tasks for the last 20 years. For many of us, the CC model presents incredibly poor value and inserts unacceptable elements of risk with no strictly defined service level agreement** from Adobe. In two words, "It Sucks".


Steve

* I would have said "excellent" except that the embedded profiles are minimalist extremely simplistic when compared to Adobe-supplied files.

** Having been in the position of building interfaces to consume remote services, test frames to break and monitor such, and applications to provide software as services, the weakness are well known to me. Without a strong use case, this is silliness from the end user perspective.

[rawr]

All you need to know about the Lightroom changes. Anything else you hear from Adobe about what they are doing (like 'driving modernization and innovation') is just spin.

Adobe targets 20 percent revenue growth for FY 2018
Adobe shared its targets for the 2018 fiscal year on Wednesday, projecting year-over-year revenue growth of 20 percent and earnings growth of 30 percent.

Adobe targets 20 percent revenue growth for FY 2018 | ZDNet

[beachgardener]

In Australia it is over $14 per month, hey do Adobe pay their taxes in Au yet? Probably not. A good reason to boycott them here.

This could be a blessing, will give incentive to get cracking on mastering Darktable, RawTherapee and Gimp

Edit: another thing is, I'm not sending files into clouds.

---

Last edited by beachgardener; 10-19-2017 at 05:04 AM.

[sealight]

slightly annoyed right now with adobe....own the standalone-version of lightroom 6 and automatic update just deinstalled that version, now it's either reinstalling the whole thing or being in testmode for lightroom classic cc...
while I was not totally adversive into stepping up into the 'new model'- this still is not cool....

[victormeldrew]

As to getting hacked - Their servers are likely more secure than mine! .

I wouldn't be so sure. Their servers are (no offence) a LOT more attractive to serious hackers than your PC is, and they have the exact same weak link you do...the people who operate it. One successful phish, one neglected patch, and they're in. History is very clear...all net-based services, from games to banks, are at risk of getting hacked, no matter how secure you would expect them to be.

Save

[MarkJerling]

I wouldn't be so sure. Their servers are (no offence) a LOT more attractive to serious hackers than your PC is, and they have the exact same weak link you do...the people who operate it. One successful phish, one neglected patch, and they're in. History is very clear...all net-based services, from games to banks, are at risk of getting hacked, no matter how secure you would expect them to be.

Save

That's OK. All the stuff that matters has end-to-end bank level encryption. Certainly safer than an external harddrive in the corner of the Study.

[Rondec]

Almost all my work related software is subscription based now. Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft Office, Xero, etc. Xero is completely cloud based.
At first this annoyed me. Now I find it really productive as I can use any computer, almost anywhere with a decent internet connection to access my data or do (some of) my work.

All my data is now stored locally and "in the cloud". Daily data backups have become a thing of the past.

I find it interesting that $10 a month is too much in this hobby. Processing film was far more expensive especially on a per image basis. Let the flames rain down. Sigh.

My current download speed from the web is 4.7 Mbps and upload speed is .47 Mbps and that is the fastest service that I can get where I live. The idea of storing stuff in the cloud just doesn't work in many rural settings.

As for the cost, I would like that to be my choice. Photography is a hobby for me. I have four kids and want to be able to take photos of them and process them as well as working with the landscape images I take, but I don't want to commit to paying ten dollars a month (or whatever Adobe decides to raise it to down the road) in perpetuity. I understand that from Adobe's standpoint that is great. If they screw something up and their software gets all buggy for awhile or they don't do any significant upgrades for ten months, I am still paying in order to process my images. I am saving for college and doing a number of other things and I don't know that "investing" that money in Lightroom is the best use of it.

I suppose for the foreseeable future I'll use Lightroom 6 -- that'll save plenty and down the road I may investigate one of the other options that still offers free standing software (I find Lightroom to be slow and freezes at times anyway).

[adjutant]

I get that people are used to only having to pay once for software, but I'm afraid that is fast becoming an outdated model. You know it's really gone to hell when software becomes buy-to-use + monthly subscription + micro-transactions. I actually knew a video game that tried that business model and they failed miserably, maybe they were too ahead of their time?

In any case, I get a lot of use from Photoshop and Lightroom, so 10 dollars a month is very reasonable to me. Just this recent update they added a 'range mask' feature, and I absolutely love it. I think CC and Classic CC are meant to be the same desktop power-user software we've come to love, with the only difference being cloud catalog vs local disk catalog. If this is true, they're not really developing two separate software as far as the photo editing is concerned and there won't have to come a time when Classic CC has to be discontinued. Maybe I'm being too optimistic?! I hope not.

I'm not sold on the whole cloud thing at this moment. I mean, what on earth am I going to do with cloud-stored images on my phone? I'm gonna pull up an old image from the cloud and play around with it on the mobile app with inferior photo editing features because I'm bored? Or what about vice versa, I'm gonna pull images on the desktop version that were transferred from my phone to the cloud when I get home? Wait a minute, I'm already home, I can just import all of them directly to my PC, rather than the piece-meal set of images due to data upload limitations while out on the field.

[D1N0]

I get that people are used to only having to pay once for software, but I'm afraid that is fast becoming an outdated model.

yeah because we live to be leached of our resources. we are slaves to corporations who tell us what we should do with our money.

[adjutant]

yeah because we live to be leached of our resources. we are slaves to corporations who tell us what we should do with our money.

Sometimes I feel that way, but I wouldn't go as far as to start a worker's revolution for 10 dollars a month for LR + CC.

[savoche]

I find it interesting that $10 a month is too much in this hobby. Processing film was far more expensive especially on a per image basis. Let the flames rain down. Sigh.

The price doesn't matter much, and I suppose having to subscribe to "processing as a service" isn't too bad (sort of like renting time in a darkroom). But I don't like the idea that I am forced to pay a monthly fee if I want to have continued access to the catalogue with the changes I have already made to my images. They are my changes to my images.

But hey, it's Adobe's product and they can choose whatever business model they please. That is an inherent property of closed source programs. Luckily there are good alternatives out there, even if changing is a pain.

[VoiceOfReason]

I'm simply not a fan of software as a service. I'd rather own the license to it.

[lsimpkins]

... I don't like the idea that I am forced to pay a monthly fee if I want to have continued access to the catalogue with the changes I have already made to my images. They are my changes to my images.

Adobe LR (as part of the monthly subscription) which will now be known as "LR Classic" will not change your images back to their out of camera state or delete your catalog if you stop the subscription. This is a widely believed fallacy. What will happen is that you will still have access to the Library Module which uses your Catalog, which resides on your hard drive. You will no longer have access to the Develop Module to make new edits on existing or new images. Other modules will similarly become unusable.

On the other hand, the new LR CC, which is cloud based would have images, the software, and (I believe) your catalog stored on an Adobe server. So for this new application, it has not been clearly stated what is lost if you were to stop the subscription. The new LR CC is obviously intended for smart phone and tablet picture takers who seek a better organizing and editing application that is currently available in that ecosystem. And it is exactly those folks who already use the cloud to access their images from anywhere to whom it will appeal. Adobe clearly sees this as a large, potentially lucrative market, but I have doubts how many phone/tablet users will want to pay more than once for an app. Of course, they may view it as paying for cloud storage with the added benefit of a "thrown in" app.

[UncleVanya]

I can't speak for others, Brad, but it's not the amount per month that bothers me... it's the fact that I have to pay a monthly subscription to use the software, and lose that right unless I commit to on-going and reviewable monthly payments.

I bought my camera outright and I own it to use for as long as it lasts. That's how I like it. If Ricoh said I couldn't buy but could only rent it, I'd pick another manufacturer's camera instead. I'm the same with my lenses, my memory cards, and I'd like to be the same with my image processing software too. With Adobe, it looks like I'm out of luck now (with future versions, at least).

Your analogy of film processing costs is a good one - but then, we're not in the film age any more (and I'd probably take, and certainly develop, fewer photos if that were the case). Does Adobe allow you to stop and start subscription on a month-to-month basis whilst maintaining access to your files? That would be somewhat more akin to film photography... i.e. you pay for what you use... Anyway, it's still not really what I personally want from my software

Your processed files are yours as are your negatives. They are not stored on the cloud. That's what confuses people. Two different models. The original (now classic) CC is a model where the software distribution and license checking is on a "cloud" and the software you run is local and so are your files ( you can store them anywhere you want actually ). The new model (not replacing the old model as I understand it ) allows a different model of storing your files online - but I can't say much about that model. I would not be interested in it. I also tend to do most of my processing in DXO and only use lightroom as a catalog - I should likely ditch adobe and get a different catalog software program. I have found I spend more on DXO yearly than I do on adobe BTW.