[Madaboutpix]

Another quite capable LR alternative, certainly in terms of output quality, remains DxO OpticsPro 11 Elite. Have owned and used both versions 10 and 11 for years now and never felt compelled to upgrade my last LR, version 5, and/or let myself be lured into any subscription model.

Using a simple year-and-date-based system to organize my images, I don't even miss LR's more sophisticated capabilities in that regard.

[Winder]

Another quite capable LR alternative, certainly in terms of output quality, remains DxO OpticsPro 11 Elite. Have owned and used both versions 10 and 11 for years now and never felt compelled to upgrade my last LR, version 5, and/or let myself be lured into any subscription model.

Using a simple year-and-date-based system to organize my images, I don't even miss LR's more sophisticated capabilities in that regard.

I like DxO for certain things, but its just not as complete as LR or C1 Pro. When I was still shooting APS-C and really pushing high ISO I loved the PRIME noise reduction. Since moving to the K-1 I apply very little NR even at 3200 ISO. I have DxO, Topaz DeNoise and Nik and I just don't have much need for them anymore.

DxO is a great RAW converter with excellent noise reduction, but out side of that both LR and Capture One Pro have a big advantage.

[Madaboutpix]

When I was still shooting APS-C and really pushing high ISO I loved the PRIME noise reduction. Since moving to the K-1 I apply very little NR even at 3200 ISO.

Well, was merely offering my two cents. For better detail and texture retention, I have dialled back the Prime NR considerably from its default or auto values anyway. It is the straightforward yet subtle way in which OpticsPro lets me apply basic image corrections and enhancements, without drawing too much attention to the processing.

Given my preference for natural-looking images that nonetheless "pop", an effective RAW converter like OpticsPro, with remarkable support of Pentax camera-lens combinations, is all I need most of the time. (That wouldn't change a bit even if I wanted to move to FF, which currently I have no intention of doing.)

[subsea]

Macphun has just announced that Luminar will be getting a LR~like photo organizer tool in 2018. Looks like the RAW processing/organizing field will be getting even more complicated!

[boriscleto]

was LR someone else's product first?)

No. It was Adobe's answer to Apple Aperture.

[boriscleto]

Macphun has just announced that Luminar will be getting a LR~like photo organizer tool in 2018. Looks like the RAW processing/organizing field will be getting even more complicated!

Luminar is already almost able to replace LR for me. This will probably seal the deal...If I had a computer capable of running High Sierra Photos & Luminar would replace LR...

[Rondec]

Well, was merely offering my two cents. For better detail and texture retention, I have dialled back the Prime NR considerably from its default or auto values anyway. It is the straightforward yet subtle way in which OpticsPro lets me apply basic image corrections and enhancements, without drawing too much attention to the processing.

Given my preference for natural-looking images that nonetheless "pop", an effective RAW converter like OpticsPro, with remarkable support of Pentax camera-lens combinations, is all I need most of the time. (That wouldn't change a bit even if I wanted to move to FF, which currently I have no intention of doing.)

Lightroom is an organizer combined with a RAW developer that has a lot of little tools thrown in -- lens profiles, clone/heal tool, etc. I would venture to say that 98 percent of my editing is done in Lightroom and once you learn it, it is really fast -- you just need to make sure that you have created presets that suit your taste.

I think a lot of the over the top post processing is actually not done in Lightroom at all, but done with additional programs like Nik Effects or Topaz Suite.

[Winder]

Well, was merely offering my two cents. For better detail and texture retention, I have dialled back the Prime NR considerably from its default or auto values anyway. It is the straightforward yet subtle way in which OpticsPro lets me apply basic image corrections and enhancements, without drawing too much attention to the processing.

Given my preference for natural-looking images that nonetheless "pop", an effective RAW converter like OpticsPro, with remarkable support of Pentax camera-lens combinations, is all I need most of the time. (That wouldn't change a bit even if I wanted to move to FF, which currently I have no intention of doing.)

I'm not disagreeing with you that DxO is a good RAW converter. I'm just saying that it has a limited feature set compared to LR and Capture One. There is a lot more than just the basic conversion. There is the organizational tools and the output. If you are not shooting a large amount and you don't need to organize and archive the DxO is great. If you don't need to do a lot of local adjustments, then DxO is great. If you don't do a lot of printing DxO is great. I like DxO. I have Pro 10 and Film Pack 5. I also have Adobe CC, and Capture One Pro (Sony version). I lean toward Capture One for overall tools and image quality, but I'm lazy and LR is the easiest.

I need to see how fast the new version of CC is. My main complaint about the previous version was how slow it was.

[Class A]

Trust Adobe to make a mess with the naming of the new product. They have already been pathetically referring to "Lightroom" as "Photoshop Lightroom" just to cash in on the widely known "Photoshop" name.

Now they are apparently trying to use the popular "Lightroom" moniker to push a new online photo storage service which has some editing capabilities. BTW, you'll get 20GB of storage. For getting up to 1TB of storage, you'll have to pay $20/month ($19.99/month to be accurate).

Now why did they not just call the new service "Lightroom Mobile" or similar and leave the old name alone? That would have been a lot less confusing. Think about it, their current move is analogous to introducing "Lightroom 1.0" as "Photoshop" and renaming the real Photoshop to "Photoshop Classic". Perhaps they are believing that by stealing the name verbatim from Lightroom, they get a maximum adoption rate for their new online service (which isn't that new, BTW, Adobe tried very similar things with "Carousal" and "Revel" before. They'll just keep pushing it at us till it sticks).

Using a lame name like "Lightroom Classic" signals that Adobe does not intend to put much effort into it in the future. For now they are stating that the product will continue but they said that about keeping the stand-alone version alive as well. Arguably "indefinitely" does not mean "forever", but if Adobe had wanted to avoid that interpretation, they could have used a less ambiguous phrasing.

The statement about "additional testing needed for perpetual licenses" no longer being "economically viable" is pure BS. Any software engineer knows that with a decent versioning control system, you can have variants like "CC" vs "stand-alone" for free. Such statements are an insult to the public and demonstrate that Adobe will lie into your face.

For those arguing that subscriptions are so much better for customers: Why do you think Adobe is killing stand-alone versions then? Adobe is forcing everyone into the subscription-based model because they make more money like that. If the stand-alone versions were more expensive for the customer over the long run, Adobe would keep them in order to get more money out of this customers. This simple fact tells anyone who is trying to work out that subscription is the cheaper route that they are not doing their math correctly. Businesses may be a different story, but the average enthusiast does not need updates that frequently. That's the reason why Adobe came up with the subscription-based model in the first place.

BTW, once Adobe has everyone converted to a subscription-based scheme, guess what will happen next? If you have trouble guessing it, here are the explanations Adobe will use: "Partially account for inflation. Reflect the increased value subscribers receive through the much extended portfolio of products. Allow the development of new world-class features, etc.".

There is the temptation to ride the LR6/LR-Classic avenue as long as possible, but my advice would be to switch now. This way, any effort you put into organising and processing your images will have a chance of being a long-term future investment. With LR6 you know that it will come to an end and with LR-Classic, the writing seems to be on the wall.

[gm4life]

So I bought another “old” fashioned boxed LR software because of this. I refuse to be held hostage for a monthly fee by Adobe! Now I have two legit licenses.

Now what I am going to install it on...?

[raider]

I am just catching up on this thread.

Apart from Capture One which is deem a worthy alternative to LR, which others are also worth looking into?

How about the latest ACDSEE? this looks promising although I am not sure if this supports the lens profile from pentax.

[Rondec]

Trust Adobe to make a mess with the naming of the new product. They have already been pathetically referring to "Lightroom" as "Photoshop Lightroom" just to cash in on the widely known "Photoshop" name.

Now they are apparently trying to use the popular "Lightroom" moniker to push a new online photo storage service which has some editing capabilities. BTW, you'll get 20GB of storage. For getting up to 1TB of storage, you'll have to pay $20/month ($19.99/month to be accurate).

Now why did they not just call the new service "Lightroom Mobile" or similar and leave the old name alone? That would have been a lot less confusing. Think about it, their current move is analogous to introducing "Lightroom 1.0" as "Photoshop" and renaming the real Photoshop to "Photoshop Classic". Perhaps they are believing that by stealing the name verbatim from Lightroom, they get a maximum adoption rate for their new online service (which isn't that new, BTW, Adobe tried very similar things with "Carousal" and "Revel" before. They'll just keep pushing it at us till it sticks).

Using a lame name like "Lightroom Classic" signals that Adobe does not intend to put much effort into it in the future. For now they are stating that the product will continue but they said that about keeping the stand-alone version alive as well. Arguably "indefinitely" does not mean "forever", but if Adobe had wanted to avoid that interpretation, they could have used a less ambiguous phrasing.

The statement about "additional testing needed for perpetual licenses" no longer being "economically viable" is pure BS. Any software engineer knows that with a decent versioning control system, you can have variants like "CC" vs "stand-alone" for free. Such statements are an insult to the public and demonstrate that Adobe will lie into your face.

For those arguing that subscriptions are so much better for customers: Why do you think Adobe is killing stand-alone versions then? Adobe is forcing everyone into the subscription-based model because they make more money like that. If the stand-alone versions were more expensive for the customer over the long run, Adobe would keep them in order to get more money out of this customers. This simple fact tells anyone who is trying to work out that subscription is the cheaper route that they are not doing their math correctly. Businesses may be a different story, but the average enthusiast does not need updates that frequently. That's the reason why Adobe came up with the subscription-based model in the first place.

BTW, once Adobe has everyone converted to a subscription-based scheme, guess what will happen next? If you have trouble guessing it, here are the explanations Adobe will use: "Partially account for inflation. Reflect the increased value subscribers receive through the much extended portfolio of products. Allow the development of new world-class features, etc.".

There is the temptation to ride the LR6/LR-Classic avenue as long as possible, but my advice would be to switch now. This way, any effort you put into organising and processing your images will have a chance of being a long-term future investment. With LR6 you know that it will come to an end and with LR-Classic, the writing seems to be on the wall.

As I think about it, Adobe's problem is two-fold. The tools in Lightroom were too good and a lot of people didn't need Photoshop and Photoshop was too expensive. The only solution I suppose they could see was to discontinue free standing Lightroom and to go to a monthly subscription fee for the bundled products.

I agree that if everyone has access to Photoshop then there is less point in Adobe putting a whole lot more investment into Lightroom. They will primarily use it as the organizational tool that accompanies Photoshop in their ecosystem.

And yes, price raising will come down the road.

[pschlute]

They do state that if you ever cancel your subscription to Lightroom Classic you will still be able to forever use it as a catalogue/photo-display utility, just that the editing tools will be disabled, and I guess the sync facilities to LR mobile etc.

[Paul the Sunman]

According to an article from ON1 about the Lightroom developments:

What We Know

• The new Lightroom CC is only available as a subscription and will no longer be available as a perpetual license
• The new Lightroom CC is not an upgraded Lightroom Classic CC. Lightroom CC is a new service that gives you access to your photos in the cloud you can then pull down and edit through a new and limited desktop app or in the browser based app
• There are now three different subscription plans for Lightroom CC
• There are many features lacking in the new Lightroom CC (HDR, pano, print to name a few)
• 20GB of cloud storage in the CC Photography Plan ($10/mo) is not enough storage for serious photographers so you will likely need to pay more for extra storage
• We will continue to support Lightroom Classic CC and keep our plug-ins working with it
• The new Lightroom CC does not support plug-ins

What We Don’t Know For Sure
There are a TON of questions out there on the Internet along with lots of confusion. Here are some of the more common questions we’ve seen.

• Do I have to store all of my photos in the Adobe Cloud and pay for all of that storage space in order to use Lightroom CC?
• Will Lightroom Classic CC (or Lightroom 6) be updated any further?
• What will happen when I need to update my operating system and Lightroom 6 no longer works?
• When will they add more features such as HDR, pano, print, etc to Lightroom CC, will it ever match what I can do in Lightroom Classic CC?
• Will there ever be a perpetual licensed version of Lightroom again?
• How does one migrate current Lightroom catalogs from Lightroom Classic to the new Lightroom CC?
• What happens to my photos if I use the new Lightroom CC and decide to cancel my Adobe subscription?

I only recently moved from Aperture to LR. Here we go again?

[BigMackCam]

I only recently moved from Aperture to LR. Here we go again?

A move may well be necessary, Paul... however:

- Lightroom 6 is stable and very full featured, with great support for most (all?) current cameras, and a wide selection of lenses

- While no new camera and lens profiles will be offered for LR6, DNG files for newer cameras should still be readable (according to others who posted in this thread earlier)

- If Microsoft is to be believed, Windows 10 is the "last ever" full revision of Windows - future changes will be made piece-meal as updates (allegedly), and I think that bodes well for the long-term compatibility of LR6 and Windows

At the very least, I'd say the above means there's no need to panic and/or rush into a different workflow with alternative tools.

I've started looking at the alternatives, and I expect that will take some weeks or months, maybe even a year or more - but I'm reasonably confident I'll find one or too viable candidates. Then, for a period of time, I'll parallel-run my favourite alternative alongside LR6 while I learn the new workflow, user interface and any quirks / gotchas. I reckon it might be a couple of years from now before I decide to fully decommission LR6. During that time, I have no reason to expect anything less of Lightroom than I currently