warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

Picasa 3 stand alone is free

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

Following Mark's response:
In photography terms, the monthly cost is less that it used to cost to get a 36 exposure roll of color film developed and printed.
But, to each his own.

katherineivey Loc: Corinth, Texas

I found that I spend no more with the Adobe monthly subscription than I spent upgrading PS Elements every 1 to 2 years. You always have the latest version available and Lightroom is awesome!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

$9.99/month is less than a roll of film and 4x6 proof prints cost ($20 to $30 for Kodak film and processing at a decent lab).

So... I subscribe to the Adobe Photography Bundle. I get much more value from that than I would from film! I get control over results, and I also leverage 25+ years of experience in Ps and 12 in Lr.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

I pay for photoshop, yes, a monthly fee. But I have used it for years, and it is pretty amazing what it can do. That said, I also have used ON1, Luminar, Lightroom, and have plugins with Topaz, and NIK. I am an amateur, but take a lot of pictures, probably 10,000 a year, all in RAW, but also in jpeg with the second memory card. I don't post process all, just the ones that look the best from a lighting and subject matter standpoint. I like ON1 for sure, pretty simple to use. Luminar/Affinity are good as well. I rarely if ever use Lightroom, I simply do not like the filing system. I also like the browsing software that comes with Photoshop, called Bridge. As for post-processing, Photoshop does it all.
Oh, another point, perhaps ON1, Infinity, etc., all have the capability to match the color profiles between your computer and printer and can handle assigning that profile to all new pictures. For years I have struggled to get the printer to match the on-screen image, both in colors and brightness. I recently got the Canon Pro 100, and it also had some issues, so I listened to a few YouTube videos on this topic, and with photoshop it is very easy to match the output of the computer to the printer for much better pictures. I don't know how to do this in Luminar or ON1. I know Lightroom has this capability.
Net, I am a photoshop fan. And yes, you can suspend the payments if you want if you do not plan on using it.

pixel719

Other RAW options include RawTherapee which is freeware. It will give you the opportunity to see what features you need/want and those you don't (and at a good price). I use Corel Aftershot Pro as my primary RAW processor/manager which includes HDR capability. I also use Paintshop Pro for other digital creations and editing. I don't know why it is but it seems that Corel products never make the lists of candidate editors even though they are the #2 or #3 editor as far as market popularity. Corel is much less cost wise (even without the occasional discounts and lower renewal rates) than Adobe, especially if you look at the annual 'ownership/usage' costs. The key issue is that if you stop the Adobe subscription, you loose access to all of your RAW edits. Specifically, the RAW editors use a non-destruct approach to editing by making use of a sidecar file (*.xmp file) to record the settings and presets you applied. Then each time you open the file, it re-applies those edits to the original RAW file.
Each RAW editor has it's own *.xmp format to leverage it's specific features. My best suggestion is to take advantage of the trial versions and pay attention to the user interfaces and your workflow processes which will drive the learning curve. Other than that, the actual functional capability differences will generally be minor.
I have also use ON1. It also a lot of very good tutorials and it is on a very aggressive development track to compete in this market. It is a very good tool, especially since they recently added both HDR and Panorama capabilities.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

You are not the first person to say this. But to be honest with you, the $10/mo gym fee and my $10/mo Adobe Creative Cloud fee's that get deducted automatically each month is not even noticed one bit. It's totally painless compared to paying other bills. Hell, my water bill is 7x higher than that. My DirecTv bill is $180/mo (including high speed internet). Those bills really irk me especially the DirecTv since it's purely entertainment. So 10 bucks a month is nothing for a product that is the best on the market. There are so many youtube videos on how to do this and that with PS and LR it's not even funny.

throughrhettseyes Loc: Rowlett, TX

Nothing better than Lightroom and Photoshop. I have seen the anual fee for under $80 a year. I paid that buying the full version ever 3 or 4 years. So wouldn't you want an always current software instead of being 3 years behind in improvements. Like MS Office this is the cheapest and most up to date way to shop. Unfortunately photography is as expensive as a golf hobby. It's all what you want to get out of it. You can belong to a county club or play 9 hole city courses. Get my drift?

wapiti Loc: round rock, texas

TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

DxO also updates for new cameras and lenses

DanielB Loc: San Diego, Ca

I wouldn't do Lightroom without photoshop unless you are only doing basic editing. Also the PSC subscription includes Lightroom.

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

Don't know of any that do not update..... Not just Adobe..

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

There's a difference between producing new versions and updating the current version. In the old model, Adobe (or other software writer) would sell you LR model 3 and give you updates as necessary. Then when they came out with model 4 you paid for the upgrade (or update if you want to call it that). If you had the model 3, the upgrade would come at a lower price, but it was still an upgrade that you paid for.

The Adobe Photography package has gone through a number of major upgrades/updates and a bunch of minor updates. They are all included in the subscription price.

bittermelon

Sorry I actually like the original better. The processed one seems over-exposed.