wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

You can still buy Lightroom 6 from Adobe for $149. Go to their web site and search for Lightroom 6. I suspect it still downloads 6.0 when you buy it, but there is an update to 6.14 which you can get once the program is installed on your computer.

BUT - the OP says he "wants to get Lightroom or something like it" even though he has "never used this kind of software before." Seems to me the first question to answer - in depth - is WHY? What is it that needs to be done? Is it being done now with some other system (presumably other than dedicated software)? What new capabilities are needed beyond what's available now? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a BIG fan of Lightroom. I use it almost exclusively to manage AND edit my images, only flipping over to Photoshop Elements for the occasional pixel level or text work that LR does not do. This produces files which are satisfactory for my purposes, which is mostly producing books of 8x8 B&W prints for family members each Christmas. Lightroom also does my printing, using a custom template that allows easy cutting of the prints for binding, and driving Canon Pro 10 printers. Since I discovered the power of Lightroom Collections the whole workflow of the book production process, from selection to editing to printing, has been vastly simplified, which has been a real blessing since the process all takes place between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So I'm happy to recommend LR. But people need to know what they want to do with it before they start. THEN, they need to study up on how to use it to do those things - BEFORE they actually start using it

JessM Loc: Port

I'm not interested in paying $10 per month in perpetuity... :-) but we could probably use the WD MyCloud to back up our entire system. I see that 4TB is the smallest unit available these days. Office Depot is selling it today for ~$180. Given your experience, can you recommend the WD system?

Thanks... 73... ~jessM

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

Personally, I really like the WD system.... Plus, it's located here in the house. The downside is that it isn't a backup against storms and fire... but, I use a group of USB 3.x drives and a safe deposit box for that. I can do a complete 4 tb or 8 tb backup over night and put it in my local bank's safe deposit box. That box is fireproof, hurricane proof, etc. So if wiped out by a natural disaster, once power, etc. have been restored, and my insurance has replace damaged/lost hardware, I can do a full recovery... My USB drives are backed up every Monday, Wed, Friday... the drives are taken to the bank every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. (The old backups are returned for reuse when the new ones are placed in the deposit. By the way... mine is a little more sophisticated. My earliest backup goes from the computer... to the garage.. then the one in the garage goes to the bank and the one in the bank goes back to the computer room for the next backup... this way I always have two backups ready for an emergency... the garage backup is no more than 2 days old and the bank is no more than 4 days old... of course if really desperate, I could recover from the one I bought back from the bank.. which would be 6/7 days old if I had too. I've been lucky and never had to do a restore yet... but it's like paying for insurance.... if you need it, you really need it.

As for the $10 per month.. I'm not only getting 2 versions of Lightroom, but also getting Photoshop... for me, it's cheaper than one fast food meal... so not a big deal... Plus, since it is automatically removed from my checking account, I never see it. Heck, I'd pay that much for a breakfast sandwich and coffee at Wawa or Duncan Donuts.. or something. And With the 20 gb of Cloud storage... the constant updates (and Lightroom/Photoshop etc. get updated about once a month or so) Plus the fact that I have it operating on 5 computers.... makes it worthwhile. Also, if you are operating as a business, it is a business expense.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Hi Bryan,

Lightroom is an image organizing, cataloging and archiving software made by Adobe.

Photoshop is an image editing and optimization software made by Adobe.

LR and PS are designed to work in tandem with each other and, in fact, are only offered now as a combination (though some people only use one or the other).

From your post, it sounds as if you are pretty unfamiliar with photo post-processing. Because of that I STRONGLY recommend you consider Adobe Elements 2018 instead.

Elements is sold outright (not a subscription like LR/PS), costs less, is more of an "all in one" software and has a lot of built in support for new users (which LR/PS completely lack... with them you should budget for books and classes to learn to use them... with Elements a single book might be helpful, if you need it at all).

Elements has aspects of both LR and PS, covering both cataloging/archiving and image editing/optimization. It's currently selling for $90 (subscription to LR/PS is $120 a year, prepaid and requiring annual renewals).

But another key factor is that you can choose between Beginner, Intermediate or Expert interfaces with Elements (and can switch back and forth between them as needed), for more or less guided use.

There are other post-processing software available, but it's hard to beat Adobe's products. They have a lot of support, both in terms of learning tools like books and online resources, as well as "plug ins" that extend their capabilities.

Elements has it's limitations... If you search online you'll probably find some folks panning it (along with a lot of happy users). But it's able to handle all and more of what most amateur photographers actually need. It's more professional photographers doing commercial work who might find it lacking and require LR and PS.

Besides backup for safekeeping of your images (I know someone who lost EVERYTHING when her laptop was stolen), I also highly recommend that you "calibrate your computer". Actually this is primarily a process that calibrates your computer monitor, so that it renders accurate colors and is at a proper brightness level for photo processing work. Most monitors are way too bright, right out of the box when new. This causes you to adjust your images too dark, but not realize it until you try to make a print or display the images online. Likewise, the color rendition of most monitors simply isn't all that accurate.

A calibration device (Datacolor Spyder, X-Rite ColorMunki, etc.) is used first to set a proper brightness level, then it's software displays a series of color test patches on screen with the hardware device "reads" and analyses for accuracy. In the end it will create a "color profile" that will maintain your monitor accuracy for some period of time. Re-calibration is needed periodically (I do it once a month, some people do it more or less often). That's because monitors lose brightness and shift color rendition gradually over time and with use, as they age.

If you do much printing, calibration will eventually pay for itself in savings of wasted paper and ink or the cost of having reprints done if you outsource your printing. It's a good investment and habit to get into, calibrating your monitor. There are also printer calibration (printer/ink/paper "profiles"), camera and lens focus calibration, light meter calibration, etc..... But monitor calibration is "the biggie" that anyone post-processing their images should seriously consider. Probably the most affordable is an X-Rite ColorMunki "Smile" at just over $80.... which is a suite including software for use on your computer and the hardware device used to measure your monitor.

I wish someone had told me about monitor calibration, when I was first starting out doing post-processing work on my computer! I would have saved a lot of ink and paper!

Hope this helps!

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

Lightroom is absolutely capable of high-quality photo finishing. Some of my photos see Photoshop for specific needs but most don't. This struck me as a very odd comment, one I have never seen on UHH before.
...Cam

PeterBergh

A minor correction: you don't buy the software, you buy a license to use the software.

JessM Loc: Port

Agreed, amfoto1 !!
Elements is definitely the software to start with. I know folks who never felt the need to go further.
~jessM

JessM Loc: Port

Good points! In fact, we pay more than $10 for Netflix and another -- not to mention the increasing bleed to Amazon... :-)
My wife is an InDesign geek and is quite an expert. I took it off her machine to make room for something else, and now she wants it back. She'll need either a new computer or ID-in-a-cloud, if that's do-able. I'll ask Adobe. BTW, we make our regular payments via PayPal, so no problem there. We'll probably pick up a WD My Cloud over on Merritt Island today, btw. Thanks for the info..... 73... ~jessM

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

I really like the MyCloud but remember that it isn't a home/business backup solution per se. It is a great backup solution for while you are traveling. It allows you to get a copy of the images that you took on your trip backed up to your house/business back home and away from your hotel/motel travels. I use it often as most hotels/motels offer in-house internet so I can back images taken on my travels, to a computer back home. Please understand that I also have a a copy on my 4tb USB 3.0 drive that I use (along with my laptop) on my trips.. This gives me a "safe" copy of all of my images on my Cloud back home so if the motel/hotel has a fire, storm, burglary or other issues, copies of my work are back home. The nice thing is that I can use the "in-house" internet at my hotel or I can probably find a restaraunt, gas station or other public convienence that has either free or for pay wi-fi. This makes sure that I have a "safe" copy back home for emergencies.
I guess, I'm really saying that the WDCloud is a good backup for getting stuff away from your travels, but it should ONLY be a part of your at home/business backup solution... for mine, I use external USB drives.

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

The Photo Processing Programs I use are PhotoScape X Free - Intuitive and easy to use. A really good standalone program. (85% of the time - supports Canon's 5DIV Latest Raw files), Adobe LightRoom CC 6 Verison 6.14 (Not Free - supports Canon's 5DIV Latest Raw files) Standalone (5%), and Picasa 3 (2% to import and organize). For “special projects” (8%) I use the following freeware; Andrea Moasic, Raw Therapee 5.3, Regi Stax 6, Noiseware Community Edition, and Canon Digital Pro 4. We all wish you well on your photographic journey, JimmyT sends. http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/download.php and PhotoscapeX tutorials: http://x.photoscape.org/help.php

JessM Loc: Port

Thanks, David. I'll consult our budget, then we'll establish priorities -- we might need to buy a new computer for the boss. She is happy with her standalone InDesign (ID), which I removed to make room for something else. Now, she wants the ID prog back, and that'll take a new machine. I think also that we should look for a bigger, faster in-house backup system, and only *then* for something like My Cloud. We're grateful for the advice. I'm sure others appreciate it as well.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I've said and written that many times on this and other forums and elsewhere, as have other people....

LR is a powerful cataloging, organization, archive management tool with rather weak and limited image editing capabilities.

PS is a very powerful image editing and optimization tool, with rather weak cataloging, organization and archive management capabilities.

I've used PS since version 4 (around 1995) and LR since the first version (roughly ten years).

On Tuesday evening I finished using LR to sort and edit 1500 images that I took last Sunday, making low resolution "proof" quality RAW conversions from roughly 500 of the images I felt were the best and uploading those into nine online galleries for clients to view.

When the orders for finished prints come in, I'll go back to LR to help me locate the image, tweak it a little there if needed (such as changing the crop).... THEN I always pass the image off to Photoshop for finishing (it's a single click to do so, in LR). I have never been able to fully finish an image in LR to anywhere near the level that's possible with PS. No one can.

To some folks, LR's powerful volume image handling and limited image editing and optimization capabilities are adequate for their purposes. The results are sufficient for however they plan to use their images. But LR's brushes and filters are crude and coarse by comparison to PS's, and much of LR's adjustment capabilities effect the entire image (i.e."global"). It cannot do highly selective edits, layers & masks, precise color replacement (great to fix chromatic aberration), selective blurring or sharpening, doesn't offer a number of alternate methods of sharpening, and simply cannot do many other things that PS can. PS is able to work as precisely as individual pixel editing. LR cannot even come close to that.

A lot of folks who "only use LR" probably just don't know what they're missing, what's possible with PS and how much more fully finished their images might be. But, they not may want or need it.... and that's their choice.

Other people who only work with a small number of images one at a time and/or use some other means of archiving and cataloging might get by with PS alone. Before LR was available, I did that and it was a much slower process. PS is not good at handling large volumes of images quickly and efficiently. It's primarily a "one image at a time" editor. Where I spend a few seconds per image tweaking things a bit in LR, in orderto work through 100 or 200 images an hour, I often spend many minutes, sometimes even one or more hours working to fully finish an individual image in PS.

LR and PS are designed to complement each other.... In fact Adobe only offers them as a package now. You aren't required to download and install both, but you are paying for both of them. And if you are only using one or the other, you're quite likely missing out on a lot.

Lightroom is comparatively easy to learn... maybe a month or two practice with it, consulting one or two books... maybe take one or two classes if you learn better that way or are in a hurry or just want to improve your skills.

Photoshop is extremely complex and a lot more challenging to learn thoroughly. You could easily acquire a stack of books and take a year's worth of college level classes to learn to fully use it.

I also suspect there's some resistance to "Photoshopping" an image.... a general perception that it means making unnatural images and "cheating". I usually strive to make my images look more natural with Photoshop.... perhaps the most dramatic changes being to "expand" a background (to accommodate a particular print size) or remove overhead power lines or a pile of horse poop from an image, or similar. For example, I had a client who wanted 16x20 portraits of each of her horses. I had a great shots of both and one worked fine in that size. But the good shot of the other horse simply wouldn't crop well to the 5:4 aspect ratio. Rather than taking a half day to go re-shoot the image or do a lousy crop that cut off part of the subject's face, I used PS to expand the canvas a little and carefully added some of the distant, heavily blurred background to allow the 2nd image to be scaled and cropped similarly. I also "cleaned" up a little dust and dirt around both horses' tear ducts and noses, and retouched a fly off of one horse's face. In other images I've added background blur, while keeping a subject sharp... or color corrected and exposure balanced a sunlit background area differently from a subject in shade. As far as I was concerned, none of this is "cheating" or "faked" or any of the negative connotations that sometimes are attached to "Photoshopping". And, all this would have been difficult to do well or totally impossible to do in LR... but is fairly easy and doable in PS.

LR and PS are pretty much the standard for pros and commercial work. But they come with a steep learning curve, especially PS, and are quite possibly overkill for many amateurs.

Elements can do many of the same things PS can do, plus has some of the sorting and archive management capabilities of LR. It's easier to learn and more of an "all in one" program, sort of a "lite" version combining major aspects of both LR & PS.