neillaubenthal

There's another long thread debating the worth…or not…of the Adobe subscription plan for LR and Photoshop. I'm starting a new thread to ask a related question without hijacking the discussion there…because for me if the sub stays at $10 a month then I will stay…but if they change existing customers to $20 a month then I will be looking at alternatives.

I'm a Mac guy…so using Pixelmator Pro to replace Photoshop is pretty easy for me. The issue for me is where do I go to replace LR…hence a couple of questions.

I know that both ON1 Photo RAW and Luminar 3 have library management capabilities. I own Luminar but have not investigated it's library capabilities to any extent. Neither Luminar or Photo RAW have the ability to import LR catalogs…but you can point them to the LR master folder…which I keep organized by year and month.

So…first question. If I were to let my subscription to LR Classic CC expire…does it still work at all for my old catalog stuff or do I need to start all over with organization and management. I realize that none of the edits will transfer over anyway…but I could do a mass export as TIF or RAW or DNG of the entire LR catalog. However…if LR will continue to allow me to use the existing catalog post subscription lapse and then I could do any later necessary processing in ON1 or Luminar. In other words…do I need to do a complete break and start over or just start over for new photos and any processing needed for old photos and still use a crippled LR for the older catalogs.

Second…has anybody done any comparison of the management capabilities of ON1 vs Luminar? I've seen reports that ON1 (at least I think it was ON1) was pretty slow on import, processing, and export. I realize I could do my own comparison…but figured if anybody had already done it I would have a leg up on starting. If it matters…I'm using a MacBook Pro and the master photo folders are out on a network drive.…my LR catalog has about 1.2 TB with about 70K exposures in it in total.

Alternatively to ON1 or Luminar…I might just buy a stand alone perpetual license for LR and stick with it instead of moving if the sub price doubles…haven't really made any decision on that front yet.

Thanks for any thoughts you have…I'm not looking to bash Adobe but rather just researching possible alternatives at this point.

tomad Loc: North Carolina

I don't think Luminar's cataloguing capability is quite up to prime time yet. They just introduced it a few months ago and from my own experience and what I read from others you may want to wait until they shake a few more bugs out.

Capture One also is a possible replacement for Lightroom with a DAM. You may want to add it to your list of possibilities.

arathorn357 Loc: Sydney, Australia

Am currently using the old Lr 6 with Luminar v3 as a plug in for more detailed edits - trying to keep in the pay once and only upgrade when justified side of the debate.
Agree with tomad that Luminar's cataloguing capabilities still behind Lr but they have that on their road map and my idea FWIW is since the two programs play nicely together to keep both, and have Luminar's new but not fully developed DAM ability as Plan B if Lr 6 is ever abandoned by Adobe (for example Lr 6 is a 32 bit app on a mac and Apple keep threatening with each upgrade of OSX to abandon support for 32 bit apps).

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You can test a few scenarios against the trail versions as well as consider 'what if scenarios' and develop plans for how you'll migrate and what you'll be able to do on your historical images after the migration.

Examples:

1. If you export all your existing images to TIFF, this will embed the edits and keywords into the files. You won't have an edit history, but you will have the current status of the edits for every image in a non compressed format. If you want to continue editing, this is your starting point for every image. The same applies if you do 'full size' JPEG instead of TIFF. While doing this what-if testing, take the max TIFF size on disk of a few example images and calculate the potential disk size needed to export all your images as TIFF or as JPEG.

2. If you shot RAW, do the LR process that saves the metadata to the files. This will actually write XML files if you're not already using. Test what happens when you import a few test RAW files and their XML files into the target tools.

phot0n0ob

Actually, On1 Photo RAW does have the ability to import a LR catalog (and comes with a LR plugin to prepare that import). However, earlier this week, I tried twice to import a fairly small (600 images) LR catalog into Photo RAW and the process failed both times.

Bogin Bob Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Skylum was business clever. They introduced Luminar Flex and Luminar 3. For those (like me) that love the existing Library features/data management like Lightroom's Library and use want Luminar as a plug-in - use Flex. For those that do not have a photo management system - Luminar 3 and no integration with Lightroom CC Classic. Either or !!.

(an aside) I smile about Adobe 'suggesting' a $20 Subscription fee and then backing away. In the corporate world before retirement, I recall companies using 'the rumor mill' for considering changes in benefits, policies, possible layoffs or downsizing ... only to judge reaction and/or allow the masses to consume and adapt to the possible change. Then when they do introduce the change - AND THEY DO ... most of the 'targets' have adjusted. So a prediction - when Adobe announces a change it will be $14.99 with some minor low incremental or support cost to them so subscribers can say "well we got something, or we still have Lr Mobile, MyPortfolio, Spark ... Bob

howardberliner

You make a good point. Adobe definitely heard a large rumble. Although we often don’t believe they are customer oriented they take care of the customer.

Luminar has an uphill road for its DAM feature. Still needs substantial work.

lwerthe1mer Loc: Birmingham, Alabama

Luminar’s DAM feature works fine from my amateur perspective, but it does appear that Luminar’s version 3.1 was released too early. I started a thread on this somewhat related issue yesterday.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

A significant portion of the questions asked about Lightroom have to do with with problems related to their data access model (DAM). It's just a relational database and when it doesn't behave the way you expect you can get into trouble.

But your computer's operating system already uses a database for managing all of the files it contains. We just take it for granted. It's much more reliable than anything that Adobe or anyone else can come up with.

Your question reminds me of a statement from The usual Suspects, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

In Lightroom's case it might be that the greatest trick the Adobe ever pulled was convincing the world that a catalog is necessary. The consequence is exactly what you are asking about. The prospect of leaving the Lightroom catalog system behind can be scary.

How hard would it be to manage your own catalog? It's easier than you think. If you have a lot of files and know a little about your computer's filing system you already know enough to do it for yourself.

All computers keep files in a series of folders and sub-folders. It's easy put your files in easily recognized folders and move them around. This works whether you have a few files or millions of them.

You can use catalogs with Capture One if you can't live without them but I prefer their Sessions approach. It lets me manage my files directly.

In the illustration below you can see that each session has its own mini catalog. That's easy for the software to manage.

(Download)

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

I looked at the trial pricing Adobe was offering, and it seems to me that the big difference was in the amount of cloud storage which had been significantly increased. For me, cloud storage is a non-starter.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

How many virtual copies of your images can you place into separate folders at the OS level? Where are your keywords for searching every image from Florida across the entire catalog? How helpful is the OS at finding every image from a specific lens, or camera, or ISO value or all the images from Florida at ISO-5000 from a Sony A7II? Do you save a TIFF copy of the square-crop version of the original 3x2 image, or just a virtual copy internal to the catalog using this crop aspect? The LR catalog is a database, yes, but in terms of digital assessment management, it is way more powerful than just an overlay to the folder structure provided by the OS.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

The sky does not fall if you cancel. Most of Lightroom continues to function. All of the DAM portions of Lightroom continue to function. Adobe also provides Bridge as a DAM prospect and has stopped charging for it.

Direct from Adobe: "Lightroom Classic CC: You'll still have access to all your photos on your local hard drive through Lightroom for the desktop. You can continue to import and organize photos as well as output your edited photos through Export, Publish, Print, Web, or Slideshow. Access to the Develop & Map modules and Lightroom for mobile are not available after your membership ends." (Reference: https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/cancel-creative-cloud-subscription.html#WhathappenswhenIcancel)

tomad Loc: North Carolina

The other problem with Luminar if you have a lot of photos is that it took it overnight on a pretty powerful laptop to catalogue my 100k+ photos and it took of most of what was left of the hard drive on my laptop. The catalogue was huge so not workable on a laptop with limited storage, and you cannot use it on an external drive.

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

A well known marketing technique, which I have heard called "Rough and Smooth". Rumor something outrageous, then settle for something less (but still positive).

A few years ago a company put up a 1400 foot tower out in the suburbs. Towers have to have lights. So one day they turned on the flashing strobes at full power all day and all night. It lit up about 10 towns and the complaints flew in. After a week or two they went down to normal power and everyone was happy. The strobes were still flashing all night where there were never strobes before, but they were much less intrusive than the "test" period.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I don't need virtual images. I know where to find the original and all of the different was they were edited. But the next time I look at them I may want to do something differently.

I put any keywords I am likely to need into the folder names. Searching is handled by the operating system's file manager. I can tell my cameras apart because each has a unique file name (first three characters). Why would I need to search by lens?

I could care less about selecting images by ISO - what's the point?

I don't bother. I just keep the raw file and the various edits are in sub-folders for the session that includes a timestamp. I don't even need to save viewable images (TIFF or JPEG, etc.) but I do save a JPEG for quick review because I have plenty of storage.

Incidentally, my Digital Images folder is automatically backed up to two separate detachable drives every 3 hours throughout the day. The Digitals folder is not backed up.

I also use MS Access to catalog all of my scanned film images. They outnumber my digital stuff. But that's a whole different workflow.

(Download)