Photograpner53 Loc: Waynesboro, Pa

I have been taking photos since 1971. Retired now wanting to start my photography at professional level.

I have had an older version of Lightroom 6 and I want to graduate to having the ability of inventory, ease of locating and also doing all of the editing of my photos. So to keep me from going nuts and to be comfortable with that decision, what will work for me. So I am asking everyone for possible suggestions.

I have been looking at Lightroom CC /Photoshop CC, am I going in the right direction. So looking for suggestions to my problem.

I also know the suggestion for having backups on external hard drives (now). I am going to be starting at ground zero at this moment of time.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Welcome to the forum and retirement.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

There are other options available for cataloging, but I personally find LR to be efficient and flexible enough that I can use whatever method and organization suits me. Lightroom Classic CC is ten bucks a month, which is well within my budget. If you're already used to it, I would personally see no reason to change. There are other "as good" products, but I don't know of one better.

Welcome!
Andy

worldcycle Loc: Stateline, Nevada

If you have been using Lightroom already and are comfortable with it, by all means stay with it. Well worth the $120 per year for the Creative Cloud. I would not go any other way, cannot beat it for organization (I download by date and keyword everything) and editing power. I do not use the cloud based, desktop only. Tried to edit on phone and tablet, but really? Way too small a format for me. I have two Western Digital 5 tb spinning hard drives for back up that I rotate between the bank safe deposit box and home so if I lose one in a fire or whatever I only lose 2 weeks of photos. I have a third external hard drive that is my working hard drive that I back the other two up on. I use an external hard drive to work on rather than keep my photos on a computer so if at home I work on my desk top. If traveling I work on my laptop. System works well for me.

ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

welcome, I suggest what ever program came with your camera. Adobe products use to the the standard but the learning curve is steep. I currently use Apple Photos 95% of the time. It's free and comes on apple products including the iPhone. For more technical stuff I use ON 1 RAW 2020.

Bob Mevis Loc: Plymouth, Indiana

Welcome to retirement. PS and LR are at the top of the ladder.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I use the Adobe Photography Plan. $9.99 a month includes a small amount of cloud storage, plus Lightroom CC (the cloud based application), Lightroom CLASSIC (the evolution of Lr6 that is computer based) Photoshop 2020, and Bridge.

Everything installs from the Creative Cloud app. It is kept up to date as long as you pay your subscription fee. The computer MUST "phone home" at least monthly, so you need an Internet connection for that.

You DO NOT need to connect to the Internet to manage images UNLESS you use Lightroom CC (It shares files via the cloud among computers, phones, and tablets), OR, you elect to store images on Adobe Cloud.

I use this setup, but I never use Lightroom CC and seldom use Bridge. 80% of my work is in Lightroom Classic, and the rest is done in Photoshop, various plug-ins, and other external apps on my Mac.

I think you're on the right track if you intend to be serious about what you are doing. There are more resources available to train you and help you with Adobe products than the others. However, it is wise to look at other options, if you don't like Adobe's interface.

I personally PREFER the subscription model for software, because I keep my computer up to date at all times, for security reasons. Many casual users of older Adobe packages don't understand the advantages of subscribing, and immediately think it is costlier. It is NOT costlier than standalone packages if you upgrade your software at least every other version, as I calculated after using Adobe products since the 1980s. If you prefer the security risk of older software that won't run on current hardware or operating systems, and does not support the latest cameras, then maybe sticking with older versions is right for you. But I doubt that!

Lightroom is my primary digital asset manager. I have multiple catalogs on different outboard drives. All of the images in each catalog are on the same drive as the catalog. That keeps things relatively simple. I populate these in chronological order, which makes finding things easy — It's the way my mind works.

As for backup, I have:

> A 2TB SSD in my iMac
> A 2TB Time Machine Backup drive (Time Machine automatically backs up on a scheduled basis.)
> A 2TB backup drive (copy of Time Machine drive) kept off-site in a fire safe
> Four other outboard drives that I store older files on.
> iCloud backup of important files

Everything is encrypted.

One of my outboard drives is reserved for a Windows 10 system. I can boot it directly, on the Mac, or in Parallels Desktop. It's a 1TB partition, backed up on another 1TB drive. (Macs support multiple boot drives, choosable at startup. Via Apple BootCamp, they support Windows directly. Then Parallels Desktop lets you run DOS, Windows, Linux, and older versions of the MacOS, on top of the current MacOS. Effectively, I can run any common system in the PC world.)

Since I do some video production and audio recording, I use iMovie and Final Cut Pro X, GarageBand and Audacity. For general office work, I use Microsoft Office 365 (family subscription).

I keep my monitor honest with a Datacolor Spyder5Pro.

I'm currently digitizing old slides and negatives with my camera and a macro lens. For Black-and-White and Color Negatives, I do the image conversion in Negative Lab Pro, a Lightroom Classic plug-in. That plug-in also works with unconverted scanned files.

Good luck with your endeavor!

Vince68 Loc: Wappingers Falls, NY

Welcome to UHH. Enjoy your retirement and getting back into photography. Looks like you have received good advice already.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

Welcome to the HOG!

photophly Loc: Old Bridge NJ

Welcome to the Hog 🦔

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Welcome to our forum!

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Welcome to the Hog, enjoy.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

First off welcome to The forum. And happy retirement you won't regret it. I've been retired for 15 years retiring at 59 and a half and have not look back.

I think you've already answered your own question. Since you're already using Lightroom and her familiar with it it has it has the cataloging capability but it sounds like you might not have used it. The subscription service for $10 a month does everything you want to do and more it is well worth the $10 investment so yes you are headed in the right direction since you're already familiar with it.

Good luck with your decision and good luck in your retirement.

jack schade Loc: La Pine Oregon

Welcome to the forum.

Jack

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

Welcome to UHH, glad you joined us. I see that you have received a lot of info to chew on so I will let you digest all of that.
Have fun, learn and enjoy the forum.

Don