Hello Hoggers:
I work on a Mac and had been using Lightroom 5 for years, first for cataloging and organizing as well as editing. For the last couple of years I've been using it mainly as a DAM while using Luminar 4 for editing. I recently upgraded my OS to Catalina which disabled some of the functions on my old version of LR. I have uninstalled LR and figured I'd use Luminar 4 as my cataloging program. It leaves a lot to be desired in that respect. So, I'm looking for an alternative. I do not want to go to the subscription for Adobe creative cloud as I have never used and don't wish to learn Photoshop and you can't get LR alone. I've been doing some internet research and have looked at Capture One (rather expensive) and ON1 Photo Raw (a little more reasonable). Both of these also have editing capabilites - not necessary for me but a nice bonus. Reading about various programs on the internet is one thing but hearing real photographers experience with these programs is better. The ability to use keywords is important to me. Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

When you've had the best in Lightroom, how long do you think you can live without it? The 'for purchase' software represent what Adobe was previously, large annual / semiannual purchases to keep up with software rather than a modest monthly payment to keep up with the software.

You might ask yourself how tightly you're wedded to Mac? It was Apple that torpedoed your LR5, not Adobe. A valid license for LR5, Windows install files, and a Windows computer might just put LR5 back in your toolbox.

I'm new here and this is my first post. I have been using Adobe Photoshop Elements for my DAM needs and have used every version since Elements 3. The current version, Elements 2021, is version 19. So, it has actually been around a lot longer than Lightroom. The Elements Organizer, which is the program that handles the media catalog, has been one of my favorite programs, so I am definitely a fanboy. I currently have over 200k photo and video files in my catalog, and I can generally find any photo I am looking for within seconds. I highly recommend it.

Many of the current features are controlled by AI which seems to improve each year. But even though much of the media analysis is performed automatically, the program still requires some effort by the user in order to take full advantage of all it has to offer.

Face recognition is excellent and the latest version also conducts face recognition on videos. Keyword tagging is also easy to apply and flexible. I don't use geo-tagging but if your images have geo metadata, there are aids to place your photos on a map. The program also provides analysis to identify Events for tagging. However, perhaps the best search feature is the smart tags that are applied to each image. The AI has become so good that it almost eliminates the need to create keyword tags for your media. Search for "flower" and all of your flower images will be displayed. Add "yellow" to your search term and the results will be narrowed down accordingly. The automatic search vocabulary is quite extensive and I don't think I have ever been able to stump it. Of course, if you have specialized tagging needs, the program is very flexible.

Although you say you don't want to learn Photoshop, the Elements version is a fairly powerful editor. Although, I have an Adobe Photoshop CC subscription, I would say that 90% of my editing takes place in Photoshop Elements. For those who don't want a subscription, Elements is an excellent alternative. And, yes, a single-payment license does not last forever. But, I am active on the Elements community forums and I see many users who are still happy using their 8 or 9 year old software versions. Mac is a slightly different story because of all the hardware and software changes that Apple has introduced over the past couple of years which has required users to update their Adobe software.

One final point: if you want to use a different editing software, the Organizer makes it very easy to send images from the catalog to your chosen editor. Many external editors can also be used as a plug-in to Photoshop Elements.

If you are interested in trying it out, there is a 30 day free trial available: https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements/download-trial/try.html.

Added: Like I said, I'm new here so didn't see that this was a multiple page discussion that has been going on for a while.

I've been using ACDSee since the mid 1990's. It is very likely the best, and most powerful photo catalog software made, and it should be, considering it's been around a LONG time, 10 years longer than LR.

I've been using my current version since 2016 and have no reason to upgrade, it does more than one could want. I have over 40,000 photos cataloged with hundreds of Keywords. It has super search capabilities and over the past 25 years or so they have worked out how it needs to be done, so it fits most anyone's needs.

It also has decent editing ability including LAYERS, which is required component of any editor imo. The sale price is good, it is always on sale I think. Make sure you never pay the list price, I think that's a gimmick for the real price on sale. (Sears got busted for that once)

You can buy ACDSee AND Affinity Photo today for a lot less than a one year subscription to PS/LR. They are a hard act to beat. Affinity has free upgrades, and ACDSee doesn't need any, it already does more than you could possibly need in a photo file manager.

I think ACDSee and Affinity compare well to LR and PS, until you get to rent vs purchase. $120/year is not bad if you earn a living at it, but for a hobbyist, even a serious one, ACDsee/Affinity is where it's at.

Hello Hoggers:
I work on a Mac and had been using Lightroom 5 for years, first for cataloging and organizing as well as editing. For the last couple of years I've been using it mainly as a DAM while using Luminar 4 for editing. I recently upgraded my OS to Catalina which disabled some of the functions on my old version of LR. I have uninstalled LR and figured I'd use Luminar 4 as my cataloging program. It leaves a lot to be desired in that respect. So, I'm looking for an alternative. I do not want to go to the subscription for Adobe creative cloud as I have never used and don't wish to learn Photoshop and you can't get LR alone. I've been doing some internet research and have looked at Capture One (rather expensive) and ON1 Photo Raw (a little more reasonable). Both of these also have editing capabilites - not necessary for me but a nice bonus. Reading about various programs on the internet is one thing but hearing real photographers experience with these programs is better. The ability to use keywords is important to me. Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If you are looking for an independent asset manager, Digikam is a pretty powerful tool that is designed to handle very large catalogs. It is highly customizable with regards to importing, tagging, , rating and creating different groups for individual needs.

My setup is one group for all RAW imports with a sidecar XMP file written so I can import into Darktable with all tags and such, then a second group that searches for all exported (usually jpg) files that come out of my post processing.

I am not sure of how well it runs on MacOS, but the devs seem to keep all platforms up-to-date.

https://www.digikam.org/