So if we are done with LR, whats our choices?

-Duck- wrote in post #18481835
That's my point. The majority of people complaining about what they perceive Adobe will do with their data don't bother protecting themselves from other similar companies. Digital footprints are constantly tracked and you have to be a very active participant to take measures against that tracking. Data tracking is how pretty much every major corporation does business. They need to know who, what, when and where their products and services are most effective. The only real way to avoid all that is to be "off grid" as they say.

Yes. But that's not really an option, is it. But at least one can try to make one's digital footprint as small as possible. That's what I try to do anyway.

WOW! Lot's of arguments. The way I see it Adobe is either planning on getting rid of "Classic" in the future or they have the worst marketing department on the planet!! Let's face it the word "Classic" not just shouts but SCREAMS "End of Life" for our product we want you on our cloud product. Realistically they could have saved a lot of grief by simply leaving the name "Lightroom CC" and designating "Creative Cloud" and "Creative Client" This would indicate two products for two separate purposes, but no instead they scream "Move to the cloud you foolish sheep!"

In reality I suspect it is true there are too many photographers who simply can't work from the cloud. Just think of the time spent uploading terabytes of RAW files to the cloud. That alone would keep any sensible person off the cloud product. I do believe there are two target groups for photo-processing, the serious photographer who will have terabytes of data in images and the casual photographer that is more prone to sharing and showing his images. Let's face it Lightroom CC is a smart phone product at best. I doubt seriously that it could ever replace the power of a client based image developer like Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. At least not in the near future.

The real danger is the subscription based software model. Eventually we will be broke trying to keep up with all our monthly subscriptions. Let's face it - monthly bills are bad enough, we don't need monthly subscriptions to add to the burden.

Lumens wrote in post #18481883
In reality I suspect it is true there are too many photographers who simply can't work from the cloud. Just think of the time spent uploading terabytes of RAW files to the cloud.

That's the misconception. you don't upload your raw images to "the cloud" to use Lightroom if all you plan on doing is local (geographically speaking) work. Uploading any image to their server is only if you plan on doing collaborative work with teams (A.D.s, clients, etc.) or if you are a traveling photographer and want to be able to travel light without a lot of hardware. And then, only the large previews are needed, not the full res raws. Once you are in a more stable environment then you can sync your image edits with the raws. After the work is done, simply clear out the uploaded images to start a new workflow. There is absolutely no need to upload every single one of your images to the Adobe Cloud in order to use the software.

Can we please stop the arguments in this thread about whether the subscription service is good or bad? This thread is supposed to be to discuss alternatives to Lightroom, not whether you like or dislike Adobe's decision. All the added noise is making it difficult to discuss the topic at hand. There is another thread in this same forum where you can discuss Adobe's business decision.

-Duck- wrote in post #18481659
Hate to break it to you, but Google has been doing this exact thing for years. Far longer than Adobe's perceived threat.

Really? Oh man, I had no idea.

Kirk

Scoobert wrote in post #18481723
Only the second person I have ever had to put on the ignore list in years here

Ignore away, who cares. I'm just tired of all these people spewing half truths and myths about what they perceive a company is doing without putting any logical thought into what they are saying.

Software comes and goes. Software companies come and go. Prices go up. Technology moves forward. Hardware gets old. It's the way of the world. To gripe that it affects you is understandable, but to gripe ad nauseum and build conspiracy level stories around it is just beyond logic.

The interesting thing about this argument is that it is echoed (to an extent) in the retail industry with giants like Amazon and eBay. The big corporate boogieman swooping in to devour the little guys. Crushing the lives and holding the consumer hostage to their will.

It's also reflected in every single gripe I hear from professional photographers complaining about how consumer cameras and cell phones are killing the photo industry.

The loudest voices complaining are the ones saying, "why can't they leave well enough alone?" Why do they have to do this or why do they have to do that? Why can't we just keep the status quo. Sorry that my counterpoints sound harsh but the reality is still the reality. Time stand for no man and progress will be made, whether you like it or not and whether you close your ears or not.

-Duck- wrote in post #18481900
Ignore away, who cares. I'm just tired of all these people spewing half truths and myths about what they perceive a company is doing without putting any logical thought into what they are saying.

You know, Duck, it would be nice if you wouldn't constantly assume that you are the only one who understands it all and the rest of us are simply morons who don't get it. You don't and we're not. Okay? Please quack a little less aggressive?

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #18481910
Please quack a little less aggressive?

Point taken. I just get a little caught up in the fervor.

Fair enough.

I am old enough to remember Coke Classic....which eventually just returned to Coke, so who knows?

I will be keeping an eye out for products able to do what I do with Lightroom, Photoshop and the Nik Collection.

Long time LR user here (since Version 1) and on the CC photography plan with LR and PS for the past two years. I don't like the direction that Adobe is going so I started looking at alternatives. To replace PS was easy with Affinity Photo, which seems very capable and more than I will ever need. For DAM and RAW, I looked at Alien Skin X3 and Capture One Pro 10. I also tried On1 Photo RAW beta and ACDSee Ultimate, but they didn't stay installed for long.

Alien Skin X3 is very LR like and seems easy to learn coming from the Adobe offerings. It has a lot of nice presets to use as starting points, but it doesn't correct for CA and no printing option, which seems like a big omission. Next up, Capture One is a much steeper learning curve, but the more I use it I can't go back to LR. The amount of user control over colors, skin tones, adjustment layers, sharpening, etc... seem much better than LR. It is especially great with the Fuji X-T2 files and did a decent job of importing my LR catalog with basic edits intact.

So to replace LR and PS, I am going with Capture One Pro and Affinity Photo along with Nik and PortraitPro plugins that I used previously, although the plugins aren't used all that much. At this point, I'm glad I took the time to check out the alternatives.

Luminar 2018 will have an interesting ability to host plugins. So you can not only use the 40+ filters in it, you can also do a round trip to Nik, Topaz...etc. when they release their DAM early next year. Next year should be very interesting.

Eiro wrote in post #18477320
But LR CC is only $9 a month.
That's only around $120 per year for good software.

If it helps you get to the end of the race why not pay a small fee for it ?

You use your cellphone to communicate and pay monthly fee for spectrum use. It's the same thing.

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=18475409

alex66 wrote in post #18481847
Yes we all have different needs, I need Photoshop for photo based cartoons, I don't think I would need more than Lightroom or similar if I only did fairly straight photography. Others have vastly different needs than I do and they may well prefer the output of other editors or find them more intuitive. So yes all arguments should start from the premise of others having different needs and wants.

Yes, we have different situations and different needs! Adobe seems to have forgotten that its user base is not a homogeous group of folks.

• If I had an ongoing photography business, and I wore out my gear and needed to more frequently replace it, or I constantly upgraded cameras in order to avail my business to the latest features, paying $10 as an overhead to my business operation is easily justified and written off as expenses of doing business.
  
• But I do not have an ongoing business. I do not wear out my gear, nor have I found myself in 'need' of the latest model all the time...I have a Canon 40D with less than 40K exposures, and I finally upgraded to 7DII about 6 months ago...I went from LR3 for the 40D to LR5.7 for the 7DII because LR4 would not support the 7DII. I paid $99 for the LR3 perpetual license back around 2008 (relying upon my flawed memory here) when I had a Canon 30D, and then another $79 this year in March 2017...about 9 years use on one release at $99. Not being a business and absorbing $10 in my income production, as a hobbyist I saved myself about $960 in $10 monthly subscription, and ended up with $880 less expense in buying the LR5.7 upgrade, discounted from the usual $99 because LR6 has been out for a while and not LR Classic and LR CC are being offered.
  

Wilt wrote in post #18482066
[...] Adobe seems to have adopted an INDUSTRIAL model, and throw the hobbyist off the train. [...]

Interesting point. I have never quite considered Adobe products as anything other than professional tools, not hobbyist tools. Perhaps because I have always been "in the business". I don't equate their latest moves as throwing hobbyists under the train so much as progressing the pro tools to meet current pro demands (across the board, not just for photographers).