Probably going to scrap Lightroom for ON1

How do you like it for photo only editing?

I only use it for photo editing but like i said i dont like it. On of that you have to pay to update the software to the newer version even if you only had it for few months.

I only use it for photo editing but like i said i dont like it. On of that you have to pay to update the software to the newer version even if you only had it for few months.

Well, you can't have your cake and eat it. The argument for the subscription is that you always get all upgrades and on a yearly upgrade cycle you come out roughly even compared to buying every update. Affinity Photo is the only product that I can think of that truly is a one time payment. The thing is, with the classic buy and pay for updates structure you can choose to skip upgrades to save money.

 

Well, you can't have your cake and eat it. The argument for the subscription is that you always get all upgrades and on a yearly upgrade cycle you come out roughly even compared to buying every update. Affinity Photo is the only product that I can think of that truly is a one time payment. The thing is, with the classic buy and pay for updates structure you can choose to skip upgrades to save money.

You can...have a look at Davinci Resolve and FCPX video editing sofware. One time payment, free upgrades. Resolve has even a free version of it which is 80% of the paid version.

Anyway i dont mind paying for something that works... ON1 doesnt

That's a lot of IF's. Should any of those things come to pass you will have plenty of opportunity to jump ship. Why jump out of a perfectly good boat unless you have a safer and better place to land?

Except only one of those scenarios has to happen, and in my case, one did. I changed computers, and zap, no more access. I didn't jump out of the boat, I was pushed.

That's a hassle. I'd get on the phone and actually talk to someone and send an email to the CEO of Adobe if you are not satisfied. You'd be surprised how often this sort of escalation actually works if you are not getting what you need in terms of customer service. You are likely one password reset away from getting back into business.

I assume you deactivated your copy on the old computer first before trying to install and re-activate it on the new device? Have you also been on the various forums dedicated to lightroom? Adobe themselves are unlikely to be helpful as their mission is to migrate you to the cloud subscription model.

Can you access the files on your old computer at all? What happened to it - Hard drive crash? or something else. If the hard drive with your original lightroom copy works, perhaps you could extract it from your old iMac install it is an external Hard drive enclosure and see if you read the catalogue from that drive on your new computer.

You should be able to deactivate all copies from your Adobe account. Although, knowing Adobe's recent (or not so recent anymore) antics it is probably hidden in a way that makes it near impossible to find.

To go back to the main topic... I've yet to find an alternative that does all the things Lightroom does in a way that pleases me. I've not tried all the competitors (I really have better things to do), but the one features that always comes up (and is not related to UW use) is the Panorama and HDR function. Retaining RAW format for Panos as well as the the very natural looking HDR (just increased dynamic range/no tone mapping) is unfortunately unparalleled in any competitor.

For now I am sticking with LR6, but I can see myself moving to CC soon to be able to edit on my iPad on the go. I'm not happy about the pricetag, but it is by far the best solution out there. I am hopeful that one day Affinity can add a DAM to their fantastic Photo software, but at the moment they don't seem to be working on it. At least they are very quiet about any development that might be going on in that direction...

I agree that LR is currently the best among the alternatives. And I appreciate all the suggestions. Unfortunately none are working so far. Ill keep trying.

 

Except only one of those scenarios has to happen, and in my case, one did. I changed computers, and zap, no more access. I didn't jump out of the boat, I was pushed.

If you have a subscription, I suspect you forgot your password. I have Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop running on two computers without any problems or difficulty. If I have a problem, I have no doubt that I can call Adobe support and get the problem sorted, even if it takes a couple of hours on the phone. On earlier versions they helped me get discounts that I'm not entirely sure I was entitled to. Adobe is still pretty decent, they are not Google and for what you get their prices are reasonable.

I'm using LR 6 (purchase) and to this point have loved it. Sadly, it won't import raw files from my new camera - the Olympus TG-6. I tried installing the raw camera update, but that seems to have been totally ignored.

Finally I installed the latest raw converter and converted all the raw images to DNG and was able to import them into LR 6.

But - I don't consider that ideal.

Today I got an email offering me Luminar 3 for a pretty good "one time & forever" price. I'm tempted. Some on-line comparisons show the latest (May 2019) version is a pretty good compeditor for LR.

Sadly, the trial I downloaded won't install. I have a call (email really) in to their tech support but so far it's not a promising start.

@ScubaLute: I don’t have a subscription, I have the standalone version of LR6 that was sold as a perpetual license, as explained in my first post. My password is fine and I can sign in/out of my Adobe account no problem. When I changed computers and signed in, a box popped up saying I could activate a 30 day trial of the software I licensed years ago. Nothing I do will change that, Adobe does not respond, and when the 30 days expired I lost access. Call me a cynic but this sure feels like Adobe has found a way to take the “perpetual” away from the remaining standalone users. If you have a phone number that gets you through to actually helpful Adobe tech support please share it!

You normally make that go away by enetering your product key that came with the purchase.Try unisntalling it and reinstalling it and find the spot where you enter your product key.

Quick update: Within 24 hours of my tech support email about Luminar3, I got a reply with a link to an actual windows (.msi) installer. That worked perfectly.

I started looking at Luminar3 due to an emailed deal that was slightly better than 50% of the standard price, which also hit my personal "sweet spot" for stuff I'll buy just to try it out. After playing with the trial version for a little while, I bought the full version at the sale price.

The good news is that because Luminar3 is updated very regularly, the latest version (May 2019) easily imported my Olympus TG-6 raw images. Sweet.

As I still have LR6 (full purchase) and now Luminar3, I'll post any findings/thoughts as I start to use it and get a better sense of how it compares to LR6.

What does the subscription option offer that version 6 does not?

There are a number of LR Guru's that can comment on this. Check out https://laurashoe.com/beginners-getting-started-with-lightroom/. Laura ran a webinar earlier this year comparing LR6 to Classic which convinced me to move to Classic. Bottom line, there are no new features being added to LR6.

 

There are a number of LR Guru's that can comment on this. Check out https://laurashoe.com/beginners-getting-started-with-lightroom/. Laura ran a webinar earlier this year comparing LR6 to Classic which convinced me to move to Classic. Bottom line, there are no new features being added to LR6.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

I never bought into Lightroom, I've been a Photoshop user for over 20 years and currently use a standalone copy of CS6. I see no value of note being added to the programs by Adobe. Lightroom to me is just not capable enough it does not even have levels adjustment available which to me is so fundamental I could not imagine using imaging software without - yes there are workarounds but they are not so straight forward to use.

The other issue with Lightroom is that the format your adjustments are stored in is proprietary. Yes you can export tifs and jpegs but most people don't I store layered tifs from Photoshop and they are widely readable. But if you can't install standalone LR on your new computer or have other issues you are locked out of all the adjustments you have done. Likewise if you discontinue your subscription you are instantly locked out of your adjusted images unless you have exported a tiff file as part of your workflow.

When I bought a new camera that CS6 could not read the RAW format for, I bought standalone Capture 1 Pro. It has DAM and the raw engine is arguably superior to Adobe Camera Raw. The learning curve can be a little steep, but it does have good tutorials available and you can adjust levels in raw development, I've found it to be a good solution.

For someone who is not a Lightroom user you sure know a lot about how you think people fail to use it effectively. Seriously if you don't export to jpg then why did you take the photos? If course everyone does that!

And the images are not locked up if you can't buy the apps. Worst case you install the trial version and have a month to take care of business.

Finally you can save xmp sidebars for every image and then Photoshop or other apps can read your edited Raw images.

I never said the photos are locked up- it's the changes you did to them that are locked away - you can see the end result in whatever you have exported but if you want to make changes later for whatever reason you have to start from scratch. I hear about people losing access regularly and a poster up above is going through this for a 15,000 image catalogue. Layered tiffs don't have this issue.

I never said the photos are locked up- it's the changes you did to them that are locked away - you can see the end result in whatever you have exported but if you want to make changes later for whatever reason you have to start from scratch. I hear about people losing access regularly and a poster up above is going through this for a 15,000 image catalogue. Layered tiffs don't have this issue.

No one should fear getting cut off from LR. The XMP sidecar files that can optionally be created for every single image in LR are imported by other apps and reflect your edits. Adobe Bridge (a Free image management and viewing tool) can read the XMP files to incorporate your LR edits to a RAW file for example. Bridge can then bluk convert/export to JPG, Tiff, etc as needed. So the idea that your LR files, edits, or catalog might be lost is exaggerated. There is a simple solution to alleviate this concern.

https://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-use-lightroom-edits-outside-of-lightroom--cms-21776