Is Lightroom Classic end-of-life?

[Victoria Bampton]

Lots of people are expressing concerns about Lightroom being "on the way out". I've been mulling it over, and I'd love to get your thoughts on this logic (and to be clear, I don't have inside information in this)

Is Lightroom dying?

Since Wednesday's announcements, one of the main questions on everyone's minds is whether Lightroom (as we know it) is dying.

Adobe says it's not, but they also said they had no plans to remove perpetual licenses too, so can we believe them? I don't know what Adobe is planning, and none of us can foresee the future, but we can consider a little logic...

Firstly, what's causing the concerns?


Adobe released Lightroom CC

Yes, Lightroom now has a little baby brother. But Photoshop's had a baby brother for years without getting killed off, so that doesn't mean much.


They gave away Lightroom's name

That's more telling. They clearly see the new app as the future of Lightroom. But like any newborn baby, its current state gives few clues about how it will turn out when it grows up.


They called 'the old one' Classic

Some say that sounds like it's old and in its way out. Others think it's the dictionary definition of "of recognized and established value" or "traditional". The obvious solution would be to call it Pro, but that would suggest the new baby Lightroom wouldn't be suitable for Pros when it grows up. The fact they avoided that suggests they plan on making the new Lightroom CC suitable for pro workflows in future too. That's reassuring.


Classic didn't get many new features

It's true, it didn't get a long list of features. On the other hand, Lightroom users have been begging for performance improvements and bug fixes for years. They start working on these issues and now we're complaining? And why bother to work on these issues if they're planning to kill it off soon?


Learn from history

I can't foresee the future, although it would be a handy skill. We can, however, learn from what they've done in the past. Let's take Photoshop as an example. They announced that future versions would only be available on subscription, but they kept selling the perpetual license. Once the vast majority of users had moved to subscription, they then killed off perpetual. They've just done the same with Lightroom.


What can we learn from this? Adobe makes some weird decisions at times, but they are good at making money. They don't kill off a profitable part of their business until most customers have moved over to a new offering.


How does that help? Ok, let's assume that they're eventually going to kill off Lightroom Classic. History would suggest they wouldn't do that until they have a viable alternative for the majority of their customers. Not all, but most.


Now let's imagine that alternative-in-waiting is the new baby Lightroom CC app, all grown up. There are currently some major limitations that make it impossible for most users to migrate:

• It's lacking important features. That'll take time to develop, and they're looking to the community to learn which features are most important.
• It requires fast internet. Either the majority of the world needs superfast internet, which would take a long time, or they need some kind of selective sync, or local network sync, or...?
• You don't want some or any of your photos stored in the cloud, either for privacy or space reasons. Ok, selective sync again? Some kind of local storage only switch?

Once they've addressed those issues - and no doubt a few more besides - then potentially Lightroom CC could have tempted most of Lightroom's users, and they could be in a position to kill of Lightroom Classic.


But that couldn't happen overnight, so how long would it take? I don't know, but that same time span also gives other companies time to develop other applications.


My point? Even if we assume that Lightroom is on death row, there's no rush to make a decision about what's next. So many things can change in that time. Lightroom CC may grow up to be even better than Lightroom Classic (they must have learned a few lessons along the way!!) or another company may bring out a new superduper competitor.


I'm not saying that is or isn't going to happen - I don't know the future any more than you do - but even if we look at a worst case scenario of our beloved Lightroom being killed off someday, logically there's no reason to panic anytime soon.

 

[IanW]

I take your points Jim.
I actually didn’t know you could use LRweb to upload originals. That gives me another option. Thanks.
I think the more I do with LRCC the more I’m realising just how restrictive LRCC only would be. After being impressed initially I am finding my preferences/requirements swinging back to LR Classic.
At present I am scanning my back catalog of negatives & slides and there is no way I could accomplish this task with LRCC only. No file renaming, folder organisation, export options, watched folder etc......

Regards
Ian

 

[IanW]

I take your point Jim.
I didn’t know I could upload originals via LRweb. So that’s another option. Thanks.
After being impressed initially by LRCC I am swinging back towards Classic.
I am currently scanning my back catalog of negatives & slides and certainly could not accomplish this very easily with LRCC alone. No file renaming, folder organisation, watched folder etc......

Thanks again for your input Jim

Regards

Ian

 

[Diko]

I say: Go to adobe.com forum and make suggestions if you want something to change. But don't look back.

Things always change. And change is good. Many people didn't liked those changes at first.Do you remember the PS 3, 4, 5... etc. Then came the CS (Creative Suite), man did I hated this change - it would always perplex me on the version number. And for what to show there are Illustrator and Designer. Now love Illustrator though not using it (that much). CC - after Cs 1,2 3... 6, CS 6 now seems old. We have the CC 2014, 15..18.

The only pain in the neck is actually the misunderstanding for the forking of LR. Now we are kind of babysittin' the LR's little brother, that way we tell it how we want it to behave. Neglect it and in later iteration we would not enjoy its improper behaviour at all.

For the moment it's clumsy the least (no adjustment sync is so stupid... copy/pasting to each separated photo like idiots), no sharp mask, no proper final sharpening, and many others I guess. But if we don't tell Adobe what we are missing, they "might" not change it. If I only complain - 1 in thousand wouldn't make them believe it is needed.

Many people are concerned about their RAW images on the NET - well guess what - each time you google - your preferences are known by everyone. Every time you wonder if you need something and look for it on the NET - there it is. The next day my facebook offers me to buy it for the weeks to come.

Every photo on instagram, every thought expressed on Facebook - is being recorded to the "Cloud of Things" - And it's cloudy there. No one knows who can and who will be looking at you and your virtual persona. As upset as we might be - the only thing left is to have our RAW files backed up and go on with the cloud thing. As long as it delivers for the right price. I am fine! How about you?

And is the Classic dead? Nah - Classics never die ;-)

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Now we are kind of babysittin' the LR's little brother, that way we tell it how we want it to behave. Neglect it and in later iteration we would not enjoy its improper behaviour at all.

That’s a great analogy. I wish I’d thought of that! We can ignore it as the pesky little brother, or we can mould it into what we want it to become.

 

[Jonathan Buckley]

Regarding the pesky little brother analogy...

Yes, I agree, but I see a potential difficulty here.

Forgive the generalisations but if, after the dust has settled, the majority of heavy duty professionals stick with Classic for the time being and most early adopters of LRCC are the keen amateurs then I’m not sure that the Classic users will have the time or interest to monitor and help contribute their opinions to the future development of the 'little brother' LRCC - they’ll be too busy complaining about what is going on in Classic. So inevitably LRCC is more likely to be influenced by what the keen amateurs want. Some LR users who have been complaining about Adobe pandering to amateurs in recent LR updates may consider this a good thing but the danger is that this may drive the two programs further apart.

Of course that’s no bad thing for Adobe financially but it would be a shame as I can see that in the distant future LRCC could be developed into a great program for pros if the feature set is made comparable and all the issues of bandwidth/ flexible offline/online storage etc have become clear/been sorted.

There is an undeniable truth that whilst the needs of enthusiasts and professionals overlap in major areas they are still very different in terms of workflow and functionality priorities which makes it hard to combine into one program - hence all these changes.

So,trying to be positive, perhaps in the distant future Classic will have to be phased out but a new program will be released catering for pros but using what has been learned from the coding/structure of LRCC. I guess whether this happens or not will depend on the number of sales and subscriptions of the two programs which will show how much each market is worth. In the meantime anyone got any name suggestions? ;-)

 

[tspear]

Adobe I think has missed the basics when it comes to UI design.
Even the new Lr CC fails on this note.
If you want to cater to such a wide gamut of users, the UI needs the ability to be changed by the user. The company should provide a few defaults, but let the user drive it. See macphun workspaces for example. There are many others also which do this.
Such functionality is rather basic to a system, and a lot of effort to add later. No easy way to know if Adobe has done so, and it was incomplete for this release so not enabled.

Tim

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Changeable workspaces do cause as much confusion as the benefits they create. Look at the number of people who lose panels in LR6, and they're only hidden!

 

[rob211]

Changeable workspaces do cause as much confusion as the benefits they create. Look at the number of people who lose panels in LR6, and they're only hidden!

Gee, even Bridge allows for workspaces, so I dunno if Lr CC should be stuck with Lr's modules going forward. They are gonna have to think about that; hard to add Maps without some significant changes. Which makes me worry that they could never get Classic's georeferencing into CC, as it would tax the interface, which is nice.

And that's why I think Classic should stay where it can manage the boring, ugly tasks that you maybe only do occasionally. Like say at import. All that metadata stuff, maybe publishing and printing, web, slideshows. Let CC do what it does best: synching, mobile, easy adjustment. Since the applications could easily exchange info via XMP sidecars I don't see what this couldn't work. Indeed, some of use have been using the classic (retro?) grandma-of-an-application Bridge for this. Maybe some of Classic will become like that.

 

[mak65]

When my LR6 perpetual no longer works with my OS or a new camera can't be recognized any longer -- so long Adobe.

I will not pay "perpetual" monthly fees for it.

 

[Hoggy]

I will not pay "perpetual" monthly fees for it.

What they at least ought to do is allow some sort of a fully-functioning perpetual 'escape clause' - for people that may have come into such a misfortune so as to not be able to afford a subscription any longer.. Say even after 3 or 4 years of subscribing, they get to keep a FULLY functioning snapshot of the current release they have, bugs and all -- and Adobe help-desk support for say, a month after that.

Chances are, that unless you're dead, you will still need a hobby - for us serious amateurs/hobbyists that maybe splurged on camera equipment they had no business buying in the first place.
For me, the availability of a fully-functioning perpetual version to fall back to was that escape clause - a comfort to know that that would be a possibility if/when I can't afford to sell Adobe my soul any longer.

In the meantime, I notice that ON1 is gaining HDR and pano features in the next [2018] version - and they say they are working on stacks and virtual copies, too.. Something to take note of.... And they at least claim that perpetual will always exist -- not just indefinitely.
.... Could be an alternative to the continual sheep/cattle herding that Adobe IS doing: the Nooooo! -- well, ok, what are you going to do -- Here, please take my money Adobe, PLEASE! ----- cycle, that they are for-sure counting on. The people that have gotten to that last step apparently don't ever think something bad could happen to them - or they are rich enough to not have to worry (must be nice, I imagine).

(However, DO note that if you get a new camera that isn't supported in your perpetual v6, there is the possibility of converting to DNG.)

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Gee, even Bridge allows for workspaces, so I dunno if Lr CC should be stuck with Lr's modules going forward. They are gonna have to think about that; hard to add Maps without some significant changes.

Lightroom CC already has maps...

 

[Hoggy]

Changeable workspaces do cause as much confusion as the benefits they create. Look at the number of people who lose panels in LR6, and they're only hidden!

While that seems to be the case with Lightroom [Classic], there are not many people posting about the same regarding Capture One and it's configurable panels at Luminous Landscapes. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever even seen one at LuLa, at least - but I could be wrong of course. And the main complaint regarding configurable panels with Photoshop seems to be that they don't stick after a restart (which I've had happen to me too, even with as few attempts at me trying to use it as I have).

And considering the new 'LR CC' (aka Lightroom Elements) is, or should be, just catering to the selfie/more-advanced-happy-snapper crowd, a strong case could be made for that product sticking to static panels. As one of the desperate hopes is that Classic can start concentrating more on features desired by professionals and serious enthusiasts, a strong case could now be made that LR Classic (aka REAL) could start acquiring features like configurable panels & modes. .... Us big boys and girls should be able to handle it. :whistling:

ETA: Oh... And considering the spaghetti code concern from earlier.. Wouldn't Photoshop itself be spaghetti code by now? It's been around much longer than Lightroom Real, yet it's still here.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Yes, I think the panel disappearing problem is not a good comparison, because this is a pretty much undocumented feature. And because Lightroom is not supposed to be configurable, you won't expect that it is a little configurable after all. I've not seen any complaints about missing Photoshop panels either.

 

[johnbeardy]

The thing is, as with Photoshop in the past, C1's interface is so cluttered you simply have to configure your own panels. Saying it's an advantage is to make a virtue of necessity, isn't it? If Adobe do their job right with LRCC, there's no need for configurable panels - except maybe for a left handed workflow.

Remember, Hoggy, Photoshop has had a number of big rewrites. Also, I wouldn't exaggerate the issue of spaghetti code in Lightroom.

John

 

[Hoggy]

The thing is, as with Photoshop in the past, C1's interface is so cluttered you simply have to configure your own panels. Saying it's an advantage is to make a virtue of necessity, isn't it? If Adobe do their job right with LRCC, there's no need for configurable panels - except maybe for a left handed workflow.

I tend to be rather neutral on the configurable panels issue in Classic (I couldn't care less about Lightroom Elements).. There are times when I think it might be nice, though. Hopefully as technology progresses, Lightroom Classic could acquire more and more non-destructive tools similar to Photoshop - which might necessitate configurable panels/modes vs. having to scroll through dozens of collapsed panels [in solo mode] to get to something.

However, during my trials of C1 at dot releases, I did start liking the configurability a bit. You can make it as uncluttered, or as cluttered as one would want. Now as far as the menus being cluttered - well....that's another story. It certainly does take getting used to, and it could definitely be more configurable - but the same might be said for many programs.

(And if you've ever used Directory Opus on Windows, you might see just how heavy configurability could make things confusing.. There is even an 'advanced' search box in preferences. So that's the angle I'm coming from. :wacky: )

Remember, Hoggy, Photoshop has had a number of big rewrites. Also, I wouldn't exaggerate the issue of spaghetti code in Lightroom.

I didn't know PS went through some big rewrites. Hopefully we will be able to say the same for Classic.... Despite it's essential non-existence within the Adobe website.

 

[tspear]

The thing is, as with Photoshop in the past, C1's interface is so cluttered you simply have to configure your own panels. Saying it's an advantage is to make a virtue of necessity, isn't it? If Adobe do their job right with LRCC, there's no need for configurable panels - except maybe for a left handed workflow.

Remember, Hoggy, Photoshop has had a number of big rewrites. Also, I wouldn't exaggerate the issue of spaghetti code in Lightroom.

John

Not sure about C1; but I have designed multiple systems before and we built it with a configurable UI. Therefore, the default was just throw everything in; which was supper cluttered and ugly.

Tim

 

[rob211]

Lightroom CC already has maps...

View attachment 9979

Yes, that's a good example of the difference between Classic and CC. CC has a "map." For photos that are already georeferenced. I dunno why they even bother. You can't do anything with it except go out to Google maps. One of Jeffrey Friedl's plugins does more; with that plugin you can go to any number of other maps, Google Earth, etc. It's literally as far from the Maps module in Classic as you could get and still be able to say "map" in a feature list, and shows how far off the mark CC is when it comes to metadata features. Anyone doing georeferencing is going to have to use other software.

CC's competitors do a much better job, say both Apple's Photos and Mylio. Both allow editing using the maps. Anyone having to do a lot of georeferencing still wouldn't choose those, but for just viewing or using already georeferenced images they are much better. Both have views where images are grouped by location. Given Adobe's hype of Sensei, you'd think it would leverage that to give say some nice calendar or place views, or sort by locations as Apple or Google does. Google will use its AI to put together little trip slideshows, complete with a map. Adobe's Sensei apparently doesn't have the smarts to do that. I had considered using CC for mostly galleries and sharing, as I've done with Google, Apple or Mylio. But it doesn't cut it for that, and this is one more reason why.

The thing that really irks is that if they had plugin support they'd never have to do much more than what they've got now; Mr Friedl has done it for them. I'd stay around after Classic if that's the case. If not, I'll have no choice but to switch again; I'd only moved back to Lr from Aperture after they implemented the Maps module. I suspect there may be lots of folks that heavily depend on certain, less used features in Classic like georeferencing (like says sports photographers or wildlife photographers who depend heavily on controlled keyword hierarchies. Adobe will loose them if Classic goes and the less sexy features like that never make it to CC. Another example would be the folks that use external controllers for Lr; I don't think that's available in CC and those things can cost a lot of money.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I think so much of this discussion is premature. Lightroom CC is a 1.0 version that is out for one week now. Nobody knows whether or not it will support plugins in the future, or what it will be able to do by itself in the future. We only know what it can do today, and obviously that is not the same as 10 year old Lightroom Classic. Or Apple Photos or Mylio for that matter.

 

[Duncanh]

I think so much of this discussion is premature. Lightroom CC is a 1.0 version that is out for one week now. Nobody knows whether or not it will support plugins in the future, or what it will be able to do by itself in the future. We only know what it can do today, and obviously that is not the same as 10 year old Lightroom Classic. Or Apple Photos or Mylio for that matter.

I definitely agree with that and also this thread is "Is Lightroom Classic end-of-life?" which is the most important thing to me. Should I be looking elsewhere? If Adobe doesn't clearly explain their roadmap for the two Lightroom versions it could end up being a self fulfilling prophecy with people not wanting to invest the time in Lightroom Classic in case it is not developed. I've watched a couple of Topaz Studio webinars recently and have been quite impressed. No DAM but at one of the webinars someone asked if they had any plans and they said yes but no timescales, this was before Adobe's announcement, I wonder now if they may think about it far more seriously and bring forward any plans they have.

 

[PhilBurton]

I definitely agree with that and also this thread is "Is Lightroom Classic end-of-life?" which is the most important thing to me. Should I be looking elsewhere? If Adobe doesn't clearly explain their roadmap for the two Lightroom versions it could end up being a self fulfilling prophecy with people not wanting to invest the time in Lightroom Classic in case it is not developed. I've watched a couple of Topaz Studio webinars recently and have been quite impressed. No DAM but at one of the webinars someone asked if they had any plans and they said yes but no timescales, this was before Adobe's announcement, I wonder now if they may think about it far more seriously and bring forward any plans they have.

I hope that Adobe is reading all these threads and parsing out the reasonable points, and seriously contemplating how to respond. These are not "normal times" for Adobe, so the "normal approach" of never publishing a roadmap will need to be changed. I know that companies usually don't publish roadmaps (why tip off the competition?) but "usually" is not helpful here.

Phil

 

[Duncanh]

I come from a business software background and agree publishing a feature by feature roadmap isn't usually, as you say why tip off competitor and also tie yourself to prioritising features. But particularly when you are making big changes to a software product or developing another option in tandem often software houses will publish the reasons for the changes and where long term they are planning to go to ensure users don't fear they may be left behind and make other plans.

 

[tspear]

I think it interesting how people keep talking about how it will tip the hand of competitors.
Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Intuit... All of them announce partial road maps; a year or more in advance for a lot of products.
Is it the complete story? no.
Is it things that will give the competitors a heads up? no.
Anyway, Adobe could release a lot of information to make people happy which does not give away anything.
e.g. For Lr CC, what are the top three features to be added that already exist in Lr Classic?
For Lr Classic, what are the top twenty issues which have been requested?

Do not make it harder than it has to be.

Tim

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Anyway, Adobe could release a lot of information to make people happy which does not give away anything.

At this point, I’m not sure how much people would listen or believe them. I think actions will speak louder than words. Watch them for 6 months or a year and see what they do, and make your decisions based on progress.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[tspear]

At this point, I’m not sure how much people would listen or believe them. I think actions will speak louder than words. Watch them for 6 months or a year and see what they do, and make your decisions based on progress.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

A good part of credibility is matching actions to words. Right now, based on a multitude of factors, Adobe has little to no credibility or trust.
Effectively, no communication is a blind faith statement that says "trust us, you will like it".
Therefore, in six months if Adobe has new releases; Adobe will have not regained any credibility or trust. The reason is because there is nothing to measure against.

Instead, the I am left guessing. If Adobe stays silent, and depends on the actions defining them, it will take years to regain any trust or accountability. I was an early adopter of the subscription plan. The lack of substantial changes or advancements, or new features over the three years, has left me rather jaded. I only renewed a couple of months ago because I did not take the time to research alternatives. If I can only go on the actions, and have nothing to effectively measure Adobe against, I would have to likely wait the equivalent of two normal product cycles. That is about four years, which means for Adobe to regain my trust, I have to give Adobe another $480; when I have already paid $360 for Adobe Lr 6. Somehow, that just leaves me wanting. It also leaves me questioning the value proposition. Adobe has some functionality I considered critical to my flow, but at that ongoing price point, I now have to ask the question, is it really that critical?

Minor point. I do not use Ps, and I doubt I ever will. If I need Ps, I probably need to take better pictures to start with (my cynical position as a hobbyist) hence, I never placed a value to Ps as part of the subscription plan.

Tim

 

[johnbeardy]

Will it take years, Tim, or a series of perfectly-deliverable, no-collateral-damage, highly-visible improvements in areas other than Camera Raw that demonstrate a bit of love for the product? It's not as if Adobe lacks choice of features that need a few finishing touches that make them feel polished. For example, these just-do-its might include:

• A keyboard shortcut for Purple
• When an image is loaded in Develop, change the grad/radial/brush icon if that image has that adjustment
• Increase the number of most-recently entered values from 10 to 30
• If a field is available as a smart collection criterion, make it available in Library Filter - that may be more difficult but imagine the title or caption field in the filter

I'm sure everyone can think of similar ones, but I'm trying to bring my knowledge of the data structure and SDK to bear. It's a matter of getting the most bangs for the development buck, and of attracting eyeballs. As I keep saying, where's the beef?

John