Developing an exit strategy

[Roelof Moorlag]

While i will probably continue to use Lightroom (Classic) over the coming years i'm determined to develop an exit strategy in the meantime.

When Adobe introduced their CC plan some years ago they promised us there would be a perpetual, standalone version of Lightroom available. A few days ago they breaked that promise.
Now they promise not te abandon Lightroom (despite they called it 'classic', how obvious do you want it?). I don't beleive them anymore.

All the development and marketing is aimed at 'Cloud' and that is not the direction i want. So, i'm orientating on my options and i am interested in the opinions or experiences from others.

1. DAM function (library)
Are there programs available that have the same kind of functionality than Lightroom? A few years back i switched over from Phase One Expression Medio Pro. That proces took me years... I loved the program but it was abandoned by the developers (first Microsoft, later Phase One).

2. RAW editing
There are a lot of options here and many good editors on the market. However, i liked the integration of Editor + DAM that Lightroom offered. Are there alternatives here?

3. Develophistory
All developing activity is stored in the Lightroom catalog. When i want to use another program, it wil not 'see' this. Probably i have to start over again...(?).

I adopted a DNG workflow so these are my digital negatives. I know i can write the (some?) history back into the DNG file but i think these are instructions only Lightroom understands?
So, this does not help me to transfer to another platform.
Are there other ways to do this?

4. Metadata
Most metadata that was added afterwards is stored in de Lightroom catalog also. I'm confident that there are options to put these data back into the file and that it can be transfered to another DAM. However, there is some complexity...
The fields i'm using most are: Keywords (Hierchical), People (in fact also a special keyword), Synonyms on some keywords, Location data (also geo coordinates) and the 'BIG note' data from John Beardsworth.

5. Organisation
I have quite a lot collections and smart collections i want to preserve in some way. I brought them in from Expression Media with help from 'helperkeywords' as i call them. Keywords starting with @ to distinguish them easily from 'normal' keywords (to find them while constructing smart collections).
I think i'm going to rebuild all my normal collections into smart collections and add the necesary keywords to the photo's for that. This information can be used later by anohter program again.

6. All other stuff
Lightroom does offer some specific functions i expect to lose while migrating to another platform like publishing services. I can live whith that but when someone has an good idea...
I'n not using the Album, Presentation or Web module. So no challenge there

I'm realy intested in the experience from others in these matters!
Did i forget something?

 

[johnbeardy]

More questions than I have time to answer, so I'll pick one - DNG. Remember the old days of using iView? One of the great things about DNG was that it has an embedded preview that shows the image's adjusted state. So I could adjust in ACR, but manage in Extensis and then in iView.

As you mention BigNote, the exit strategy would be to ask someone to write a script to copy that metadata to an IPTC field, like Instructions.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Yes, you forgot one thing: having patience. Why don't you wait and see how things develop before taking a hasty decision that you may regret later? Even if Lightroom Classic does get terminated one day, by that time Lightroom CC might be all you need and more. It might have selective sync so you don't have to store everything in the cloud, and it might have all the functionality that Lightroom Classic has today.

I'm not happy with the situation either, but my strategy is that I take decisions like this if and when they become necessary, not years before.

 

[davidedric]

I'm also in the wait and see camp. IF Adobe do significantly change the positioning of their product, that sounds like a significant shift in the overall market and will open up opportunities for competitors. I wouldn't like to predict how that market will look in two or three years time.

Dave

 

[Harley_Rider]

Thanks Roelof, great post. My major concern with Lightroom Classic is that it is now a subscription plan; I prefer the perpetual/standalone license.

 

[Gnits]

I am also in the wait and see camp, but I want Adobe to know that if they evolve to only cloud based digital assets then I will no longer be an Adobe customer. Adobe needs to understand that now.

In the past I have recommended Lr to lots and lots of people. Until I can see a clear long term roadmap I will refrain from promoting Lr.

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

Realy, i'm certainly not moving away from Lightroom the coming few years!
My experience with leaving Expression Media was not positive at all so i'm very careful now.

However, the recent developments and the direction they go triggered me that i have no exit strategy. I feel a lot safer when it's possible to leave whenever i want to. So, see it as precautionary measure, no more.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

The point is that if and when you do need this exit strategy, the situation and the available options will probably be so different than now, that thinking about it now is a waste of time in my opinion.

 

[Gnits]

I have my exit strategy already worked out and happy that I have done so.

I am hoping I do not have to adopt it and will be easy to modify it as circumstances change (as one does with any strategy).

I will continue to use Lr Classic, but the moment I discover that I can no longer use digital assets from data stores of my choosing then bye bye Adobe.

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

I have my exit strategy already worked out and happy that I have done so

Do you want to share it?

 

[Gnits]

Do you want to share it?

I have a custom built app which is a Lr Pre-Processor.... which does a better job of getting my images from my cards to my hard drives than Lr, in the folders I want, with the filenames that I want and with the controls that I want and in a more efficient and user friendly way than the Lr Import module provides. I can easily point this towards another application.

I have an excellent end to end workflow and folder / filename structure. Luckily for me I deliberately avoided using Virtual Images in Lr and never became dependent on Collections or Keywords.

I am already familiar with Capture One and own a Capture One license. That will be my fall back raw engine, but I will have the opportunity to evaluate any other options available at that time. If we get to the point where I have to abandon Adobe / Lr then I will be happy to financially support a competitor. I will be paying more attention to Capture One developments and can only assume they are in a happy place to-day.

I am hoping that Photoshop will still be part of my workflow, if not I like what Affinity are doing.

I gave up on Illustrator a long time ago and use 2d/3d Cad software instead, where the software really understands how to align vector objects, rather than getting confused with stroke and fill settings.

I have CS6 versions of Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat Pro and Illustrator as perpetual licenses. They will keep me going for a long time. I do not need the latest and greatest in Photoshop, just layers, brushes, masks, adjustment layers, curves, etc... The bits of Photoshop which have been around for years.

I dislike the InDesign GUI, but use it because of how poor the Lr Book module is. I also know how to write Javascript mini apps to automate many of the tasks I need to do within InDesign, so the ancient GUI is not such a problem. I can use Microsoft Word and or Powerpoint, with their powerful templates and have automated the ingestion of images into professionally presented pdf documents (or books) better than the Adobe Lr Book Module and Bridge template options. (EG Images automatically placed on the golden mean on a page, with the Title centred under it, automatically catering for Landscape and Portrait formats and the images sized on the page for the correct PPI).

I have never been impressed with Adobe web portfolio style offerings because if I want to use them I have to manually retype the Caption and Title data under the images. My workflow makes sure the correct Title and Caption is already in those metadata fields. Crazy that I would need to retype. Bad for quality, bad for efficiency

I have accounts with Smugmug, Squarespace, etc for web platforms.

I thing the Microsoft 365 Office solution is really good value and intend to maintain this service. Unlike Adobe, Microsoft got Office 365 right from version 1.

Hopefully, Lr CC will (in time) allow me to use my digital assets from where I decide to keep them, allow me to print my images in an efficient and quality manner to my printers and fill the other gaps in the current release of CC, so these scenarios become academic.

If not .... I will survive.

 

[PhilBurton]

Yes, you forgot one thing: having patience. Why don't you wait and see how things develop before taking a hasty decision that you may regret later? Even if Lightroom Classic does get terminated one day, by that time Lightroom CC might be all you need and more. It might have selective sync so you don't have to store everything in the cloud, and it might have all the functionality that Lightroom Classic has today.

I'm not happy with the situation either, but my strategy is that I take decisions like this if and when they become necessary, not years before.

End of Life means that Adobe will stop further development and at a later date, support. It does not mean that the Classic product would suddenly stop working. I'm pretty unhappy about the new products, and the end of perpetual licenses. Adobe's EOL announcement does not mean that Classic will suddenly stop working.

Phil

 

[Johan Elzenga]

End of Life means that Adobe will stop further development and at a later date, support. It does not mean that the Classic product would suddenly stop working. I'm pretty unhappy about the new products, and the end of perpetual licenses. Adobe's EOL announcement does not mean that Classic will suddenly stop working.

Phil

What EOL announcement? There is no EOL announcement for Lightroom Classic, only for the perpetual license system. However, because Lightroom Classic is a CC-subscription product, Adobe could really kill it off by also not offering a subscription any longer, which means that Classic will stop working (at least the Develop module and the Map module will). I worry about that if and when it happens, though.

 

[PhilBurton]

What EOL announcement? There is no EOL announcement for Lightroom Classic, only for the perpetual license system. However, because Lightroom Classic is a CC-subscription product, Adobe could really kill it off by also not offering a subscription any longer, which means that Classic will stop working (at least the Develop module and the Map module will). I worry about that if and when it happens, though.

When (if) Adobe discontinues sales of Lightroom Classic, that is effectively the EOL announcement. I think Adobe is too smart not to do a formal EOL, because that starts the clock running on eventual discontinuance on support.

Lots of smaller companies don't EOL products officially, so they linger on in the pricelist forever.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

When (if) Adobe discontinues sales of Lightroom Classic, that is effectively the EOL announcement. I think Adobe is too smart not to do a formal EOL, because that starts the clock running on eventual discontinuance on support.

Lots of smaller companies don't EOL products officially, so they linger on in the pricelist forever.

The problem here is that there are no 'sales of Lightroom Classic'. Lightroom Classic is subscription only. So the question is: would Adobe announce that they simply won't support Classic anymore, but you can still subscribe to it (and 'Indefintely', of course )? Or would they announce that subscriptions to Classic will end by a certain date. In that case they will really kill it.

 

[tspear]

Has anyone looked at Darktable?
darktable | the photo workflow software

The manuals show they have a rather impressive feature set, and the ability to import a fair amount of settings from Lr via XMP files.

Note: Windows is on an alpha release.

Tim

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

Has anyone looked at Darktable?

I have 2.0.1 installed on my Macbook and i played with it some.
It's userinterface looks like Lightroom and that's why i tried some of the usual Lightroom stuff but that doesn't work, like making smart collections. It dissapointed me that it looks like Lightroom but did not behave like it. However, that's maybe not quite honest and it's better to give it a real change and test it properly. The recent version is 2.2.5 is see so maybe i give it a (new) try.
Maybe someone else tried it?

 

[tspear]

I have 2.0.1 installed on my Macbook and i played with it some.
It's userinterface looks like Lightroom and that's why i tried some of the usual Lightroom stuff but that doesn't work, like making smart collections. It dissapointed me that it looks like Lightroom but did not behave like it. However, that's maybe not quite honest and it's better to give it a real change and test it properly. The recent version is 2.2.5 is see so maybe i give it a (new) try.
Maybe someone else tried it?

Be aware, the terminology is not the same. Film Roll = Collection. While Collection = Smart Collection.
This is based on the manuals. I have not downloaded and installed it yet. Still reading the manuals.

Tim

 

[AllanH]

Has anyone tried Aftershot Pro lately? I used it before Corel bought it several years ago.

 

[PhilBurton]

I have 2.0.1 installed on my Macbook and i played with it some.
It's userinterface looks like Lightroom and that's why i tried some of the usual Lightroom stuff but that doesn't work, like making smart collections. It dissapointed me that it looks like Lightroom but did not behave like it. However, that's maybe not quite honest and it's better to give it a real change and test it properly. The recent version is 2.2.5 is see so maybe i give it a (new) try.
Maybe someone else tried it?

Roelof,

Open source software is based on volunteer efforts. You can't expect Darktable to match LR feature-for-feature. It costs less, but you have to decide if the cost tradeoff is worth it to you, or not.

Phil

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

Open source software is based on volunteer efforts. You can't expect Darktable to match LR feature-for-feature. It costs less, but you have to decide if the cost tradeoff is worth it to you, or not.

Yes, i'm aware of it. I'm not looking for free or cheap solutions, only for alternatives to investigate. I'm surprised there are so few options for DAM.

 

[johnbeardy]

10 years ago the low end players weren't making much money, Roelof, and since then the top end of the market has moved further upmarket towards enterprise scale, and to the cloud.

 

[tspear]

10 years ago the low end players weren't making much money, Roelof, and since then the top end of the market has moved further upmarket towards enterprise scale, and to the cloud.

But for us hobby photographers, who are more serious than the selphie crowd, but not as serious as the professional. Has some of the alternatives advanced enough to be acceptable?

Tim

 

[PhilBurton]

10 years ago the low end players weren't making much money, Roelof, and since then the top end of the market has moved further upmarket towards enterprise scale, and to the cloud.

If you have enterprise bucks to spend you do have options. If you have consumer bucks, the choices are limited and unattractive. For a while, I tried to make Photo Supreme, www.idimager.com, work in conjunction with LR because I thought I saw some advantages to Photo Supreme as a DAM. it was a very bad experience, and if anyone were interested in Photo Supreme, I would feel obligated to warn them about the terrible interface, the convoluted way to create keywords, the almost non-existent documentation, all the bugs. So what if it has really good functionality. And worse yet on a Mac platform.

Phil