Is Lightroom dead?

Is Lightroom Dead?

  • Yes, Adobe can't make enough money from a bunch of old shutterbugs...

    Votes: 3 16.7%

  • No, Adobe will keep supporting us and continue to bring us new releases...

    Votes: 5 27.8%

  • Calm down rookie, it's only been a few years, they'll get around to us eventually...

    Votes: 10 55.6%
  • Total voters
    18
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Ian.B said:
not about LR but still an interesting read; especial for those using Google's Nik a lot
Another Nail in the Coffin of Photography Software

I have also seen a newish mac editing program is going to be released for windows in the near future -- sorry forgotten name and the source --- anyone ??

Still leaves LR at the top for filing/finding pics thought
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Good article, albeit a bit pessimistic.

Phil
 
clee01l said:
You do know that ex-Nik executives teamed up with the Ukrainian photo editing software firm MacPhun to produce Luminar and Creative Kit.
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now that's interesting although not so surprising ---I believe ON1 poached a few from other companies; matt kowalski seemed very much in the adobe/kelby camp before on1
 
I'm in no way thinking about leaving Lr for any other software at this point. Still I'm somewhat disappointed because of the lack of major updates for Lr. I'm talking about "dehaze"-size upgrades, not to mention a faster engine.
I think that Adobe is working on the upgrade to end all upgrades ; to integrate all it's editing software with the cloud.
How and when this can be achieved is anybodys guess - as what the prize for the consumer will be.
 
clee01l said:
You do know that ex-Nik executives teamed up with the Ukrainian photo editing software firm MacPhun to produce Luminar and Creative Kit.
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No I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me. Guys who build software companies aren't guys who want to retire early. After a while sitting around the house they get restless. They have new ideas. They usually start a new company, or become venture capitalists if they have enough scratch.

Phil
 
clee01l said:
You do know that ex-Nik executives teamed up with the Ukrainian photo editing software firm MacPhun to produce Luminar and Creative Kit.
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Let's just add "some". While "some" ex-Nik executives joined MacPhun, "some" stayed with Google and "some" went elsewhere, including to Adobe.

John
 
Yes, I guess so. Though I think it is important to note that Adobe got one of the names I knew from Nik, and OnOne got another.
 
Did anyone see the Affinity for iPad demo that was part of the WWDC keynote? It would appear that Affinity for iPad is a functional match for desktop Affinity. To me that is one more case where Adobe needs to step up. Let's hope there is some action on their part by the end of the year on the desktop and mobile environments.
 
They will if they did not want to carry a MacBook int the field and yet want the same capability as on the desktop. Adobe's mobile apps do not give parity with Lr and PS on the desktop.
 
Adobe's apps don't offer parity because, as Nack's article says, if people want the same capability, they reach for a real computer.
 
johnbeardy said:
.... if people want the same capability, they reach for a real computer.
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Yes .... but ...
Adobe still seem to be spending more of their dev budget on mobile devices than looking after existing desktop/laptop users....
 
Gnits said:
Yes .... but ...
Adobe still seem to be spending more of their dev budget on mobile devices than looking after existing desktop/laptop users....
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Well, isn't that just a natural perception during the gap between big releases of desktop apps? There's also a view that these mobile app workflows are part of the same ecosystem as desktop apps, and that Adobe can't neglect the fastest-changing sector.
 
johnbeardy said:
Well, isn't that just a natural perception during the gap between big releases of desktop apps?
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Prior to CC customers had some sense of when major updates might be due, we might also get some glimpses in advance, etc...

Now .... we have no idea when a new major update might occur (and we can be forgiven for believing such a major update may never occur).

I live in fear that the next major release will be in reality a beta version of a new paradigm / platform for Adobe and all the really good suggestions made by Lightroom professionals over the years since beta will once more be consigned to the status of "kick those cans down the road". I hope not and would be delighted to see the next major release, with a reasonable percentage of the effort focused on improving existing usability and features.
 
Gnits said:
I live in fear that the next major release will be in reality a beta version of a new paradigm / platform for Adobe and all the really good suggestions made by Lightroom professionals over the years since beta will once more be consigned to the status of "kick those cans down the road".
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That a major update might bring a paradigm shift, to me, is even more likely in a "major release that has to be sold" model of perpetual than a CC subscription model, as in the former there is a lot more pressure to give Marketing something truly major to push as "new, improved". Though I join you in hoping it is a "improved features".

Windows 10 has been interesting. It is more like the subscription model in that they are doing more updates faster rather than big ones to "sell". It has now been through two "major" updates in that cycle, and honestly one can hardly tell, you have to hunt for the "major" part. The pressure is off to make each one revolutionary just because they have to sell it, as opposed to it really is an improvement. There is some reason to hope the CC model extends that same freedom to Adobe, and that updates will be real and functional as opposed to "just for the sake of rearranging things to call it new". At least I try to convince myself of it. :)

Though of course the split perpetual/CC Lightroom model means that comment applies more to photoshop than Lightroom, so who knows. Depends on whether there's a 7, or just a CC-only forward.
 
Gnits said:
Yes .... but ...
Adobe still seem to be spending more of their dev budget on mobile devices than looking after existing desktop/laptop users....
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Mobile device image processing is not the place to find serious photography enthusiasts and professionals. I can see where Adobe is trying to reach a broader audience, but it mystifies me that they seem to be putting all of their emphasis on the mobile market at the exclusion of the desktop apps. (Note this is a market where you give away for free the mobile app in hope that the mobile user will buy into the Creative Suite running on a real computer. )
 
clee01l said:
Mobile device image processing is not the place to find serious photography enthusiasts and professionals. I can see where Adobe is trying to reach a broader audience, but it mystifies me that they seem to be putting all of their emphasis on the mobile market at the exclusion of the desktop apps. (Note this is a market where you give away for free the mobile app in hope that the mobile user will buy into the Creative Suite running on a real computer. )
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But it's where everyone is going, so I do not blame Adobe more than others. I'm a Smugmug user, and for some years their main efforts have been chasing the mass mobs rather than the much more limited serious photographers. And I really do get it... it's better to sell even relatively small items to millions of people, rather than even fairly pricey items to hundreds or thousands. Google makes most of its money micro-cents at a time, and has proven it adds up.
 
Ferguson said:
nd I really do get it... it's better to sell even relatively small items to millions of people, rather than even fairly pricey items to hundreds or thousands.
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What small items does Adobe sell? Every Adobe app in the iOS app listing is free.
 
clee01l said:
What small items does Adobe sell? Every Adobe app in the iOS app listing is free.
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Nothing yet. Though there are no free big company aps, you pay for all of them in some fashion - advertising, building loyalty, skimming your information for their use, as a gateway to other purchases, selling disk storage as you fill the "free" part up.

Google is "free" also, seen the price of their stock lately. :)

My point is that I think inevitably as serious photographers our appeal to big companies as a target market will continue to wane in comparison to all those cell phones. Whether any of them quite knows how to monetize that hoard's attention is another question, but it's understandable that it is too big an audience to turn down.

Or as they say about Facebook -- you are not a customer, but part of the product. I'm sure Adobe has noticed that aspect as well.
 
clee01l said:
it mystifies me that they seem to be putting all of their emphasis on the mobile market at the exclusion of the desktop apps
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This'd be where the market is growing... not that desktop is going away, but mobile-connected workflows are the fastest growing sector.

There is a team working on desktop, but there's been major transition going on behind the scenes, which takes time.
 
Victoria Bampton said:
This'd be where the market is growing.
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You are correct, this is where the market is growing. But I don't see a revenue stream in the mobile market using Adobe's mobile products. While just about everything ties into the Creative Cloud, many of these apps work without a cloud component. And I don't see the emphasis placed on needing the cloud product (which seems to be languishing in the shadow of the Mobile apps)
 
clee01l said:
Mobile device image processing is not the place to find serious photography enthusiasts and professionals. I can see where Adobe is trying to reach a broader audience, but it mystifies me that they seem to be putting all of their emphasis on the mobile market at the exclusion of the desktop apps. (Note this is a market where you give away for free the mobile app in hope that the mobile user will buy into the Creative Suite running on a real computer. )
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Looking at the Adobe website these days, several things stand out:
They have gone "cloud-crazy." Not just the Creative Cloud. Now there is the Document Cloud and the Experience Cloud. That last is further composed of the Advertising Cloud, the Analytics Cloud, and the Marketing Cloud. All these clouds seem oriented towards businesses. What does an individual consumer, either a "happy snapper" or a serious amateur, need from any of these developments? Not much.
Adobe has very little to offer the individual, except "legacy" products like Lightroom and the various Creative Suite applications.

However, the business world is embracing clouds in a very big way. Just yesterday, a software developer in a large US bank told me that the edict from top management is, "All new developments will be cloud-based. And he also said that Amazon Web Services is changing the way that software developers write their applications. As a non-software programmer, I can't judge that second part. But the first part, I see evidence of that trend all the time. And so does Adobe, apparently. As does Microsoft.

I'm also speculating here that Adobe decided that making Lightroom cloud-aware was the way to make Lightroom useful for workgroups, rather than making the desktop version multi-user capable.

These trends go in waves, the pendulum swings. Just now, the pendulum is very much towards re-engineering business processes and applications to take advantage of the Web, mobile devices, and the Internet of Things. Where does that leave us desktop users? On the other side of the pendulum's arc.

In a couple of years, the pendulum will move towards desktop applications again. Except that the desktop of the future won't be like today's desktop.

Phil Burton
 
johnbeardy said:
No, after you stop paying you can't go into Develop and Map or use Mobile, but everything else will work as it does now.
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Can you provide confirmation of this? The reason I ask is this thread, scroll down to "You may want to read this post of mine on another site:"
What happens when I cancel my Creative Cloud me... |Adobe Community

His LR CC gave him "activation failed" and nothing more. After hours and hours with Adobe they finally gave him 7 days free trial to get his photos off. That is quite different from what we thought, that you have permanent access to your files AND the LR editing done. The link he provides doesn't get me to the information about cancelling, just how to cancel. It may be there somewhere but I can't find any words about what happens to Lightroom if you cancel your contract with Adobe.

I did find out there is no month to month contract for Lightroom, not even at $30/month. So if you want to get out I guess you have to take a year to do it because you are going to pay for a year's access.

Judy
 
Judith Nicholls said:
Can you provide confirmation of this?
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Here's Adobe's FAQ:

Adobe Creative Cloud FAQ

Expand the one that asks "what happens to my photos if I end my membership".

To me that is their policy. The technical implication, I think, may have had some challenges (and I guess could in the future), but the policy seems fairly clear. Your referenced posting appears to discuss Photoshop, not Lightroom. I believe Photoshop, being a destructive editor, just quits working but all edited photos in Photoshop proper are, well, editing, so you do not need it to access your images (ACR-only edits and access through Bridge of course are a bit of a grey area, but I guess are not accessible, though they would themselves work in LR I think with a read-metadata).
 
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