Question regarding access if I cancel my monthly subscription. (From an Apple Aperture user who has not migrated yet)

[kencheungmd]

Lightroom Version

Lightroom (Photography Plan, 20GB)

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

Hi all, I've read a few things on this very useful website already that might have answered my question but I thought I would confirm with experienced users anyways.

I have a collection of 200,000+ (around 1.5TB) photos on my Mac. I am still on Aperture but am looking to either go the Adobe LR route or the Apple Photos route to migrate out of Aperture.

The main thing I used Aperture for was to catalog and organize my photos. Photos that I maintain on my external hard drive. I have no use for a Cloud service when it comes to my photos. I used Aperture as an "interface" between my photos and allows me to access them in a user-friendly way. That's what I would also mainly use Adobe LR for. I note LR is a subscription service. https://www.adobe.com/ca/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html

So, if I pay for the "20GB Photography Plan", have all my photos organized in Lightroom Classic(?) and I stop paying the monthly fee some time down the road, what happens? From what I read, I believe I can still launch LR Classic on my Mac? And I can search for, look at, and pretty much still use the LR interface to interact with all of my photos. It seems like I mainly lose the ability to edit the photos, which is understandable.

Is that correct? I just want to be sure I am not somehow locked into paying Adobe perpetually a monthly fee just to be able to use my own photos that I have organized in LR.

 

[johnbeardy]

Develop and Map will stop working, sync to mobile too, but you can keep using LR for everything else. So you can even adjust photos using the Quick Develop panel.

 

[kencheungmd]

Develop and Map will stop working, sync to mobile too, but you can keep using LR for everything else. So you can even adjust photos using the Quick Develop panel.

Thanks John for that response. Let's say I simply want to use LR Classic as an organizer for all my photos. I sign up and pay for the subscription. I get my initial 200,000 photos migrated and organized in LR (from Aperture). Then I stop paying for the monthly subscription. At that point, I can still use LR Classic on my desktop computer as the interface to find and review all of these photos. You've told me that. How about if I went on a trip where I shot more photos and want to import another 2000 photos into my computer and into the LR organization system. Do I need to pay for the monthly subscription again to import these new photos?

 

[johnbeardy]

No, it's the same answer. You can't use Develop or Map, but old and new pictures can be managed, exported, printed whatever, and you can upgrade LR or install it on new computers. You just can't go into Develop or Map.

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Can I add comments?
The Photography Plan is a 12 month commitment. If you cancel early you will still have to pay a penalty amount. Why not continue subscribing for ALL the features of the Photography Plan? (including Photoshop, Adobe Cloud sharing, etc)
If you cancel the plan you do not have any access to Adobe Cloud. ie. No syncing, no Lightroom on mobile devices, no Lightroom on a laptop that syncs back to Lightroom-Classic.

 

[kencheungmd]

Can I add comments?
The Photography Plan is a 12 month commitment. If you cancel early you will still have to pay a penalty amount. Why not continue subscribing for ALL the features of the Photography Plan? (including Photoshop, Adobe Cloud sharing, etc)
If you cancel the plan you do not have any access to Adobe Cloud. ie. No syncing, no Lightroom on mobile devices, no Lightroom on a laptop that syncs back to Lightroom-Classic.

Hi Rob,

Thanks for that note as well. I guess I had not looked closely. You are right. In essence, one can pay for the subscription monthly, but it is really an annual membership. So, one is sort of semi-locked into it. It's not something where one can decide to subscribe for a few months and then cancel for a few months. I just sort of dislike that so much of things we use nowadays come with a monthly fee (cable TV, internet, Spotify, Netflix, VPN, etc.)... And for an amateur hobbyist, paying for a continuous monthly subscription for access to software just starts to add to the cost of things.

 

[Hal P Anderson]

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that you can get the free trial of LRC, let it expire, and continue to use it.