Adobe Releases Lightroom Classic CC v7.5

AFAIK SQL Server Express is limited to a 10GB database (plus other limitations) - it could be quicker or slower, depending on many factors. Adobe required also something that could work on macOS, and even Android/iOS.
Yet I would like to see LR supporting an external database and allow a catalog to be used by concurrent users - even if I'm afraid if it even happens, it will happen now in the cloud.

You can get a hell of a lot of file data (which is tiny) stored in 10GB, say you allocated 10,000 bytes per file (far too much) then you can manage 100,000 files in around 1GB (I'm not going to work out the GiB values :))

In reality I am talking about a fully normalised database (I've built it already) which reduces the space requirement by a huge amount, a couple of thousand bytes should be able to accommodate a description of any file probably including the key EXIF data I want to record plus tagging and descriptions and so on.

I'm only building this for myself, if it proves useful to others that will be a bonus.
 
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Not exactly sure what are you trying to do and if it is even worth it. Most of processing of the CR2 is specific to Camera RAW / Lightroom and is not transferable to another editor. EXIF and IPTC metadata may be stored directly in CR2 files (not sure about that) so the only thing which you may want to "replace" is some library features like collections, keywording, etc. Perhaps you should first check if a new manager you want to use does not have import from Lightroom or if one is not already available from someone else.

I want to build a catalogue manager that supports multiple image editors, I like Lightroom's develop module but the bit that matters to me is the catalogue, I could put up with XMP sidecar files from an external editor as long as I could easily tie them to the CR2's somehow so location and naming matter to me, I don't care about which editor people choose, for me it might be Luminar, I quite liked it but as long as I can see a picture in my catalogue and launch it in one or another editor then I am going to be happy.

I am not attempting to retain my existing edit history (I have earlier Lightroom editions for that) and I am not attempting to provide a processing preview of the images.

As I said I am just building it for myself, it might seem petty just to save £9.98 a month but I only use Lightroom maybe three times a year and usually I would have stuck with a version for maybe two or three generations, so I would have been happy to pay £120 every couple of years but not every year.

I made the mistake of trying out the CC version so I have about three catalogues with a lot adjustments and I would have to redo that editing in another editor but I have 15 years of other images that I would like to nicely index and the other media managers I have tried are not as nice as Lightroom.

As a developer I am all behind the don't reinvent the wheel principle, I totally agree, but everything I have looked at so far is basically little more than a file system browser, no contextual search features and as a database developer I will have fun doing it my own way :D
 
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I want to build a catalogue manager that supports multiple image editors, I like Lightroom's develop module but the bit that matters to me is the catalogue, I could put up with XMP sidecar files from an external editor as long as I could easily tie them to the CR2's somehow so location and naming matter to me, I don't care about which editor people choose, for me it might be Luminar, I quite liked it but as long as I can see a picture in my catalogue and launch it in one or another editor then I am going to be happy.

I am not attempting to retain my existing edit history (I have earlier Lightroom editions for that) and I am not attempting to provide a processing preview of the images.

As I said I am just building it for myself, it might seem petty just to save £9.98 a month but I only use Lightroom maybe three times a year and usually I would have stuck with a version for maybe two or three generations, so I would have been happy to pay £120 every couple of years but not every year.

I made the mistake of trying out the CC version so I have about three catalogues with a lot adjustments and I would have to redo that editing in another editor but I have 15 years of other images that I would like to nicely index and the other media managers I have tried are not as nice as Lightroom.

As a developer I am all behind the don't reinvent the wheel principle, I totally agree, but everything I have looked at so far is basically little more than a file system browser, no contextual search features and as a database developer I will have fun doing it my own way :D

Isn't adobe bridge free? I don't use it but heard its a good file manager....
 
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stevelee

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I really like Bridge. I import pictures to my computer into folders by date. Then I'll put the folders into a bigger folder by name of trip or subject matter. For example, I have a folder named "Hawaii" that contains all the photo folders from the dates I was there. Thus the organization is in place almost immediately after I import the photos. My system might not work for somebody who shoots hundreds of weddings a year, but it works for me and fits how I think much better than dealing with Lightroom's database.

In Bridge, then, I see thumbnails of all of my photos for a day on the screen, and in traveling dates correspond to locations.

I think anybody can download and use Bridge, but its real usefulness is how well it works with Photoshop with ACR, and I guess Lightroom. For panoramas and HDR, it works better for me than the equivalent directly in Photoshop. I open multiple pictures in filmstrip mode, and use the almost-hidden little menu above the thumbnails to trigger the combination. After the screen to allow some tweaking of the process, it creates a new dmg file that you then can work on in ACR and then transfer the result to Photoshop. Maybe some of that can work with third party apps, but I've had no reason to try.
 
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Isn't adobe bridge free? I don't use it but heard its a good file manager....
Bridge is 'free' only with select Adobe products, like Photoshop.

The thing I find most useful about Bridge is it's ability to 'see' a lot more file types than Lightroom, I sometimes output print files to pdf and then Lightroom becomes useless whereas Bridge keeps everything neat.
 
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Bridge is 'free' only with select Adobe products, like Photoshop.

The thing I find most useful about Bridge is it's ability to 'see' a lot more file types than Lightroom, I sometimes output print files to pdf and then Lightroom becomes useless whereas Bridge keeps everything neat.

I may be wrong, but, its my understanding that Adobe Bridge is free regardless if you own or subscribe to any other Adobe products such as Lightroom/Photoshop, etc.
 
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I may be wrong, but, its my understanding that Adobe Bridge is free regardless if you own or subscribe to any other Adobe products such as Lightroom/Photoshop, etc.
You are correct, I was wrong and going on the old way. I don't know when it changed but the ability to download it and use it is now absolutely free, you just need to register with Adobe but that can be a throwaway address.
 
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You are correct, I was wrong and going on the old way. I don't know when it changed but the ability to download it and use it is now absolutely free, you just need to register with Adobe but that can be a throwaway address.

I'm gonna take a good look at it tonight when I get home from work; I'm using ON1 as a stand alone editor now and it's working pretty good for me but it doesn't have a good DAM system.
If I was going to use Bridge I'd still have to use ON1 for moving things around and totally would have to do some other testing with Bridge to see how ON1's sidecar files react.....
 
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Bridge is 'free' only with select Adobe products, like Photoshop.

The thing I find most useful about Bridge is it's ability to 'see' a lot more file types than Lightroom, I sometimes output print files to pdf and then Lightroom becomes useless whereas Bridge keeps everything neat.

Interesting, so my posting here is not just a throwaway, thanks I will try to learn from this and I'll look into Bridge in more detail.
 
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LDS

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I import pictures to my computer into folders by date. Then I'll put the folders into a bigger folder by name of trip or subject matter.

That's what (smart) collection are for in LR. The advantage is you can have the same photo in more than one collection, regardless of their organization on disk, and you can add/remove them at will without ever moving the photos on disk once imported, which simplify backups. Smart collection "automatically updates" because their are based on search criteria.

The disadvantage is it works in LR only, thus if you also use other tools is less useful, although you can easily open the folder where the photo is from LR.
 
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Still, it's an hard limit you may hit. There are people who have LR catalogs larger than 10GB. You may store less data than LR, true.
Seriously?

My god Lightroom must be really inefficient, catalogues and catalogues + files are a different thing, I have 50 Gb worth of files in one catalogue but the database is tiny, if the catalogue file database is that large it is surely seriously fragmented?

I think you are confusing the combination of the image files and the database as opposed to the database, the images are not stored in the SQLite database that Lightroom uses.

The only data in the SQLite database is the file metadata, adjustments and the location of the physcial .CR2 the file itself is not actually stored in the database.

It should never grow out of control even with hundreds of thousands of images in a single catalogue, however lightroom does slow down terribly when you get significant numbers of files in the
database say 20,000 or 40,000 I have that many and there is no good reason for that being slow on a modern database, I mean these are tiny numbers there is no reason for it to be that slow.
 
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The thing I find most useful about Bridge is it's ability to 'see' a lot more file types than Lightroom, I sometimes output print files to pdf and then Lightroom becomes useless whereas Bridge keeps everything neat.

+1

I add to this that I like the sort function, the ability to use it in full screen view and with the left right toggle quickly star, or delete a file while looking at a pic that fills the screen.
 
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That's what (smart) collection are for in LR. The advantage is you can have the same photo in more than one collection, regardless of their organization on disk, and you can add/remove them at will without ever moving the photos on disk once imported, which simplify backups. Smart collection "automatically updates" because their are based on search criteria.

The disadvantage is it works in LR only, thus if you also use other tools is less useful, although you can easily open the folder where the photo is from LR.

A collection of any kind is just a set of file pointers grouped by a key value, you can add any criteria you like in terms of building a collection it's a trivial exercise in database programming but we pay Adobe and many others fortune for this.

I sound more aggressive than I should I am not getting at anyone even Adobe, just stating that I think they could have engineered it better, to be honest they could probably have done a better job even with SQLite because it is a damn good wee database.

I'll come back when I have something to show :) or maybe not because I'm a lazy old fart ;)

I love Canon Rumors though :) and will keep reading!
 
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Analogy aside there is an oft misunderstood aspect of Lightroom subscription many just don't understand. If you stop paying then the program still opens and all your images are still visible, you can still export any or all images with the edits you originally made, nothing to do with your image files is lost or inaccessible ever. Some of the modules won't open, Book, Map etc.
Hey Private
If I move to CC and keep LR 6, and then later drop CC, what happens to functionaility if I go back to LR6? Can I add the CC catalog to the LR6 catalog? Do I have access to CC edits? Or do I have to reimport all the CC images?
Thanks
 
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Hey Private
If I move to CC and keep LR 6, and then later drop CC, what happens to functionaility if I go back to LR6? Can I add the CC catalog to the LR6 catalog? Do I have access to CC edits? Or do I have to reimport all the CC images?
Thanks
As I understand it, and I'd email Adobe for a definitive answer, the CC library can't be used/read by LR6 so you'd have to export your CC edits and reimport them into LR6. Also, obviously, any feature that wasn't available in LR6 but was in CC you wouldn't have any further control of.
 
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Nope; Bridge won't work for me....if it could read ON1's sidecars it would be perfect!
(it's perfect for Adobe products though)
Bridge just reads and writes to open source XMP files, PS and LR give you the option to write changes to the image file or XMP (for PS) or the Library or XMP (for LR).

Doesn't ON1 give you the option to write to XMP?
 
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Bridge just reads and writes to open source XMP files, PS and LR give you the option to write changes to the image file or XMP (for PS) or the Library or XMP (for LR).

Doesn't ON1 give you the option to write to XMP?

Yes, Bridge will read the meta data but not the ON1 edit record....I'd have to save all my edits in ON1 as tiff's or dng's etc for Bridge to let me see what my ON1 processed images look like.
 
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