Adobe Announces Cloud-Based Lightroom CC

Orangutan said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
One thing that seems to be missing is any discussion of security. Is everyone supposed to believe that images on the cloud are secure and won't be lost or compromised? There are some serious issues to be considered with the CC version.

This is an important point: depending on the subjects and subject matter of your images, as well as any contractual language, you may put yourself at legal risk by storing your images using any cloud service.

It's a much more visible target but I'm sure the cloud servers Adobe is using are far more secure than anything you'll find in the average photographers setup.
 
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raptor3x said:
Orangutan said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
One thing that seems to be missing is any discussion of security. Is everyone supposed to believe that images on the cloud are secure and won't be lost or compromised? There are some serious issues to be considered with the CC version.

This is an important point: depending on the subjects and subject matter of your images, as well as any contractual language, you may put yourself at legal risk by storing your images using any cloud service.

It's a much more visible target but I'm sure the cloud servers Adobe is using are far more secure than anything you'll find in the average photographers setup.

Perhaps, but that won't help if one doesn't have permission for those photos to be on their server.
 
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LDS

Sep 14, 2012
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raptor3x said:
Orangutan said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
One thing that seems to be missing is any discussion of security. Is everyone supposed to believe that images on the cloud are secure and won't be lost or compromised? There are some serious issues to be considered with the CC version.

This is an important point: depending on the subjects and subject matter of your images, as well as any contractual language, you may put yourself at legal risk by storing your images using any cloud service.

It's a much more visible target but I'm sure the cloud servers Adobe is using are far more secure than anything you'll find in the average photographers setup.

One would have thought it about Equifax, or Yahoo, as well...
 
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Talys

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LDS said:
raptor3x said:
It's a much more visible target but I'm sure the cloud servers Adobe is using are far more secure than anything you'll find in the average photographers setup.

One would have thought it about Equifax, or Yahoo, as well...

Most people don't have a super secure setup. For example: a lot of folks use WiFi and have configured it to have access to their LAN. The vast majority of WiFi networks are either trivial to compromise, or may be compromised using well-known exploits, and do not employ any intrusion detection at all.

Most certainly, Equifax was much more secure than nearly all home and small business setups. But, the difference is, nobody cares about your photos secured by your crappy edge security. It's really hard to monetize or weaponize, whereas personal information... that's gold.
 
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LDS said:
Not surprisingly, from someone very close to Adobe and who makes a living out of LR... :)

Yeah, that's no secret, but my aim is always to be honest with you. If I was worried about my business relationship with Adobe, I wouldn't have warned about jumping straight into LR7 without testing it first, or called them out on the 6.2 import dialog debacle a year or two back. I do make my living out of LR, but I could just as easily switch to teaching about other software.

The whole set of changes is a confusing mess, no question, but it's not all doom and gloom. They're not expecting all of their existing users to jump to the new CC cloud app. Some existing LR users will want to do so, but it's aimed at a different audience. The Lightroom Classic is fully staffed with a lot of newer engineers, and they're an enthusiastic bunch, so the future looks brighter for Lightroom-as-we-know-it than it has been for years. Now they have to prove it to everyone.

JonAustin said:
I wonder if The Queen based any of the above statement on actual data from Adobe.
Yes, but obviously I can't share that data.

It sounds really simple, continuing to support perpetual licenses - and the actual switch is relatively simple - but the level of QE testing and support was simply outweighing the revenue. And then there was all the angst every time a new version came out and it didn't get the new features. I'm not a big fan of subscriptions either, and I hate renting anything, but they're a business. They get to choose what they want to sell, and we get to choose what to buy.

I'll keep an eye on this thread and answer any questions I can, so if you get stuck, give me a shout.
 
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LDS

Sep 14, 2012
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Talys said:
Most certainly, Equifax was much more secure than nearly all home and small business setups.

Don't bet on it... Sony should have been as well, right? And the list is long. Within EU, next year GDPR will require security breaches that lead to personal data to be leaked/lost/etc. to be notified within 72 hours (and hefty fine will apply when non compliant). Let's see what will happen, when they can't be keep hidden.

Talys said:
But, the difference is, nobody cares about your photos secured by your crappy edge security. It's really hard to monetize or weaponize, whereas personal information... that's gold.

Ransomware showed you can monetize that as well, because you can attack several systems automatically. Photos are often also personal information - and they can be used to blackmail people. Sure, funny cats and dreaming landscapes are of little use, but some, ahem, "intimate" ones can be gold as well - especially in an Internet which is obsessed with sex and gossip, and the related traffic and ads money.

I really hope Adobe got security right, and will *spend* what is needed to keep its systems *very* secure, because it will become a huge target.
 
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Jul 28, 2015
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W_E_Coyote said:
Mikehit said:
Is it just me or are there pretty strong parallels between what Adobe is doing and how Canon develops its cameras? ...snip...

Only if Canon:
Made 2 cameras, a Pro and a Pro-er model
Which do not function unless constantly connected
Many of the buttons will change functionality every 5 months
And you must make monthly payments to keep it functional

payments = (MSRP cost of new camera, in dollars)/(length of update period, in months)*(service markup, unitless)
with service markup > 1

Incoming rant, feel free to ignore.

In the old days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Adobe (or AutoDESK, or Microsoft, or pick a current software as a service company) would do a periodic, expensive version update. In order to get their clients to update the software, they would have to think of something new, exciting or at the very least useful to a large part of their user base. If the new version had no benefit for you or your organization, it would be skipped. That was immediate, solid (i.e. monetary) feedback to the software company that perhaps this isn't what our users want.

Now with the subscription model, you still end up paying for that periodic update, broken up into monthly payments, but now the software company doesn't have to give much, if any consideration to what their users want or need. Feedback is now soft and financially delayed, "The users are revolting. So? The users have always been revolting." They have you captive. If I was cynical, and I am, Adobe can now puppet whatever new feature they come up with as "The features our users DEMAND", with users = marketing department.

Bang out an update full of shovelware, you don't need and/or want it?
To bad. You have to install it.

Change the interface and workflow, possibly dramatically?
Too bad, suck it up. This is our program, our house, our rules. You don't own it.

Jack up the monthly price for 'reasons'?
Too bad, give us our money. If you don't like it, the door is over there, and by the way, we have all your work right here, and you can't access it any longer.

The subscription model makes perfect business sense, mainly from Adobe's perspective, for tax, budgeting and other considerations. Especially if you ignore the fact that you will pay more in the long run for software that you use, while exposing your work to new, trending and exciting modes of failure that you have little or no control to resolve or mitigate.

I do photography for a hobby, but with a vast majority of my photos going to support the work that I do. (photographs of things broken, overall layout of sites, spatial orientation for the guys doing the on site work etc.) Which means I have until I decide to get a new camera to find a replacement for Lightroom. I find that annoying since I'm used to the way Lightroom operates.

If my job was directly photography related, I imagine I would be in some elevated state of seething rage. Not only would my job depend on the usual skill set (Customer relations, photographic skill, resource management etc.) but now with the added worry of:

...
/end rant

So much butt hurt.
It seems to be that people are aware of the issues surrounding subscription which means 'suck it up' is completely irrelevant, and the reason I say this is because people are aware of the issues and decide to buy it despite those issues - there is no 'sucking it up' because people have a free choice.

Go to GimP - not as streamlned as Photoshop. They use their leverage of it being free to not be as streamlined but you know what? That's tough - you have to 'suck it up' if you want freeware.
Corel? Not as many functionalities as LR/PS but guess what - well tough. You have to 'suck it up' if want to avoid the subscription model.

See what I mean?
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if Lightroom CC classic is phased out in the not to distant future, in favour of the cloud only version (it's already taken it's name). This is worrying as the all new LR CC plan which doesn't include Photoshop is the same price as the Adobe Photography Plan, and the version that does include Photoshop is twice the price that i'm currently paying.
 
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Hector1970

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I'm having great fun with these upgrades so far.
I've now got a display driver issue with Photoshop which I didn't have.
Tried to find on Nvidia's site which graphics card I have and they have tool to find it but it needs a Java Plugin which is neither compatible with Microsoft Edge or Chrome.
I did install the new drivers and they failed.
On my SSD I have about 20GB of Nvidia drivers which I can't get rid of.
Nik isn't working after the upgrade. I moved the folder but all I am getting is a black screen and its freezing the computer.
I've a pile of old versions now of Lightroom and Photoshop stuck on my PC.
Adobe don't seem to offer a clean up tool.
Neither is a stunning update. Hopefully there is something useful that I haven't spotted yet.
There are so many things they could improve upon bur I don't think they put much effort into it. Their focus is on other software.
Hopefully Lightroom will work better. My version was getting so sloooooow and unreliable on start up. I often had to open it , stop it and then open it.
 
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SecureGSM

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there are couple or major issues associated with cloud based data storage that seems were not discussed yet:

1. Cloud space storage provider does not guarantee data safety. The Service provider will recover from back up and it should be all OK, but if that failed they cannot be hold accountable for data loss. read SLA carefully.

2. Your account may be hijacked and all your data stored online be deleted by attacker.. yes, hopefully your account will be reinstated and data recovered... if you are lucky. Therefore you must ensure availability of local backup for all of your "in the cloud" data.
3. Unless your internet connection is 100Mb/s or faster, it will take substantially longer to upload or download the entire set of data.

These issues can be addressed professionally. It won't be fast, cheap and good at the same time though.
 
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Hector1970

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Mar 22, 2012
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Yes Cloud doesn't guarantee safe storage.
Flickr is now starting to have photos missing for some reason.
I've lost music on Apple ( artists seem to be able to withdraw rights to the song so it can't be redownloaded).
While Adobe are flying now nothing lasts for ever. There have been plenty of cloud providers gone out of business already.
The content of the photos probably have some value to Adobe in terms of insights into user behaviour and what could be sold to them. Facebook is built on this principle.
There is no real security as almost everyone of the major online companies have been hacked at some point and data stolen. Yahoo is a classic. They've been drip feeding the extent of the hack for years. I'd say they lost everyone's details and its led to a massive increase in spam and phishing e-mails.

It has its place as an extra backup option. Hardrives are too unreliable for important memories.

I think all the different versions are confusing. It should be one lightroom capable of doing both things.
 
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As a Photography Plan subscriber I've just has an email regarding the changes that states:

"We know you’ve got a lot invested in the current version of Lightroom you’ve been using. Rest assured that we’ll continue to improve it while we develop the new service"

To me that suggests Adobe will continue to improve Classic only until such time that CC has the same feature set. Then Classic will be ceased leaving CC as the only remaining option. I'm sure that's why Classic was named as such.

I hope I'm wrong but in the meantime, I'll be looking round at alternatives.
 
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Mikehit said:
So much butt hurt.
It seems to be that people are aware of the issues surrounding subscription which means 'suck it up' is completely irrelevant, and the reason I say this is because people are aware of the issues and decide to buy it despite those issues - there is no 'sucking it up' because people have a free choice.

Go to GimP - not as streamlned as Photoshop. They use their leverage of it being free to not be as streamlined but you know what? That's tough - you have to 'suck it up' if you want freeware.
Corel? Not as many functionalities as LR/PS but guess what - well tough. You have to 'suck it up' if want to avoid the subscription model.

See what I mean?
If one finds that the main if not the only purpose of running a business is to maximize revenue, then you're right. If however, one sees a moral obligation of any business, to make customers happy and not hold them captive because they are really not as free as you suggest - after all, Adobe holds a near-monopoly with several of their software packages - then the rant is well justified. I see things quite similar.
 
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Jul 28, 2015
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yeahright said:
If one finds that the main if not the only purpose of running a business is to maximize revenue, then you're right. If however, one sees a moral obligation of any business, to make customers happy and not hold them captive because they are really not as free as you suggest - after all, Adobe holds a near-monopoly with several of their software packages - then the rant is well justified. I see things quite similar.

There is no 'moral obligation' for a company to keep customers happy - it is good business (yes, keeping customers happy is part of maximising revenue). But you cannot keep everyone happy all the time and trying to do so is definitely bad business.
So the best any company can do is decide which sectors are worth chasing, so if Adobe see that in the future their best model is to enable to edit 'on the go' then they will gear their functionality to that end and if people prefer desktop editing, or if people prefer perpetual licences you assess how important those sectors are and how best to serve them.
The CC model caused a lot of confusion and, due to misinformation, a lot of complaints with no basis in fact. But in the end many (including myself) actually like it. If they abandon what they now call 'LR Classic' I will probably move to a different editing suite because what they offer does not suit me. I see no 'moral obligation' for them to cater for me if they choose to change direction.
To suggest that a company has a responsibility to keep absolutely everyone happy for no other reason than they hold a near-monopoly is simplistic.
 
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LesC said:
As a Photography Plan subscriber I've just has an email regarding the changes that states:

"We know you’ve got a lot invested in the current version of Lightroom you’ve been using. Rest assured that we’ll continue to improve it while we develop the new service"

To me that suggests Adobe will continue to improve Classic only until such time that CC has the same feature set. Then Classic will be ceased leaving CC as the only remaining option. I'm sure that's why Classic was named as such.

I hope I'm wrong but in the meantime, I'll be looking round at alternatives.

I'm expecting that to happen as well. See my post further up this pages regarding the potential pricing implications.
 
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If anyone isn't too thrilled about rising subscription prices, or if you simply prefer to own your post-processing software, then I'd recommend ACDSee. Photo Studio Ultimate 2018 is $150 for the full suite, but 50% off promotions should hit soon for the holidays. It's a pretty robust software system: photo/catalog management (rivaling Photo Mechanic), RAW editor (it really does give Lightroom a run for its money, but falls slightlly short of what Capture One is capable of), and the layer editor which now can do just about everything Photoshop can. Oh yeah, and it's fully compatible with Adobe Photoshop plugins - so you can easily apply Alien Skin, Topaz, or Nik to any photo you're working on.
 
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Mikehit said:
I have just upgraded my LR CC to LR Classic CC. Split toning is still there (from what I see it disappears if you go for the LRCC+1TB option)

But the previews - OH MY GOD IS IT QUICK!!
Sometimes these speed improvements last as long as it takes to fill a buffer, but for the moment I am one happy bunny!

LRCC+1TB is the poor mans LR from an editing perspective, with no Tone Curve, HSL, Split Toning, Effects or Camera Calibration panel's and reduced sharpening and noise options. It is however a more than capable RAW converter, and I'm finding it's clutter free nature refreshing, and there appears to be no colour clipping when transferring images for LR to PS (which annoyed me with previous version of LR)
 
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