Lightroom 6 discontinued?

[Orangutan]

I finally did and find that purchasing a 1 year prepaid card for $80 or 90 when on sale at B&H is a good deal, less than I'd spend on upgrading LR and Photoshop every 2 or 3 years.

As I, and others, have said before, there is nothing wrong with Adobe offering subscriptions. The problem is the lack of a perpetual license option. Some have made the claim that it's not feasible to offer both, but the arguments in support have been, at best, very feeble.

It seems like software providers are changing to the rental plan, Internet security, and now, most of the password managers. I just bought a 7 year prepaid rental for mine which covers all of my devices. It was actually less expensive that way.

On the other hand, I expect to start serious consideration of third-part and open-source options. I do not want to rent software.

For a person whose business is images, it makes sense to pay rental to have the most current version of the software. For amateurs who do not need the latest features, it does not.

 

[dpc]

I finally did and find that purchasing a 1 year prepaid card for $80 or 90 when on sale at B&H is a good deal, less than I'd spend on upgrading LR and Photoshop every 2 or 3 years.

As I, and others, have said before, there is nothing wrong with Adobe offering subscriptions. The problem is the lack of a perpetual license option. Some have made the claim that it's not feasible to offer both, but the arguments in support have been, at best, very feeble.

It seems like software providers are changing to the rental plan, Internet security, and now, most of the password managers. I just bought a 7 year prepaid rental for mine which covers all of my devices. It was actually less expensive that way.

On the other hand, I expect to start serious consideration of third-part and open-source options. I do not want to rent software.

For a person whose business is images, it makes sense to pay rental to have the most current version of the software. For amateurs who do not need the latest features, it does not.

I certainly agree that Adobe is quite within its rights to offer whatever option or options it wishes. The problem for me is what I consider the bizarre way they're treating Lightroom 6. If they don't want people to buy it, if they want to push everyone interested in their products toward the subscription model, they should just discontinue offering 6. If they plan to sell it, they should make accessing it easily available. If they continue to sell 6 but fail to make accessing it easy on their website, they just annoy their customers. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It must to them in some odd way.

I'll continue using Lightroom 5 as long as I can. I don't have an unsupported camera at the moment. If I get one, I'll just use DXO OpticsPro 11 which really is very good. I can export from it in DNG format and then import that into Lightroom if I want. It would be nice to use the native Canon RAW files but I can live with DNG.

 

[Orangutan]

I finally did and find that purchasing a 1 year prepaid card for $80 or 90 when on sale at B&H is a good deal, less than I'd spend on upgrading LR and Photoshop every 2 or 3 years.

As I, and others, have said before, there is nothing wrong with Adobe offering subscriptions. The problem is the lack of a perpetual license option. Some have made the claim that it's not feasible to offer both, but the arguments in support have been, at best, very feeble.

It seems like software providers are changing to the rental plan, Internet security, and now, most of the password managers. I just bought a 7 year prepaid rental for mine which covers all of my devices. It was actually less expensive that way.

On the other hand, I expect to start serious consideration of third-part and open-source options. I do not want to rent software.

For a person whose business is images, it makes sense to pay rental to have the most current version of the software. For amateurs who do not need the latest features, it does not.

I certainly agree that Adobe is quite within its rights to offer whatever option or options it wishes. The problem for me is what I consider the bizarre way they're treating Lightroom 6. If they don't want people to buy it, if they want to push everyone interested in their products toward the subscription model, they should just discontinue offering 6. If they plan to sell it, they should make accessing it easily available. If they continue to sell 6 but fail to make accessing it easy on their website, they just annoy their customers. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It must to them in some odd way.

I'll continue using Lightroom 5 as long as I can. I don't have an unsupported camera at the moment. If I get one, I'll just use DXO OpticsPro 11 which really is very good. I can export from it in DNG format and then import that into Lightroom if I want. It would be nice to use the native Canon RAW files but I can live with DNG.

Adobe claims DNG conversion is lossless, so developing from DNG would not create any inherent degradation of image quality. Take that FWIW.

 

[dpc]

I use DNG now both as output from DXO OpticsPro 11 and for Fuji files from Iridient X-Transformer. I usually process both further in Lightroom 5. I'm absolutely no authority on whether there's IQ degradation with DNG or not. I can only say I haven't seen anything that suggests there is. 8)

 

[LDS]

if they want to push everyone interested in their products toward the subscription model, they should just discontinue offering 6. If they plan to sell it, they should make accessing it easily available. If they continue to sell 6 but fail to make accessing it easy on their website, they just annoy their customers. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It must to them in some odd way.

I'm quite sure Adobe would discontinue the perpetual licenses if they didn't offer a way to get some money from bundling LR and Photoshop Elements with other products. Bundling a perpetual license may still have more appeal to customers than as 12 month subscription. Thereby try to deceive new customers into buying the subscription as much as you can, while keeping the product somewhat "alive", and maybe avoid some users going to Affinity, Darktable, etc. Marketing is a dark art...

 

[Keith_Reeder]

as Capture One doesn't read the dng files without a loss in quality.

It should...

 

[SteveM]

Affinity is surprisingly good, not a DAM system (only works on a single photo at a time) but couple it with photo mechanic and your own folder tree on the hard drive and you're away.

 

[Keith_Reeder]

I use Affinity Photo instead of PS now, but I wouldn't use it as my primary Raw converter - very much a work in progress there.

Photo Ninja is the way to go, IMHO.

 

[ScottyP]

I have LR5 now, and I'll be watching carefully when the 6d2 comes out, to see if LR6 will create a RAW translator for it.

Assuming the 6d2 clears the pretty low bar I am setting for it (AF about as good as an 80d, and a continuance of the use of red illuminated AF points 6d1 already uses, not the black ones of recent 5d's) I am buying one. I would certainly want it to work in LR without a tortuous work-around.

I do not use PS, nor any of the mobile or movie apps they bundle in CC. I am not a pro, so I have a hard time justifying the $120/year license and I worry it will only go up in the future.

Here's their mistake though: I am in LR because I spent years learning it and I have tens of thousands of images in it. They MIGHT be able to compel me into at least trying CC, but how are they expecting to lure NEW amateur users in without any smaller initial commitment option like permanent purchase versions or at least a cheap LR-only license.

They are reaping a short term cash flow increase by leaning on existing, invested customers in this way, but aren't they risking becoming irrelevant to new customers? I understand the short term profit; I actually bought some Adobe stock knowing it would increase cash flow, but I don't think new casual users will want to be forced to license PS to get LR. .

 

[SteveM]

Always had my suspicions Lightroom would go 'subscription' only....it may not of course, still time for a release. However, because of these suspicions I never tied myself to using a DAM system, I just have a well thought out folder tree on the hard drive, and of course, sadly, no keywords.
I got curious and tested 6 Raw Converters today (a lot lot cheaper than lenses and bodies to acquire...and potentially more fun).
I always expose for the highlights and used a picture that was deliberately 2/3 stop over exposed - any more than that in all 3 channels and the highlights have gone for good - they go in the recycle bin.
All 6 converters very surprisingly gave good results, I personally wouldn't write any off because of my final result today, they were all very usable. I would probably (?) offer all the results to clients.
ACR, Lightroom and Capture One gave marginally better results - Capture One probably shading it. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that these 3 are good.
DXO was by far the most difficult to get working properly - my fault, I need to spend some time going through the user manual. Not sure if I'm entirely happy with those results yet. I bought this purely for DXO Prime which is extremely good.
Photo Ninja produced good results when converted, easy to learn and brought back the same level of highlights as the other converters. Unless I'm missing it, the software doesn't show the RGB values as you edit. That is a deal breaker for me. I want to see the RGB values of the brightest areas, I set them to roughly 235 each, then I know they will print with detail. That needs to be addressed quickly and it will be a good converter. Bought this for quick and good noise suppression - dxo prime takes 30-40 seconds per image, can't have that when I need to produce 300 photos quickly. The range of highlight is also poor. I maxed out the setting just to recover the 2/3 of a stop. If I wanted to make a sky more dramatic I'll need Photoshop as there's not enough range.
Affinity Photo, good enough result, quick to learn. 2 deal breakers this time for a Raw converter. No RGB values displayed, and no highlight clipping warning. Poor, and surely very easy to rectify I'd have thought. Also, I have a fast pc and it it 'lagged' after basic operations - they need a quicker engine. However, the other converters are poor at retouching, this is a real Photoshop contender. I wanted an alternative to Photoshop for cloning, healing, content aware etc - this is amazing. For £48 you can't really say no, just get another Raw converter.
Should I choose not to rent Photoshop in the future, the day will come no doubt when my CS6 will be incompatible with the current Windows platform. Should this happen I now have a workflow that would remove Adobe if I wished. Don't get me wrong, Adobe ACR/ Photoshop is seriously good at everything it does....and fast, very fast, and that is important
Photo Mechanic for the cull, Capture One as a Raw Converter supported by Affinity Photo for any retouching. I can never wrap my head around why people spend thousands of pounds/dollars/euros on lenses and the latest camera body which is little better than the existing one, and truly skimp on software, yes, Capture One is expensive - and there is a reason for that.
I had 2 hours spare today to do this, I apologise if I missed how to turn on clipping warnings and RGB values. Underexposed pictures are another story for another day, with iso invariance that is becoming less of an issue than blown highlights.

 

[Keith_Reeder]

I have a hard time justifying the $120/year license

$10 a month isn't much, Scotty - I can't really think of many examples of getting so much for so little...

 

[Keith_Reeder]

but aren't they risking becoming irrelevant to new customers?

Simply isn't happening - despite all the noise on the interwebs about subscription, it would appear that a lot of users are fine with it; and people coming in new will never have known anything different.

 

[SteveM]

as Capture One doesn't read the dng files without a loss in quality.

It should...

Sorry Keith, I missed your reply. There is a quality loss. I'd read it somewhere and so I emailed Captue One directly. No loss if dng straight from camera, but converting to dng via Adobe converter will add noise apparently, colour and tonality may be off as well....they may be, they may not be. It is generic apparently, and a may or may not scenario. Most of this is quoted directly from their reply.

As a result of this I don't process dng in Captue One.

Never delete the original Raw file, save them on an external hd if necessary.

 

[SteveM]

On reflection, I can't see Lightroom going subscription yet. Too many would probably jump to Capture One. You don't jump in the water with the sharks circling.

 

[jolyonralph]

I have a hard time justifying the $120/year license

Then don't buy it.

I struggle to see the problem here. There is a $10/month plan that offers you tools that most people serious in photography find pretty much essential. If you can't justify $10/month for this then that's fine.

But complaining about this in a photography forum on a site dominated by people who regard themselves as serious in photography is a little pointless.

 

[Ian_of_glos]

I have a hard time justifying the $120/year license

$10 a month isn't much, Scotty - I can't really think of many examples of getting so much for so little...

The upgrade to Lightroom 6 cost me £59 in April 2015 - so my investment has cost £2.36 per month so far, and I continue to receive value for every additional month that I use it. I am not interested in Photoshop, so why would I want to pay £10.10 per month just for the same product?
There is no information about how the cost of CC will increase so how do I know what I am committing myself to in the future? A cost of £10 a month or more might not be a problem now but as I am approaching retirement it soon will be. I see no point in committing myself to a cost that I might be unable to afford, especially as I can continue to use Lighroom 6 for as long as it supports my camera and lens collection.
This is typical of the way large corporations behave when they believe that they hold an unassailable position in the market and it is not a strategy that I wish to support.

 

[emailfortom]

I shoot sports for a living and find that Lightroom, alone, is sufficient for my needs.

On a personal level... I prefer to give my business to a vendor that provides "options" rather than a single "required" solution. Also, I can't recall if this is correct or not but wasn't one of the LR cloud versions super buggy...resulting in a few days of downtime?

Should Adobe discontinue LR6 (standalone version) I think I would strongly consider moving to something else.

 

[cayenne]

I have a hard time justifying the $120/year license

Then don't buy it.

I struggle to see the problem here. There is a $10/month plan that offers you tools that most people serious in photography find pretty much essential. If you can't justify $10/month for this then that's fine.

But complaining about this in a photography forum on a site dominated by people who regard themselves as serious in photography is a little pointless.

I consider photography in a serious manner, and I too VERY much dislike the *rental* paradigm of software.

I mean...what's the price new of LR standalone..somethink like maybe $160 or so?
Well if you buy it, that's 16 months at $10/mo and you've paid it off...but with rental, well...you keep paying and paying and paying.....

And Adobe just does not provide so many upgrades over a year and a half that justify keeping paying for it.

 

[Halfrack]

I have a hard time justifying the $120/year license

Then don't buy it.

I struggle to see the problem here. There is a $10/month plan that offers you tools that most people serious in photography find pretty much essential. If you can't justify $10/month for this then that's fine.

But complaining about this in a photography forum on a site dominated by people who regard themselves as serious in photography is a little pointless.

I consider photography in a serious manner, and I too VERY much dislike the *rental* paradigm of software.

I mean...what's the price new of LR standalone..somethink like maybe $160 or so?
Well if you buy it, that's 16 months at $10/mo and you've paid it off...but with rental, well...you keep paying and paying and paying.....

And Adobe just does not provide so many upgrades over a year and a half that justify keeping paying for it.

But you're forgetting it's not 'just' LR, that you're getting Photoshop as well for that $10/month. Here's what Adobe has released into the 2015 CC product: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new-cc-2015.html and the 2017 list is a link off that page.

It's a pain, but really, when you think about how much software piracy was going on with the Adobe suite, I'm ok with the subscription trade off.

 

[mnclayshooter]

Related, but not directly on topic - I have CC through my employer (on their computer), but for home use, I still have LR 5.7... I've held off, as LR 5.7 does everything I need it to, for the most part.

My question: When the CC license expires, what are you left with? A bunch of RAW files (without any edits applied?), .jpgs/tiff's with edits applied - if you've exported them, and some .lr files storing your settings/edits? In other words, your working RAW files are essentially useless unless you keep paying the subscription? (for example, if you want to maintain several different crop ratios, mono/color versions etc without exporting each permutation as a TIFF/jpg)? Am I not understanding it correctly? or does LR CC continue to function to export the photos that you've modified, you just can't add any new ones somehow?

What I'm trying to ask is, what happens when the license expires?