Adobe Lightroom v6 is Falling Apart
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Honestly, Lightroom never really worked for me. It made easy things hard and hard things impossible. I take a lot of film photographs, and it just didn't integrate with any of the tools I use to capture the images. I do everything manually in several separate pieces of software, and adding one more didn't help much.
My photos sit on a 5400 RPM, no SSD cache NAS behind 1G LAN. That is incredibly slow compared to local HDD or even SSD. I don't blame Lightroom here. In fact, the software only takes its time when operating on large volumes on that slow connection. CPU-bound tasks have been just fine for me (16k photos catalogue, i7 mobile CPU, 16GB RAM).
I work with 8k raw video frequently for my day job and lightroom is by far the slowest app on my system my orders of magnitude.
Hugin ( http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ ) can create brilliant panoramas, even from a bad batch.
Note: there is still no alternative to PS, given it's both a raster and a vector editor.
What's meant by bitmap in contrast to raster? In the context of graphics, I regularly use them as synonyms.
If the audience is casual editing (ie. a short time to improve a photo, and little user skills), I think Lightroom is significantly ahead of the competition - in particular, UX has never been a strong point of open source software.
I don't know if the latest years changed the landscape, but I suppose not - Adobe kept enhancing Lightroom.
License wise... that's definitely another story (I personally preferred when a license was valid for a single major version).
It is like comparing Gimp to Photoshop. Yes, they can do some of it, but they can't do it better or even close to that if you are serious at what you do.
I am a developer, I have been Linux user for years and photography is my hobby. I periodically try some Lightroom "alternatives" in hopes of finding something good, but they are still nowhere near of replacing it. And with the limited budget they will probably never be as good.
I know only one great open source software example in the arts field, and that software is Blender. Blender can probably do it because they have been receiving millions in donations from major game development companies in the recent years. Unless something similar happens in the field of photography, I don't think we'll be able to get away from proprietary software soon.
I find gimp's MDI workflow better than PSs single window UI.
I've used only Lightroom (as Adobe product), and it's hard to define what casual editing is, but the basic enhancement functionalities were easy to use, and especially, they were very effective (again, for a casual user).
It had, as far as I remember, very good automatic enhancement, that one could use as a base. The other products I tried weren't so effective. If, as I suppose, this type of functionality requires a significant investment to develop, then it's out of reach for non-very-well-funded open source development.
Dehazing was another typical example of LR functionality: it's stupid simple (a slider), and does effectively what's supposed to do for a casual user.
One tiny example: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/7332
(Most) users are not going to adjust their core working styles - which have been consistent on the Mac platform for 35+ years - to use a piece of software that gives inferior results, just to save $10 / month - which also gives access to Photoshop, for which there is no true replacement in any case.
And as mentioned in the issue you linked it isn't a bug but a feature request to support macOS hotkey conventions. There is a workaround in the meantime documented and a suggestion on how to address the feature request (that requires refactoring of the codebase) on the non-dupe ticket.
Since this is libre software anyone can improve the code along those lines and send a merge request or even commission a developer to do that refactoring; the DarkTable maintainers _didn't_ refuse contributions nor marked it as wontfix however that doesn't mean that the maintainers have development-time to spare in that macOS-specific code.
On the other hand if not using macOS hotkey convention is an example of it being "unusable" then I guess it is really great for something most people don't pay a penny or contribute otherwise for.
One day I wanted to improve getting started documentation in open source f.lux alternative for linux, because it didn't work for me in Ubuntu without any visible error. I found the solution investigating terminal logs and did a 5 point write up "How to setup on Ubuntu".
Readme pull request got denied because "only one point applies to Ubuntu" (others were applicable to other distributions, too). Somebody even commented few months later that he found my pull request and it helped him make it work on his machine.
This mostly made me stop contributing to other projects.
Even the latest versions of GIMP and Krita are nowhere near capable of doing the things that I did in Photoshop 2.5 back in the early 1990s. I am not sure what the priorities are of the GIMP devs, but it seems like they aren’t at all serious about making a Photoshop alternative.
The list gets much, much longer when you compare GIMP to newer versions of Photoshop, like Photoshop 5 from 1998. Photoshop 5 completely blows GIMP out of the water in terms of both features and usability, it’s a complete joke.
I don’t use Photoshop any more, and I’ve exited the Adobe ecosystem, but once you’ve used tools like Photoshop, using GIMP feels like swapping your nice DSLR for an old point-and-shoot. Sure, you’re saving a lot of money, but you are constantly reminded that you developed a bunch of skills that you can’t use any more.
I have seen things like google maps integrations listed with expiration dates on non-subscription software. It's unfortunate for users, but I do think it's reasonable for some of these "depends on a third party" features to expire (or when they change APIs), as otherwise it's implying perpetual upkeep, which will absolutely not happen. It just needs to be communicated... and crashing the program when that occurs is just plain inexcusably bad.
While I feel for the people in the former camp, it’s an interesting conundrum.
Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP in perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe did?
If so that will likely only force more businesses down the rabbit hole of subscription services.
This sounds like a class-action waiting to happen. Your users bought your software with a specific usecase and premise, and it stopped working.
This ought to be treated as a criminal matter. Of course it won't be.
Something like this sounds totally reasonable to me (I've just written this for the sake of discussion):
This product utilizes services that may cease to function in the future; if they cease to function prior to X we will repair them.
It would end up being a bad thing for everybody if it isn't possible to limit future support (as part of the initial transaction).
Which isn't a whole lot better than "good luck".
This shouldn't require a perpetual license. Adobe should have been able to license the software for as long as they were selling Lightroom 6, with the license expiring when they ceased sales.
This, of course, assumes a sane license. Something is profoundly wrong with your licensing terms if they require the addition of a timed killswitch hidden in software installed on customers' devices.
So the customer, who bought the thing - a binary code that runs on a computer - has to stop using it when the vendor decides?
This is why I am a Free Software advocate, one reason among many
Companies shoud mark it with huge red warning letters when they have a time-limited licensed tech in a product they sell you a "perpetual" license for.
PS has a lot of good points, but one giant bad one: no real support for multi-threading. I have a 1GB test folder of images that Affinity can resize in 16 seconds. It takes PS one minute and 15 seconds longer to do the same task. Affinity uses all the cores available to it; PS uses only 1.
I have an old copy of CS6 that I use for adding text to photos, and that's all I use PS for anymore, and maybe the occasional touch up. It is small (install is 500MB), does not require CC to manage it, doesn't spam my system with a zillion services and various programs that launch on start up, and it doesn't need an internet connection to install or use.
Adobe is absolutely sitting still and everyone else is in the process of catching up or outright blowing past them in certain areas. Affinity 2.0 will probably be what a modern version of PS would be if Adobe didn't have outright contempt for their customers.
I've been a PS user since if first came out, and was befuddled as to why they changed some keyboard shortcuts. I tried the new version this year and thought something was wrong with my PC or my keyboard. All of the shortcuts are second nature to me, and changing them after all these years for no good reason is a baffling decision.
Adobe won't change their ways because they have massive lock in with professionals everywhere.
OMG. What? Why?
It's wise that they added the heal and clone tools, many people only use those two in PS.
A few months later, I finally decided to demo the Sony version of Capture One, and it clicked instantly.
I'm done with Adobe, except for the _tons_ of photos and develop settings that I have in LR from 10 years back.
Between applications that keep getting worse with each revision, subscriptions and other annoyances, I think a lot of my software use will follow this model.
While like many here I prefer other solutions, the marketplace is validating Adobe’s approach.
The reason is that as you add features and fix bugs in a software, fewer users need the upgrade (why spend another 150$ on this year's release for some features I never use?). But the development team still needs to be paid and the advanced features they add each year tend to be harder to implement, so over time the costs are increasing while sales go down.
Adobe might be successful with this business model because they have a strong market in professionals but they definitely lost the amateurs and hobbyists.
EDIT to add: also it didn't help that CPUs and OS APIs haven't had major changes in more than a decade. There was no major reason for a large majority of users to upgrade (such as the move to 64 bit CPUs).
Do they need to? I mean, if users don’t see the value in spending $150 for a few new features they don’t use, that says that maybe the ROI isn’t there for those features.
Think about the marginal value of each hour of developer time.
Value = number of feature’s users across the product’s lifetime * utility of the feature per user / cost to implement that feature.
Early in a product’s lifecycle the features added have high utility (you add the most important features first) and most of your users haven’t bought your product yet. (So features are a long term investment). Marginal expected value is high - assuming you get the sales. Later in a product’s lifecycle the features are more marginal (and often more costly to implement). If users don’t want to pay for the upgrade, what they’re saying is the new features being added aren’t worth the development cost. If the user base is still growing it might still be worth adding those features. But at some point you should entertain the idea that the product is essentially done. The best play might be to move most of the engineers to a new product. Keep a small team which can fix bugs, renew google maps API keys and add ARM support and so on and call it a day. Profit should go up at that point because you should keep getting sales while your costs plummet. Over time sales drop as your old product has sold to most users who want it, and in that time the income can be used to bring a new product to market.
This is the model the video game industry uses (to great effect). Why are we so allergic to the idea of “feature complete” in software?
The alternative is what Adobe does - try to wring ever more money from your customers while providing them less value each year. It’s no wonder customers are desperate for alternatives to their products.
Windows 10 Pro Retail is still $200.
However it was quite easy (still is?) to upgrade a Windows 7 Home OEM to a Windows 10 Pro... for free !
What other option did we have? The ones of us who held out on CS6 had to move on eventually because it got more and more crashy as MacOS went on until it wasn’t really functional at all anymore. Windows users might have better luck.
There are some alternatives but in particular nothing to match After Effects.
It is a very different thing, wether you are responsible IT guy for a +20 seat Agency/Studio, where everything has to run top-notch all the time and everyone is schooled in Adobe from college on.
Or if you are, for instance, a freelance photographer who does wedding cards.
The software breaking seems to be a licensing issue. Adobe sold customers this software under a perpetual license when Adobe did not have a perpetual license for the libraries they bundled in the sale.
I’m not sure how Adobe could legally do this.
The computer market has never been more consolidated, less diverse and running less operating systems than now. Adobes software runs on the same OSes it ran years ago - Windows and macOS.
Even more so, the software itself has never been less configurable, less flexible and less platform specific. From times where you had adjustable title bars, UI panels and configurable professional UIs we ended up with inflexible, hardcoded layouts with unchangeable fonts and built in HTML filled with recycled JS components that were given to developers for free from others.
And to top all that off, those developers now demand perpetual rent so they don't actually need to show value of updates while they forcefully shove them down our throats with no option to stop.
* Forced lens profiles. (And more. There are reports of double application of profiles)
* Color and light correction also changes untouched parameters (it's ok but there is no workaround). If you need to do a more accurate job then use C1 or Photoshop.
I use this to auto-stack iOS motion photos with the still version so I just see one item. I set it to auto-stack all media that has a capture time within two seconds of each other. This works for what I need. Sorry, I don't recall the name of the specific menu item. Hopefully, my description is enough to get you in the ballpark (if you use LR).
I use SumatraPDF as my daily PDF reader but still have to resort to Acrobat for those things. And the latest update (that requires creating an online account!) finally did it for me, I'm sick of Acrobat.
I'm a full time user of IntelliJ and I love it.
As much as I agree with you, they best stick to what they do best and keep making it great... Not spreading themselves thin in industries they might not know it all.
I have an older version of Sketch. Due to my use case, not a designer, I have no need to pay them actually. Lately I needed to use it, and none of the new templates work making my paid version of Sketch useless.
At least my old version of Acrobat still works with new and old PDFs.
First, a few "full disclosure" bullets:
* I left Adobe on good terms and still have several current or former employees as acquaintances and friends.
* Based on what I observed during my tenure, Adobe is a quality and ethical company that broadly tries to do right by customers, employees, shareholders, partners, and so on. Obviously, I'm speaking to overall ethos here. Adobe is a big, multi-national, publicly-traded, for-profit company and I'm certainly aware of a few notable exceptions over the years but such ethical lapses have been, to my knowledge, limited to specific individuals, groups or time-periods and not systemic or condoned at the senior management level.
* I still use some Adobe creative tools including Lightroom for my personal needs and pay for them out of my own pocket. I don't make my living or earn income with creative tools. I also personally use some competitor's alternatives as well as open source tools if they suit my needs or preferences.
* While an Adobe employee I earned salary, bonuses, benefits and RSU grants. I worked hard, did well and have personally profited from the increase in Adobe's stock price. I still hold a sizable-for-me stash of fully-vested Adobe shares which I'm in no hurry to sell. I think Adobe is one of the better large tech companies in the valley and I'm happy I accepted their job offer.
With that out of the way... let's get to the meat. Note - I don't intend to share anything I learned while bound by confidentiality per my employment contract. I do intend to speak more frankly than I could while an employee.
* The Creative Cloud value proposition is quite good for creative professionals who earn all or most of their income using two or more of the major applications. Do the math and the subscription pricing works out lower than the old perpetual pricing for the full Creative Suite + bi-yearly upgrades.
* For single application users (except PS+LR), it's not quite as good. It is about equal if you were upgrading every cycle. If you opted to skip perpetual version upgrades sometimes then the subscription pricing is more expensive.
* PS+LR is different because it is offered at a lower bundle price to accommodate the sizable base of hobbyist or aspiring photographers.
* I plan to transition from using Photoshop and Lightroom to alternative tools for my personal needs by the end of next year. (No, I'm not sure which ones yet, there are several pretty good options ranging from open source to for-profit competitors)
* PS and LR are still good products getting good upgrades and Adobe is still a good company. The only thing changing is Adobe's business interests are growing less aligned with my interests as an occasional hobby user. This trend seems unlikely to reverse. Adobe's professional users want powerful professional tools with pro service options. Many of them are willing and able to pay for that. It makes economic sense for them and Adobe. It just doesn't make as much sense for me. I'm an individual retail user buying one year (or month) at a time of Adobe's lowest margin flagship SKU. Most of Adobe's Creative Cloud profit comes from enterprise and agency site licenses sold in multi-year deals by the hundreds and thousands.
* From support costs to sales costs to transaction costs (credit card bill backs and other PITA.) I'm just not as valuable of a customer by weight. Yes, there are companies that choose to cater to retail individual customers. This isn't easy but it can be done profitably if done at large enough scale and built as a core competency.
* It can be argued that Adobe should cut the subscription price to attract much larger scale and make it up in volume. The problem is that this level of powerful tooling isn't needed by casual or occasional users. As an individual home user I don't need the scripting features in PS, SSO, enterprise remote automated installers, and so on. But Adobe's most profitable customers do. Even the neat AI automation features they are spending big R&D on aren't very valuable for me. I don't even do enough to make learning the time-saving AI features worth the effort. But someone who needs to process hundreds of photos could find those capabilities an essential part of their usage.
I don't think this is anyone's fault. If we must place blame, I guess we should pin it on how the stock market values quarterly and yearly progress over 5 or 10 year progress. I hope the Long-Term Stock Market will become a thing but the reality is it won't be soon enough to change this situation. Making a big change now would be seen by Adobe investors as not worth the risk. Adobe's stock is up because they took a steep risk in making the leap to the cloud model. Back before committing to the leap, Adobe management knew it was going to be hard and perilous. Frankly, it was the least bad of the remaining options once it was clear the perpetual + upgrades treadmill was likely to turn into a downward spiral of ever-diminishing returns. Arguably, Adobe is one of the most successful examples of a legacy firm executing that difficult transition in a legacy market and doing so very, very well. They did the work, they are delivering value to a large and profitable segment of customers and monetizing it profitably. That customer just isn't me.
Why Apple kept Final Cut Pro and killed Aperture is beyond me.
Still no news from Affinity LR replacement.
Same.
> Still no news from Affinity LR replacement.
I gave up waiting and when Capture One announced really good integration with Leica’s SL2 (and a SL2 can scan way better than my Coolscan 4000 and cover medium/large formats) I bought their perpetual license. Capture One 21 works for 4 years, I’ll be happy. Anything else beyond that is gravy.
In case anyone is looking to ditch Lightroom I can't recommend the FOSS alternative RawTherapee strongly enough. It's got a number of features I now find indispensable. I particularly find it easy to use to get that nice rounded off highlight quality film has using RT. I made the swap years ago and have never missed LR.
This was entirely unusable for me. RawTherepee is only for RAW treatment/export. Digikam can only do photo organization. Now here's the kicker: the two won't talk. Metadata known and written by one is invisible to the other. Using Manjaro, Rapid Photo Downloader eventually started segfaulting on me.
I also tried Darktable which looked much better and much more like a Lightroom replacement, but didn't like it.
So back to Lightroom, and even Windows as a whole, it is for me.
One thing to keep in mind is that Manjaro, similar to Fedora, is bleeding edge. Things break sometimes when running Manjaro or Fedora. That's the nature of a cutting edge distro.
The good news is that things that break are often quickly fixed.
They weren't really in your favor with the old model either. Adobe used to pile on new features without thought in an attempt to sell upgrades every other year. In the mean time bugs would continue to exist from one release to the next.
Yes, actually. Office 97 still works on windows 10[1].
>Even with Windows updates? And hardware changes?
But neither of them occurred. The software simply stopped working after a certain timespan has passed. If it broke because a because of a OS update that's understandable, but because an arbitrary date has passed, that's less understandable.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/abandonware/comments/9tfgtb/office_...
If you buy software you expect all the dependencies to be licensed with the same timespan as the product. The issue here is that the dependencies weren’t perpetually licenced, but the software was, which is pretty bullshitty.
I don't get this idea that people expect this stuff to be temporary. The code itself is eternal and if you can control for changes it should be able to run forever.
Imagine if a hammer had a time bomb that destroyed itself after the manufacturer’s arbitrary “end of life” date. That would be totally unacceptable.
After the clock changing? Of course.
According to the article, Lightroom v6 still works when you change the system clock. And it only breaks when you attempt to use specific plugins after a certain date.