Moving away from Lightroom

[anerjee]

I've realized that over the last several months, I have not really ever used Lightroom. Firstly, I do not shoot as much as I used to, and even when I do, I am happier with the results form Raw Power. I have a Lightroom catalog with 10 years worth of photo edits, which is important to me.

While I can afford the monthly charge to Adobe, it does not feel right that I have to pay a monthly fees just for the right to have access to my work in the past, while I don't use it on an on-going basis.

Has anybody successfully moved away from Adobe? How did you manage to move your catalog and edits? Any ideas would be very welcome.


thanks!

 

[Dan]

You could simply export all of the images in your catalog as TIFFs to your harddrive. If you have RAW files, export those as .dng to your harddrive.

 

[anerjee]

Thanks, I can indeed do this. Is there any way to identify which of my images have edits on them, to avoid exporting 50,000+ images? I think it should be a fraction of the overall catalog.

You could simply export all of the images in your catalog as TIFFs to your hard drive. If you have RAW files, export those as .dng to your harddrive.

 

[peterm1]

This is why I bought one of the last stand alone versions of Lightroom. (ver 5.7?). While occasionally I miss the updates available from the subscription version, that is not a regular occurrence though eventually I may have the problem of updating my camera to one with a RAW output that is not supported by my older version of LR. And even then it would still be possible to convert those files from a proprietary RAW format to DNG format and import those into my older copy of LR.
What I do not miss is the fact that I paid once for the license and I now am not locked into paying Adobe a monthly fee forever.

BTW I still worry a little about losing LR if it crashes and is not recoverable. It would at least cause temporary problems for me till I replaced it. So when I edit in LR and like the resulting image, I always export the resulting image(s) from LR to another directory on a separate hard drive. That way, I know I should still have them if my copy of LR goes down the drain or more likely the catalog becomes corrupted - a too regular occurrence with LR. The fact that some images still in LR could be lost is not a huge problem for me as these tend to be the "throw aways" in any event and I will already have saved my favorites elsewhere.

 

[rfaspen]

I think the last standalone version is 6.x not sure about the sub level. I will be getting that as an upgrade to my current 5.7.
I won't be progressing to any subscription levels.
It's working for me so far....

 

[shawn]

I think the last standalone version is 6.x not sure about the sub level. I will be getting that as an upgrade to my current 5.7.
I won't be progressing to any subscription levels.
It's working for me so far....

6.14 I believe, or at least that is why mine is at and I don't think there are any updates beyond that.

Shawn

 

[Dan]

Thanks, I can indeed do this. Is there any way to identify which of my images have edits on them, to avoid exporting 50,000+ images? I think it should be a fraction of the overall catalog.

Give this thread a once-over:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/comm...d-search-filter-for-unprocessed-photos.40408/

 

[agentlossing]

6.14 I believe, or at least that is why mine is at and I don't think there are any updates beyond that.

Shawn

I believe you're right, this is my standby as well.

 

[GMOG]

If you like Adobe product but don't like the idea of having your images stuck in a database check out using Bridge for file management. Bridge comes bundled with Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), and you can also launch directly from Bridge to Photoshop.

Another problem I've found with Lightroom is that the tools are slow compared to ACR and Photoshop. I only use LR for tethered capture when scanning negatives. When I'm done those files get moved to other locations outside the database. Also, ACR will edit more than RAW files. You can work with single layer TIFFs and JPEGs, too.

 

[View Range]

Whatever you do, when you use Raw Power use the Finders folder option instead of Libraries. That way if Raw Power goes out of business, you won't have the problem for a second time.

 

[Godfrey]

How to find all images that have edits, or all images that have no edits in LR:

In LR Classic, Library Module, Grid View, pick All Photographs in the Catalog pane on the left. Show the upper control bar and click on Attributes. There you can find the "Edits" section with global "find all images with edits" and "find all images with no edits".

As a matter of workflow and policy when using LR (or any other image processing tool), whenever I *finish* rendering a photograph and consider it done, I export a full resolution, 16-bit per component TIFF file of the finished work into a separate directory tree from the original image files. That way, if I tossed LR off my hard disk tomorrow and did nothing else, I will have ALL of my completed, edited work as full resolution TIFF files that any number of apps can easily open and edit further.

There's really no need to consider yourself "locked into" LR or Adobe if you consider a proper set of policies and workflows when using Lightroom.

G

 

[anerjee]

This is great, thanks!

How to find all images that have edits, or all images that have no edits in LR:

In LR Classic, Library Module, Grid View, pick All Photographs in the Catalog pane on the left. Show the upper control bar and click on Attributes. There you can find the "Edits" section with global "find all images with edits" and "find all images with no edits".

As a matter of workflow and policy when using LR (or any other image processing tool), whenever I *finish* rendering a photograph and consider it done, I export a full resolution, 16-bit per component TIFF file of the finished work into a separate directory tree from the original image files. That way, if I tossed LR off my hard disk tomorrow and did nothing else, I will have ALL of my completed, edited work as full resolution TIFF files that any number of apps can easily open and edit further.

There's really no need to consider yourself "locked into" LR or Adobe if you consider a proper set of policies and workflows when using Lightroom.

G

 

[Merlijn53]

I suppose your photos are not scattered all over your hard disk, but all in one file. Well, that’s how I keep them, one file, divided into sub files. In that case you don’t have to do anything. You can use that file to import your photos into any other program/app.
Photos that are edited in Lightroom can be recognized because they have “edit” in their name.

 

[Bill Clark]

How about photoshop elements?

I don’t participate with subscriptions.

I still use CS-4 and it still works just fine for me.

 

[GMOG]

How about photoshop elements?

Photoshop Elements is a trimmed down version of Photoshop, lacking some of the functionality of the full-fledged version. It comes with a trimmed down version of Adobe Camera RAW, too. For a lot of users it's a good choice.

 

[Bill Clark]

Yes I understand that.

When I had my business I wanted to be sure to capture each photograph in camera realizing, amongst other things, I didn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time fixing photographs during the process stage with photoshop.

Photoshop is about layers and blending. Those two ingredients can be achieved with elements. I wrote a few actions I used when I was in business.

Eddie Tapp helped me get going with photoshop. He was on Adobe’s board to help them with design of tools with photoshop for photographers.

At any rate, CS-4 works just fine for me.

 

[Godfrey]

I suppose your photos are not scattered all over your hard disk, but all in one file. Well, that’s how I keep them, one file, divided into sub files. In that case you don’t have to do anything. You can use that file to import your photos into any other program/app.
Photos that are edited in Lightroom can be recognized because they have “edit” in their name.

I presume you mean "Folder" or "Directory" (and "Sub-Folder" or "Subdirectory") rather than "file" in the above.

Photos that are edited in Lightroom don't have to contain "edit" in their name at all, and exported files will contain "edit" in the file name only if you don't change the output file name from the defaults (as used in "Edit in Photoshop" or other image processing app). In fact, you can edit any photo as much as you want in Lightroom and NOTHING about the original image file will change at all: this is the meaning of "non-destructive editing" in the context of a parametric editor like Lightroom.

G