Which software?

[Scheelings]

So I did something dumb and uninstalled Lightroom 6 which I bought ages ago and now there is zero support for both Lightroom 6 and Windows 11.

What are my options? Since I'm an occasional rather than professional photographer I really don't like the idea of subscribing to Lightroom for a monthly fee. So what are my options?

 

[G Dogg]

Can you go to your Adobe account and see if the v6 is there in your purchased file and if so, re-download. I had to do something similar a few years ago.

 

[boojum]

Must you use Adobe products? There are other good image editors. There are also free image editors. GIMP is pretty good for JPG and RawTherapee for RAW files. ART is a branch of RawTherapee which is pretty good. They all have steep learning curves. Lucky us. ;o)

 

[peterm1]

See if you can find on the internet (eBay or similar) an older copy of Lightroom standalone. Version 5.7 was the last one of these issued. I bought mine a few years ago and found that it works fine and being standalone there is no ongoing fee to pay. The only real disadvantage is that if you are a user of a more modern camera and shoot RAW, LR5.7 probably will not support the RAW version it uses (unless it the RAW files are DNG.) There are ways around this however. You can run your RAW files through Adobe RAW converter and convert them to DNG then import these into Lightroom for example. As Adobe RAW converter is free this is a very cheap option which still fulfils the needs of most users - with one extra step required.

Another option to consider is to use Corel Paintshop Pro (PSP) as your RAW conversion software and editor. It is cheap and has a standalone licence just like older Lightroom versions did. If I were to compare PSP to another image editor it would be the old Photoshop Elements. In other words a simplified version of Photoshop - but still powerful. And if you are experienced in Photoshop you will find it does not take long to come up to speed with PSP. It is updated regularly and so you can update the RAW files it will handle by buying a newer version of PSP though this entails extra cost every now and then - but only every few years maybe when you change to a newer camera than is supported by your existing version. And it is cheap to buym by comparison to any of its competitors.

I actually have the best of both worlds. You can do as I do and run PSP as a plug in to Lightroom so this is how I do it, personally. PSP has some tools that are better than Lightroom (and it supports Layers) so it's a useful plugin to run under your Lightroom.

 

[mike rosenlof]

to followup Boojum's post #3 above, the free and open source 'Darktable' darktable is a good Lightroom replacement.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I never had luck with 6, it is trashy. Perhaps on porpoise.
5.7.1 runs on Win 11, no problem.
To be honest, here is no substitute for standalone LR.

 

[Michael Markey]

I have elements 2023 ( or at least I did .Its just not loading today and they are trying to push an upgrade so don`t know if they`ve deleted my version or not) .
Most of the time I don`t use it but instead use the basic photo editor on the PC .
Thats all I need except that is for my 246 RAW files
Although the PC software will accept them they are rendered blurry and only clear when opened up in PS .
Anybody know the reason why that is ?
I`m asking because if they have canned my PShop elements I`ll just ... at least for a while .... use the in house software on the PC but I`ll not be able to process any 246 files.
I`m hoping that I`ve asked a really dumb question and the is a ready solution to it

 

[Timmyjoe]

I'm on a Mac, so it might be different, but I'm running Photoshop Elements 2021. Every time I launch it I get error messages but I just plow thru and it seems to work okay. I had Photoshop CS6 on my older Mac, but it won't run on the new machine. And I refuse to pay Adobe's subscription BS. So I muddle thru. If you are Mac based, I highly recommend RAW Power, it was developed by the same folks who developed Aperture for Apple (which is also no longer supported).

Best,
-Tim

 

[Dogman]

I'm far from professional these days but I bit the bullet and subscribed to Lightroom. There are others, as has been mentioned, but none of them are as intuitive and "normal" for a photographer as LR (IMO). That said, many are as good for photography purposes. All of them will require a bit of a learning experience to get the most out of them. I tried several--freebees and samples. Found out I'm too lazy and too much of an old dog to learn the new tricks involved.

 

[Michael Markey]

Thanks guys . I`m PC based .
Checked it again but it aint playing ball.
I will have to consider next step.
Like I said I`m happy with the photo software which comes with the PC but or some reason it doesn`t play with the 246 RAW files .