[puppet-master]

Yes, definitely. In the case of Lightroom, it is preserving your original input photo along with a list of edits and workflows you've applied to it. It also manages a database of preview images, so browsing full resolution albums is fast

There are no destructive edits in Lightroom unless you really go out of your way to cause the destruction

It also has client-side face recognition / clustering which relies on a local database, indexing by geographic location for GPS-tagged images, etc.

Essentially nobody needs Lightroom until they try it, after which it easily becomes impossible to live without and there is no replacement

[hanklazard]

> Essentially nobody needs Lightroom until they try it, after which it easily becomes impossible to live without and there is no replacement

I’ve tried Dark Table, but I’m afraid you may be correct. Trying to switch after 7 yrs of LR feels really challenging.

[petepete]

I've used Capture One Pro for a similar amount of time and anything else (LR included) feels like a step down. Probably mostly inertia and familiarity by this point.

[hanklazard]

Yeah, my goal is to be able to run my next photo software natively on a linux box, and to my knowledge Capture One is only available on MacOS and Windows. It does look like great software, though.

[petepete]

Yeah, it and Affinity Photo are pretty much the only reason I keep a Windows partition now.

I think Darktable looks like a contender but I'd prefer to be able to make it just use Adwaita and look normal.

[strogonoff]

I switched from only LR to only RawTherapee for all new shots going forward about a year ago. Never looked back. Might not be suitable for a professional expecting smooth conventional workflow, but excellent for an enthusiast who enjoys full control and nerding over raw data interpretation.

[simondotau]

You don't need the Lightroom catalogue to do most of what it does, including caching previews. I strongly prefer to use Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw because I have access to nearly all the tools in Lightroom without its wonky and cumbersome catalogue management process.