[CWuestefeld]

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors.

I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking tools in particular. Adobe is still the leader at least in this segment because their tools are still the leaders functionally.

If competitors want to leapfrog Adobe, they're going to have to continue to innovate past Adobe in functionality, not just price. After all, that price isn't really that onerous: their photographer's suite (Lightroom and Photoshop) are together only $120 year. That's not free, but it's not so much that I'm willing to make my job as a photographer harder or less effective because of it.

[W3zzy]

$120 a year for professional use is dirt cheap. My daughter is a graphic design student and gets a free CC ride during her studies. If she would have to pay for the apps should would have a hard time.

What bothers me is that the school doesn't allow students using open source software. They're all locked in the closed ecosystem and keep their students in software jail too.

[jasomill]

$120/year is cheap, but note that most of the other individual application plans cost at least as much as the $240 Lightroom/Photoshop bundle ($240/year for Acrobat Pro, $264/year each for Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, InDesign, etc.).

This adds up quickly if you even ocassionally use more than a couple Adobe apps, especially as month-by-month pricing, where available, is considerably more expensive (e.g., $414 annualized for the $264/year products; not to be confused with the monthly pricing listed on the main page, which requires an annual commitment).

They also make it difficult to find the basic all-apps plan (Creative Cloud Standard) unless you know it exists, as the main pricing page[1] only lists a pricier plan (Creative Cloud Pro) that adds AI credits, web apps, and mobile apps and doesn't even mention the less expensive plan.

[1] https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

[W3zzy]

I am aware of the trap they set up. That's why I brothers me that the don't teach with FOSS in design schools. They'l do their studentes a favor. It's easier to switch from any FOSS alternative to Adobe cc than otherwise.

[conductr]

As a non-photographer, more of a hobby tinkerer type user that has used Adobe products for decades and has never even earned a single dollar off them or their derivatives, the prices are onerous and there's no license that matches my usage. That's my only complaint really. I dabble in all types of media for the fun of it. While I may only use a product occasionally, sometimes not even once a year, on occasion I want to animate, photoshop, edit video, audio, or they have a new app that I want to just tinker with (Firefly, etc). So I wish I could just pay some usage based rate that worked out reasonable on cost because when I look at my last ~10 years or so there's only about 100 hours a year I spend tinkering with these products. I don't think they care about people like me, but I think it's possible that I represent a pretty large potential market.

[II2II]

If you can afford it, that is wonderful. For those who either cannot afford it or who don't need its features, then be happy that the competition is stepping up. They get the software they need. You get the software you need.

I've never really understood why people insist that there can be only one or two products per software category, particularly when the category has a large enough customer base to support multiple products from multiple vendors.

[socalgal2]

no one is insisting there are can only be one or two products per category.

Rahter, at some point in your life, $120 a year is not that much. It's $10 a month, that's two coffees, A MONTH!

I bought Affinity Photo at one point, when it was $50. Then I tried to use it for a work project where I needed to do a minor edit to 150 photos. I figured out how to do it but it's workflow was tedious. At 3 mins per photo it would have taken me 7.5 hours. I paid Adobe the $120 and got it done in 1.5hrs. Those 5 hours of my life were worth far more than the $120 I paid to Adobe.

I'm not saying you should buy Photoshop or Lightroom. Rather, I'm just making the point that spending money on a good solution should not be seen as a failure. Lightroom is designed around editing lots of photos. It has tons of batch processing features and it's UI is designed to make it easy to edit lots of photos in minimal time. I'm not saying there isn't a better design, maybe there is, but so far I haven't personally run into it so I stick with Lightroom because it gives me my life back. All for the price of 2 coffees a month

[moregrist]

It’s not the $10/mo that bothers me. It’s the nature of essentially leasing the software.

Before it was a subscription, you bought a version and could use _that version_ in perpetuity, possibly with some number of well-defined upgrades.

If you didn’t want to upgrade, your software still worked. The value proposition of the software was clear.

Now I need to decide whether paying the subscription, possibly forever, is worth the value. This just feels bad.

[frollogaston]

Doesn't seem any worse than deciding whether paying a huge sum upfront is worth the value in the long run. The old way wasn't like that though, it was 90% of users pirating Adobe.

[ThunderSizzle]

I don't pay for $5 coffee. I make my coffee at home, from my own grind, with just some half and half. Sure, I splurged and paid for maybe a $100 grinder or something, but that is being used for years, meaning the cost per cup is abysmal.

It seems very odd we normalize coffee being $5.

[majormajor]

> It seems very odd we normalize coffee being $5.

What does this mean, exactly? "We" didn't normalize it. People sold it for that - because they also have to pay rent, labor, etc - and people said "sure, that works for me, especially since I like the coffee you're making, I'll likely hang out here a while vs getting something cheaper elsewhere."

You can still get cheaper elsewhere.

Nobody "normalized" that, it just happened. You could say it's weird that people didn't complain, but... well, they did? It's a cliche at this point. But for a lot of people it's cheap enough to be fine ($5 is not a life-changing amount to add into your savings even if you're avoiding it once a day). If you really think it's a ripoff and nonsensically high, open your own coffee shop to make a killing?

Hell, if someone comes out with a super-amazing Lightroom replacement I'd be more likely to move to that than I would be to start avoiding coffee shops. Even though I spend more money on the coffee than on Lightroom. But the most viable option I ever saw has been abandoned for over a decade and only ran on Macs in the first place.

[rswail]

Speaking from Australia (Melbourne, where coffee is a religion), I get a freshly brewed, freshly ground, "dialed in" every morning, double espresso from a barista that has qualifications to understand the best roast and best grind for the coffee.

AUD6 (USD4.50) is not a lot for all of that.

[jasomill]

I agree. It's up there with prices as high as $100 being described as "less than the price of a good meal".

[doubled112]

It is getting pretty hard for my family of four to go out and eat for less than $100, but we have food at home.

[zargon]

And I don't drink coffee, just water. Since software is priced as beverage equivalence, logically that means I should get software for free.

[olyjohn]

I hate to say it, but $5.00 seems cheap compared to the last time I bought a fancy coffee.

[ThunderSizzle]

I think I'm pointing out that it tries to trivialize a cost, as if everyone is just spending $2000+ dollars on coffee a year. If your doing that, of course you can afford a measly $10.

You don't need to try to equate $10 to something. People know what $10 is.

And I agree - last time I got coffee, it was closer to $10. In a low COLA area, technically speaking.

[II2II]

> no one is insisting there are can only be one or two products per category.

Then maybe people are trying to convince themselves. All that I can really say is that a lot of people pipe up to defend the titans when alternatives are suggested.

> at some point in your life, $120 a year is not that much. It's $10 a month

For some people $10 is nothing. For other people, it is significant. Even for those who can afford $10/month, all of those fees add up when you consider all of the software someone may want to use.

[hungryhobbit]

I disagree. For a long time, Adobe insisted it was the only product in the category: that's how we got here.

[CWuestefeld]

I'm not sure how what Adobe insists on is at all relevant.

Reality informs us that there have always been competitors in the field: GIMP, DarkTable, ACDSee, Luminar, and many others.

It's surely true that their existence has been pushing Adobe to improve. And the good news for everyone is that they have: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are improved products now, and so are those other competitors.

[jasomill]

Inertia, wide use across various industries, and specific features not available in other products.

Basically, it's the Microsoft Office of print and visual media.

[frollogaston]

So what was Adobe supposed to do, make a worse product to give the other ones a chance?

[halJordan]

That's not necessarily true, that they have to out innovate Adobe. There's an old aphorism that you can always displace an incumbent with a product if it's 80% as good, at 20% the cost of the incumbent product (ibm/ms, cable/netflix, etc). As adobe increases the price, that 20% gets easier to hit. I suspect (well hope) that we'll see this happen to a bunch of incumbents.

[matwood]

Way back when the only real LR competitor was Aperture. I moved to LR when Apple discontinued Aperture, though I really wish they hadn't. I've tried all the competitors multiple times but keep coming back to LR for my DSLR usage.

[jasomill]

I switched to Capture One, which at least offers perpetual licensing, but their pricing has become sufficiently annoying that I plan to look very closely at DaVinci Resolve's new photography features as soon as I have time (I already use Resolve for video and have a paid license for it, and in fact have have considered using it for photography in the past because it has a much better UI for nondestructive editing than any image editor I've seen).

[newsclues]

Apple being an off and on competitor in the space was always strange.

They failed to commit, and often let their tools languish, despite the following. Odd.

[GeekyBear]

Apple moved into the space when Adobe's willingness to support the Mac faltered during the transition from classic MacOS to OSX.

Once Adobe finally committed to supporting the new platform, it wasn't as necessary anymore.

[newsclues]

I’m referring to later things like the macpro and aperture.

[majormajor]

Eh, Lightroom didn't exist when Apple released Aperture. OS X had been well supported for a couple years at that point, and Apple never went for Photoshop directly.

[frollogaston]

It's even weirder cause some of it was self-inflicted from making Macs very unfriendly to GPUs in various ways.

[dmbche]

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/ca/products/davinciresolve/...

Try this out, free too

[poulpy123]

Even as a not pro user who used Lightroom mainly for cataloguing and light retouche (+ panorama stitching ), I found Lightroom much better than the concurrence.

In open source the closest tool for my usage is digikam but the interface is incredibly clunky and last time I tested the tools were subpar compared to Lightroom.

I'm having hope that immich could fit the bill but If the fact it's web based has a lot of advantages, I'm afraid the ergonomics and performance will not be enough

[FireBeyond]

How are you paying $120/year for the Photography bundle? It's been $20/mo for at least a year now, I think. $30/mo if you're going truly month-to-month.

[lylo]

You can call/chat to them and get a discounted annual plan. Also, there's usually a 50% off black friday deal you can buy on Amazon. Seems weird to buy a subscription discount on Amazon, but you can and it emails you a code that you can use. So I have the 1TB Lightroom Cloud sub for £60/year. Complete bargain.

[worthless-trash]

People absolutely COULD design something better, but if there is a lesson that I have seen replayed across the internet over the last 20 years is that adobe users, only want adobe, they dont want anything else.

They want the shortcuts exactly the same, the screens exactly the same, the outputs exactly the same.

They simply dont accept anything else, it basically needs to be a carbon clone copy to keep them happy, and in that case, why bother writing software, you dont win those users, and there is MANY of them.

[drfloyd51]

Never bet against laziness.

“You mean I have to go to adoby.com and not adobe.com to download? Forget it. It am out.”

[slumberlust]

That's quickly changing as the college grads are entering the workforce with experience on DaVinci.

[righthand]

You’ll never try a different product anyways so who cares about Adobe die hards? This might as well be a thread about using Linux and all the Apple die hards come here to tell us they just can’t use anything besides Apple for “reasons”. Great! Enjoy your setup.

[vladvasiliu]

Not GP, but as a LR user, I actually did try alternatives and wasn't impressed. They're usually just as expensive, except if you expect to use the software for multiple years without upgrading, which, to GP's point, would have had you miss out on quite substantial improvements.

I'm a hobbyist, and the new "AI" masking has saved me a lot of time during my edits. Is it as good as a professional path tool wielder? Probably not, but that's not relevant to my use case.

[piva00]

I abandoned LR a long time ago due to an issue with my Adobe subscription, and stuck with Capture One since then. To be honest I much prefer Capture One's workflow and tools, never felt I missed LR even though I had used it for 10 years prior.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

Agreed. Lightroom is still a great package. The alternatives are either way less powerful, hard to use (looking at darktable), or cost even more (like Capture One). The AI masking in Lightroom is fantastic. There is almost no need for Photoshop anymore.

[miladyincontrol]

Their denoise algo as well, while there are some that can do a heavier reconstruction Adobe's seems to have a good balance for still looking relatively natural and not trying too hard to generate missing detail. I've seen some like DxO's just invent new text and faces on people.

I do wish Adobe would focus a bit more on the non-ML masking, give us saturation masking, let us expand or feather masks, etc.

It is nice to at least see some options like RapidRaw try their hand at AI/ML masking, and hopefully darktable's attempts in newer versions end up fruitful.

Adobe's camera support is still rather appreciated on my end as well, you're rather pressed to find a device or lens they dont have support for. I've been working on my own personal raw developer lately and while I'm very thankful for projects like lensfun, wont pretend I didnt have to borrow a number of corrections profiles from Adobe's files.

[petepete]

Capture One might cost more, but it's a one off payment. I'm still happily using CO11 (8 or 9 years old?) and if it was good enough for professional use when it came out, it's more than enough for me now.

[FireBeyond]

... until you get a new camera and their support for new RAW formats on CO11 is just not there.

[petepete]

I'll worry about that when it happens, but I'm more than happy with my D500/D850 for the foreseeable future.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

That's super annoying that you often need a new version just because you got a new camera

[petepete]

You don't 'often' need a new version, if you bought Pro today it'd work with all current gen cameras from the major manufacturers, and probably get updates for a couple of years.

I understand that Capture One aren't going to support old software for decades, and I'm fine with that.

[breakfastduck]

The issue is 95% of users dont use the features that adobe is so much better at. I've moved from PS to Pixelmator and there are even more moving from PS to Canva. Doesnt matter to most users that PS generative fill is better.

[cellular]

Same goes for fusion 360 when you just want to do CNC. Use "GatorCAM for cnc". $30 with future upgrades included.

https://sites.google.com/view/gatorcam/home

[kjkjadksj]

Have you vetted them? They are all the same. Lightroom imo has the worst raw converter algorithms used. At least for fuji still not using the right algorithms. Capture one uses the right algorithms. So does dcraw. In terms of the editing tooling they all can do the same things. They all have the same library management affordances. Ps has been feature complete in my eyes for over a decade might as well pirate it and not spend $1200 a decade for the same couple functions you actually use.

[CWuestefeld]

Have you vetted them? They are all the same.

Obviously I haven't tried all competitors, but I have tried many over the years. Some of them have innovations, some of them are crap.

Lightroom imo has the worst raw converter algorithms used. At least for fuji still not using the right algorithms. Capture one uses the right algorithms.

I've seen this argued before. It's clear that they're different, but it's far from clear that LR's are wrong. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste and style, or perhaps I've learned to take photos with an informed understanding of what will result, but I still get photos that win awards, and that people pay money for, through LR.

They all have the same library management affordances.

They don't and if you wanted to argue on this set of features, it would probably be your strongest argument. Lightroom's library management is barely sufficient; some competitors have clearly surpassed them here.

But in photo editing, the field is NOT all the same. Some competitors offer a different approach allow the artist to think about their images in a different way, and that may lend itself to better results, or easier results, for certain styles (Luminar comes to mind here). But in other ways - notably Adobe's advances in "AI" masking (I think it's really "ML" masking) - LR is head-and-shoulders above the competition. These differences make it worth the money, at least for my skills and style.

[ktallett]

Whether you need masking or such level of tools is dependent on how you approach photography. You can change your method of taking photos to remove such a need for editing.

[CWuestefeld]

There's a kernel of truth here. But it's not true in the general case.

Others have responded about dynamic range and HDR, and that's one area where a particular feature set is necessary for certain kinds of photography.

Astrophotography and macrophotography both very nearly require focus-stacking abilities.

There's certainly a lot of photography you can do with just a camera, or with just a camera and very basic editing tools.

But having advanced tools opens up a whole world of possibilities. Those aren't all going to be things that everyone wants or needs to do. But there's a huge number of artists who will want or need some of them.

[nradov]

How?

[kjkjadksj]

A lot of pulitzer prize winners are straight out of a canon 5d jpegs. It’s about composition and using light well. Same as it has always been.

[0x38B]

To quote Henri Cartier-Bresson:

“Composition must be one of our constant preoccupations, but at the moment of shooting it can stem only from our intuition, for we are out to capture the fugitive moment, and all the interrelationships involved are on the move. In applying the Golden Rule, the only pair of compasses at the photographer's disposal is his own pair of eyes. [...]

If you start cutting or cropping a good photograph, it means death to the geometrically correct interplay of proportions. Besides, it very rarely happens that a photograph which was feebly composed can be saved by reconstruction of its composition under the darkroom's enlarger; the integrity of vision is no longer there. There is a lot of talk about camera angles; but the only valid angles in existence are the angles of the geometry of composition and not the ones fabricated by the photographer who falls flat on his stomach or performs other antics to procure his effects.” (“The Mind’s Eye” p34, 1999 Aperture ed.)

[nradov]

OK so just always do it right the first time and never make mistakes. Also, get lucky. Got it.

[kjkjadksj]

Most of those shots are technically imperfect. Sometimes that adds a lot of impact to the image. Well composed though.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/apr/08/reuters.pressa...

[ktallett]

Many creative pursuits are based on time put in. Giving yourself more opportunities to get a shot helps. You will make mistakes, you will miss shots, you will take shots that could of been better, but for me that makes those photos that I have taken that I do think are spot on that much more enjoyable.

[nradov]

That's easy for you to say. Most of my photography is underwater where we are inherently very limited on time. On deeper tech dives we might only get 20 minutes of bottom time, and I can only be shooting for part of that.

[datadrivenangel]

Being at the right place at the right time is more important than your equipment 80% of the time. Predict the composition and lighting and you don't need to do anywhere near as much editing.

[nradov]

Ha ha good luck doing that reliably with wide-angle underwater photography. You're always moving around, conditions are constantly changing, and wildlife is inherently unpredictable.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

Give us a tutorial please. Otherwise this statement makes no sense.

[kjkjadksj]

What is confusing? A well exposed shot shouldn’t need any editing really.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

And a real programmer doesn't need a debugger because he gets his code right from the start...

I don't think too many people manage to get a wildlife, landscape, astro, macro or night shot so well exposed that no editing is needed.

[ktallett]

Landscape, macro, and night are very much composition and the right equipment. I agree wildlife, action, and astro photography may need some editing to some extent although I took photos of skateboarding for years and never found much need to edit. For me the tool to create the photo is the camera, past minimal editing it becomes a different medium of art, not a bad one as I love some photos that people have edited but it is a different form of art.

[CWuestefeld]

This is so wrong, on so many levels, that I don't even know where to start.

There are plenty of potential photographs that even modern sensor (or film) technology just can't do, like with questions of dynamic range. There are opportunities for cleaning up noise and sharpening to create a technically-better image. There are reasons beyond count for compositing of different kinds.

But most importantly, supporting the artist's efforts to achieve their vision is the whole point. If someone vision can't be achieved either with their physical toolset, or with their suite of tools, why should they limit themselves?

[larusso]

I mean yes. But the advent of exposure / focus bracketing lifted the dynamic range limit for most cameras. The only other way, at least for landscape I see is to buy expensive ND filter plates or invest into a camera with more dynamic range.

[cbull]

It's no longer $120 a year. It went up to $15.99/month a few months ago (in the middle of my annual billing cycle).

As a hobbyist photographer who sometimes does a lot with photography and sometimes very little I despise subscriptions, I'm putting the effort into learning Darktable and look forward to canceling my Adobe subscription.

[frollogaston]

Yeah if the alternatives were actually better, we wouldn't hear all this complaining about Adobe's pricing. People want the best thing for free/cheap I guess.