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Lightroom app update wipes users' photos and presets, Adobe says not recoverable

• akersten 6y ago
  Slight sidebar: it's so frustrating that Adobe made the new Lightroom some cloud based monstrosity. For photographers with serious workflows involving local disks, we're now relegated to "Lightroom Classic" which makes me feel like I'll be discontinued in N years from now. I hope they change course and drop this whole cloud thing, the yearly subscription model is bad enough.
  • leetrout 6y ago
    No chance :( It’s their cash cow and it’s not going anywhere.
  • underwater 6y ago
    There are a lot of alternatives if you don't mind switching workflows a little. I'm only a casual photographer, but I made the jump to Exposure X5 (which blows Lightroom out of the water on performance). Capture One also looked like a good alternative.
  • old-gregg 6y ago
    Apparently they're doing pretty well. Don't expect them to change course. But this created the opportunity for others. I have migrated to Affinity photo + Capture One. No regrets.
    • nhooyr 6y ago
      Is Capture One significantly better than editing files just in folders?
      • petepete 6y ago
        Yeah, in my opinion. The catalog gives you loads of power, eases the culling process, allows you to easily export batches of photos with recipes, do searches against metadata. It also has 'sessions' which are aimed at individual shoots or projects. I suspect most pros use them instead of catalogues. It's essentially a self-contained directory structure that C1 understands,
    • gwittel 6y ago
      How did you find the migration? I’ve been resisting Lightroom upgrades as I don’t want the cloud stuff. But as raw support for new cameras falls off it’s getting harder since the two step DNG import is such a pain. Moving to Capture One or something else seems worthwhile. Tried Darktable but wasn’t a big fan.
      • aikinai 6y ago
        I switched to Capture One and it’s so much better. The main factor is speed. Also allowing layers for all adjustments.
        • gwittel 6y ago
          How’s its catalog? One thing I like about Lightroom is the catalog is just files on disk vs a giant database in say Aperture. I like having my own file layout and would hate to give that up.
          • wishinghand 6y ago
            I'm in the same boat and slowly realizing that the one-two punch of managing assets and editing may have to be split into separate apps.
          • justinclift 6y ago
            Isn't the database in SQLite? So, you can open it in a SQLite GUI (eg sqlitebrowser.org, which I'm a dev member of) to see and/or screw with stuff?
            • gwittel 6y ago
              Lightroom’s is. Not sure about capture pro. In Apertures case, the photos and meta data are in one giant blob. I’d want to avoid that. Manage the files my way, then have a separate metadata store. The downside of the SQLite dB is no network editing. I’d love to be able to edit from multiple machines without a cloud subscription or super slow NFS.
    • LordAtlas 6y ago
      Can Capture One migrate my existing LR catalogs?
  • darren_ 6y ago
    They've also pulled off an incredibly hostile move for paid users of older Lightrooms - they're refusing to update it for 64bit-only OS X. The app itself is 64bit (in fact, the app itself is _only_ 64bit), but its licensing/installer components are not. So if you update OS X, it's not guaranteed that Lightroom (that you paid for) will run, or if it does, how long it will continue running for. This isn't some ancient software, this is the 2015 version of Lightroom. This is 100% intentional to drive users to subscriptions.
    • testfoobar 6y ago
      This is why my main media computer is still Mojave.
    • flandry93 6y ago
      Regardless of the apology, Adobe should not be allowed to simply dismiss that they deleted user files. In effect, due to Adobe negligence, they have destroyed user intellectual property. A signal and example needs to be made. Individual users can sue for damages -- lost value and opportunity -- illegal destruction of property. The computer fraud and abuse act could also be applied for criminal charges -- Adobe misused and misappropriated their access to customer data and systems. Arguing that it was a "mistake" and "we are sorry" does not correct the damage done. If Adobe makes such a fuss over protecting their IP, then they should not be surprised when their customers do so also. There is a potential for a class action here as well. And Adobe is very profitable -- some legal team representing this case, even if pro bono, will be/become quite rich. Moreover, telling people that they should have X, and Y, and Z, to protect themselves from the mistakes of rogue actors/apps, is simply a displacement of responsibility tactic. Just because something illegal/damaging was "done with a computer" does not mean it was "ok" and "an apology is enough" -- now pay us for our services you miserable worm/user!
      • bonoboTP 6y ago
        Software licenses always disclaim any warranty, implied or explicit, it's all "AS IS" and you accept it when you click that Accept button upon installation. And honestly, it's good this way. If you want to secure your photos, make backups yourself or sign a contract with some company that will guarantee something. But once they are liable and can be sued, the service will be astronomically expensive.
  • x87678r 6y ago
    Wow is that old fashioned local software without a subscription. I didn't know that was available, sounds perfect. I'm a guy that only wants to upgrade every 5 years and the subscriptions are offensively expensive.
    • thewebcount 6y ago
      Well with Lightroom Classic you can’t use it until you login to your Adobe Cloud account. I have a literal boxed copy of it that I can’t run because I don’t want to associate it with my cloud account (which I also don’t want to have).
  • prawn 6y ago
    I also detest the subscription as I rarely update and don't care about new features. It compares really poorly too with the other key piece of software I use - DaVinci Resolve. Resolve has an incredibly good free version and then the paid upgrade is a single payment.
    • jiggawatts 6y ago
      An observation I've made is that DaVinci Resolve seems to be a more technically capable still image editing tool than Adobe Lightroom, despite being designed for video colour grading instead of photography. For example, Lightroom does not allow custom colour spaces for the output, they're restricted to a fixed list of baked-in ICC profiles. The only option is to export in the large ProPhoto space and then externally convert to the target space as a second step. Lightroom has no support for true HDR, the type that requires HDR10 or Dolby Vision displays. If you want to edit a 14-bit RAW photo for, say, the background image in a HDR computer game or a YouTube video, Lightroom can't help you. Even in SDR mode, the colour grading in Lightroom is much more primitive than Resolve. There's no vector scope, for example, something that would be trivial to implement for them. Adobe talks a lot about their "AI" features, but they're very basic. They've left a lot of low hanging fruit on the tree. For example, it would be great feature that when flicking through a bunch of shots of a face while zoomed in, the eyes should be automatically aligned between each shot to make it easy to compare shots. Similarly, they could train an AI to recognise in-focus and out-of-focus faces, and automatically "score" a shot based on things like: "Are both eyes in focus, or just one?" These days, this stuff is trivial to implement in software, yet Adobe is still firmly rooted in the 1900s era of "It's just like your darkroom! All the terminology of the black and white film era is unchanged! You can dodge! You can burn! Just... with a computer!" Reminds me of AutoCAD 20+ years ago: it was a digital blueprint software. More computer-native CAD with proper 3D modelling capabilities such as SolidWorks ate their lunch...
      • bleepblorp 6y ago
        Adobe stagnation is not surprising given that they've switched to a subscription model. Perpetual licensing means that software vendors are essentially competing with the previous versions of their own products and have to provide compelling improvements to their customers for them to upgrade. Ongoing revenue, and with it, vendor survival, depends on continual improvements. In contrast, subscription models combined with cloud-based vendor lock-in allow software vendors to extract economic rents from their victims indefinitely. There are no previous versions to compete against and victims must pay in perpetuity to access their own data. Vendors get paid without needing to do work, so they do no work, make no improvements, and reap disproportionate profits. Software subscriptions are a perfect example of rent seeking, with all that implies about the relationship between vendor and victim and the prospects for ongoing product improvements.
  • mauflows 6y ago
    Especially when the cloud thing installs unkillable daemons and a top level folder that requires editing the windows registry
  • jiggliemon 6y ago
    I’ve been shooting for a very long time. And I shoot several sessions per month, and roughly 60gb per session. Sometimes much more, sometimes less. There is no possible way, nor reason, to have all those images in the cloud. I split up my catalogs aggressively, so I don’t really know how many images I have saved. But it’s in the hundreds of thousands. New Lightroom might be OK for the casual photographer. But for the pro or even advanced amateur, the new Lightroom is completely useless.
    • fludlight 6y ago
      What's your local storage setup?
      • berkes 6y ago
        Not OP. But a friend photographer has a large cupboard with "pigeonholes", I think it was some old mail-sorting cabinet or so. He stacks them with labeled USB drives. Hundreds of them. His reasoning, when I asked about "NAS" or so, was: it's cheap, it lasts, and it is cold storage. Paying for storage of that amount that is fire-, flood and software-error-proof is so much more expensive that it really was no choice. -his words-.
        • teddyh 6y ago
          > it lasts Flash storage degrades, and is only expected to last about 10 years or so.
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
          • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
            Flash storage has a certain maximum number of writes and so will eventually fail as a reusable storage medium. But if you simply want to back up old photos, then you are still likely to be able to read back from the medium for much longer than 10 years.
  • api 6y ago
    The cloud is DRM. If the software doesn't run locally or only parts of it do, then it's impossible to pirate. It's also possible to impose a continuous rent on users. If the user can run disconnected that's hard to enforce. That's really the motive for a lot of things going cloud.
• benrbray 6y ago
  Well, this is as good a time as any then to try out Darktable [1]! [1] https://www.darktable.org/ https://www.darktable.org/
  • Shared404 6y ago
    +1 for this. I used Lightroom in school, tried Darktable on my Linux machine at home and found it perfectly usable, though with a bit of learning curve of course.
  • vmception 6y ago
    Hm yeah new decade new tool I used Lightroom (Classic) all of last decade and its time to move on Crazy to think I used “newfangled non destructive non layer based editing” longer than I used photoshop the decade before Yeah time for something new
    • hatsunearu 6y ago
      Obligatory: https://pixls.us/articles/darktable-3-rgb-or-lab-which-modules-help/ https://pixls.us/articles/darktable-3-rgb-or-lab-which-modul...
  • sudosysgen 6y ago
    Sadly for my A7ii all the RAW files come out exposed incorrectly since the last few updates :( And by almost 3 EV too. I know it's not because of the file, since they look just fine in Lightroom.
    • hatsunearu 6y ago
      Mind posting the RAW files? I use the a7ii and darktable and it is perfect for me.
      • sudosysgen 6y ago
        Sure! Here you go for the RAW file : http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=04290873673274490201 http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=04290873673274490201 Here is the SOOC JPG for the same image : http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=88911356095628235668 http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=88911356095628235668 Google Chrome might warn you of the risk for malware, but it seems to do for every good, free filehost :/ For reference, here is the screenshot : https://imgur.com/a/6RkiGyH https://imgur.com/a/6RkiGyH It doesn't do this for every photo either, which is even more baffling. I hope you'll excuse the poor composition, but I didn't want to publish a photo I might put on an account with my name on it :)
• chadlavi 6y ago
  * They're
  • reificator 6y ago
    This should not be downvoted, it makes the headline much harder to parse on first read, and that's what a headline is for.
  • dang 6y ago
    Fixed now. Submitted title was "Lightroom Update Wipes Users’ Photos/Presets, Adobe Says Their ‘Not Recoverable’".
• FactolSarin 6y ago
  Obviously this is a screw up on Adobe's part, but this is a good time to remind everyone that if you're not backing up your data, then it must not be very important to you. Back up your stuff! You never know when something unexpected will cause you to lose it!
  • paulryanrogers 6y ago
    And when you pay for a service that boasts online backups beware. They are just other people's computers.
    • rosstex 6y ago
      Except for Backblaze, which is owned by magic wizards.
    • bowmessage 6y ago
      > the latest update to the Lightroom app for iPhone and iPad inadvertently wiped users’ photos and presets that were not already synced to the cloud
  • bonoboTP 6y ago
    Seriously, what if the device breaks, is lost, stolen, you accidentally delete things etc? These photos were not synced, they were just on one device... Anything that is just on one device can disappear any day for any reason and you shouldn't be surprised.
  • swiley 6y ago
    Is there an alternative to iCloud for backing up the iPhone? I’ve kind of given up on checking what’s aloud this year.
    • jagged-chisel 6y ago
      Your computer.
      • 6y ago
• stephen82 6y ago
  OK, seriously now...first Canon, now Adobe? Am I missing something here, what's going on?!
  • dylan604 6y ago
    Push QA to users. What could go wrong?
    • newscracker 6y ago
      > Push QA to users. “We need to increase our margins and we know our users aren’t going to abandon us. Where will they even go to since we have them held hostage all these years?“ evil snide laughter
      • dylan604 6y ago
        you forgot the mustache twirl
    • panpanna 6y ago
      But that's basically how Google engineering works. They call it A/B testing, but we all know it's just testing...
  • jseliger 6y ago
    Lots of people are still paying out the nose for Lightroom; not that many people have switched to Capture One; Apple axed Aperture; Adobe thinks, probably correctly, that most people will accept whatever garbage Adobe shoves down their throats.
  • andromeduck 6y ago
    Capture One also has a ton of database bugs that can cause corruption.
  • yborg 6y ago
    Adobe is in full monopolist mode, where they have lock-in and can force users to pay for not just poor functionality, but disasters like this. Bridge 2020 is more or less totally broken on Catalina, and has been since release almost a year ago. CC 2019 version works perfectly (but only with PS 2019). It's mind-boggling that a company with this much revenue can just wreck one of their products, keep shipping it and collecting money and not give a shit.
• FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  This only happened because Adobe fired all its smart white engineers years ago and hired cheap retarded Indians who barely know how to wipe their ass let alone code. Jews take note, this is the reality of the mixed race dystopia you thought you wanted.
• aosaigh 6y ago
  > It seems the latest update to the Lightroom app for iPhone and iPad inadvertently wiped users’ photos and presets that were not already synced to the cloud. “Not already synced to the cloud”. Whatever you think about Lightroom, this headline makes it sound much worse. Photos on the device that haven’t previously synced are lost, not all your photos in your library.
• clemensley 6y ago
  This is why apps should be built on blockchains
  • codetrotter 6y ago
    How would that work? Are we gonna host petabytes of photos on a blockchain? Maybe many exabytes even? Maybe in the future, but even then, as storage capacity increases I think file sizes too will keep growing for the foreseeable future as well.
  • JanisL 6y ago
    In what way do you see apps being built on blockchains? What does such an implementation look like?
• _jal 6y ago
  There's one winner here: the law firm that puts together the class action.
  • flandry93 6y ago
    Adobe needs to pay. And pay a lot! Make an example of them -- this kind of bullshit -- blame the user for everything -- needs to stop.
  • bonoboTP 6y ago
    Was there any warranty? I guess the license is the bog standard everything disclaimed, all "as is" type.
    • wmeredith 6y ago
      Doesn’t really matter if they were negligent and there are real damages.
  • dylan604 6y ago
    Did anything happen to Microsoft when a windows update lost users files? I don't remember hearing anything about users receiving any kind of compensation. Don't know why Adobe's blunder would be any different
• xwdv 6y ago
  When the stock drops tomorrow I’ll pick it up because at the end of the day Adobe has whole industries by the balls.
• overcast 6y ago
  CaptureOne is a great product if anyone is looking for alternatives at this time. No BS subscriptions, just a license.
  • scblock 6y ago
    They have plenty of subscription options and push subscriptions hard on their landing page. They also have a really goofy "buy different versions depending on your camera" model. It's kind of gross, frankly, and has kept me from even trying the software.
    • ip26 6y ago
      I don't have strong evidence for this but at one point it seemed strongly like those camera-vendor-locked editions were actually subsidized by the vendor(s) in question. Said vendors have generally been the camera underdogs. Once upon a time Sony cameras even came with a bundled, vendor-locked Capture One license.
    • overcast 6y ago
      So? It says BUY or Subscribe on each button, that links you to purchased versions. Those camera model versions are cheaper subsidized, so you're not paying anywhere near full price.
• causality0 6y ago
  Yet another tick on the list of "ways mobile devices are not real computers". If something erases my files I ought to be able to run a recovery scan and get them back in minutes, assuming they haven't been overwritten with new data.
  • userbinator 6y ago
    That's what I thought too when I saw the title --- "Adobe says 'Not Recoverable', recovery program says 'Run me!'" --- and then I read the article and discovered this is on iDevices, where raw block device access is effectively unattainable. I guess those who have jailbroken might be able to, but then again, with Apple's stance on security being what it is, wouldn't be surprised if all deletions were truly secure.
  • humaniania 6y ago
    That doesn't work so well with SSDs :( https://www.howtogeek.com/125521/htg-explains-why-deleted-files-can-be-recovered-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/ https://www.howtogeek.com/125521/htg-explains-why-deleted-fi...
    • causality0 6y ago
      A real computer can run automatic backups to a second local disk or over your home network. Even if you do feel like paying Apple for adequate iCloud backup storage you're consuming bandwidth and using large amounts of data.
      • vladvasiliu 6y ago
        You can do that with an iPhone too. You can do a full backup of the phone to the mac, encrypted, which also contains "sensitive" data, etc. Can be run over wifi if you don't want to bother with cables or via usb if the local wifi is shoddy. No need to pay Apple anything for any storage.
        • beagle3 6y ago
• goblin89 6y ago
  I have recently migrated off Lightroom to Rawtherapee, and would recommend it to photographers serious about raw development. I don’t see myself going back, really. Open-source, plain-text profile format, works everywhere. Like Lightroom, it handles DNGs natively, but allows more control as you create your image from raw scene-referred data. Its GUI is somewhat laggier, but if you do a lot of batch processing you may be able to more than offset that by writing a simple script that delegates processing to your own cloud compute (it has a CLI tool, something Lightroom is unlikely to offer). Profile once, apply without having to launch the GUI.
• svnpenn 6y ago
  This is exactly why I do manual updates for pretty much all my software. Any time I mention it, people hound me with "what about security issues!" uh oh yeah thats a concern, but I will take that risk over shit like this where personal files are just getting wiped. Most users dont need bleeding edge software. You can run months behind and be fine in most cases. I read release notes. When an update comes out, unless some big feature that I need is introduced, I skip it.
  • ta17711771 6y ago
    > You can run months behind and be fine in most cases. Out of curiosity, what's your coronavirus take?
    • 1vasari 6y ago
      > in most cases.
    • svnpenn 6y ago
      what in gods name does that have to do with software?
• userbinator 6y ago
  When things like this happen, is it any wonder an increasing number of users are viewing any sort of "updates" with extreme apprehension? "It was working fine just before, and now I've lost everything. Why should I have even updated!?!?" I still remember when the general advice was "do not upgrade/change what works, unless you need something in a later version", which then changed to "updates are recommended", followed by "updates are strongly recommended", and more recently, "updates are mandatory". Adobe isn't alone, Microsoft had done worse not long ago --- with a forced update too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18189139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18189139 (On the flip side, at least you're able to run file recovery programs on a PC.)
  • klodolph 6y ago
    On the audio production side of things... people are still pretty skittish when it comes to upgrades. I like to think of an audio production system as an appliance rather than a computer. There's a quote from George Sanger that goes something like "the difference between an appliance and a computer is that a computer breaks down more often". He was speaking about audio production. There's a photo in his book of a computer with a sign taped to it saying, in explicit words, to NOT upgrade the computer, because it is running GigaSampler and he would very much like to keep running GigaSampler.
    • arvinsim 6y ago
      On a side note, I think that will make the Intel Macs still valuable for years to come. Audio production software is notoriously conservative when it comes to updates.
      • conradfr 6y ago
        That's partly because many plugins won't be updated and if you need to revisit a project and didn't bounce stems back then you'll be out of luck.
  • dylan604 6y ago
• Kye 6y ago
  Good thing I went with Capture One.
• pier25 6y ago
  Affinity Photo or Pixelmator Pro are great replacements for Photoshop. Resolve and Final Cut are much better than Premiere. I'm still looking for a replacement for After Effects and Illustrator though. I've heard Affinity Publisher is a great InDesign replacement although I've never used it.
  • dylan604 6y ago
    On what platform? Nuke is an amazing replacement for AE.
    • pfranz 6y ago
      I really think they're very different applications. I think in nodes and much prefer Nuke, but AE being timeline based gives it very different strengths. Nuke also doesn't manage video and synced audio and is better optimized around frame sequences. In school I'd often see people edit their projects in AE (because they were too lazy to learn Premere or another proper editor). It's not a great idea to use AE for editing, but its possible. If you tried to do that in Nuke you'd throw your computer out the window.
  • dantondwa 6y ago
    I can recommend Affinity Designer as an Illustrator replacement.
    • pier25 6y ago
      I bought it when it was released and still waiting to be able to work properly with groups.
  • Shared404 6y ago
    Inkscape is a decent replacement for Illustrator, at least in my experience.
    • fretn 6y ago
      Yes indeed. But sadly not on macOS.
• StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  Reason 23,541 why I refuse to use any "cloud" based service. There is no "cloud" - its just stored on someone else's hardware.
• newscracker 6y ago
  > This is also a great reminder for photographers that you should always back up your images, in multiple places, so you’re never subject to a single point of failure. Mistakes like this happen, even at some of the world’s largest companies For a long time, I’ve been thinking that for all the value that Adobe provides in some of its products, it’s still quite a bad deal for the users. The single point of failure for people who use Adobe is Adobe. Those who have realized this sooner (around the time it went full-on into subscriptions) and made changes to take more control over their workflow would be better off without being controlled and swayed in every which direction because the company just wants to make more money. While I feel pained at the loss that the Lightroom app users are going through (any kind of data loss is quite painful), I hope that for their own sake, many more users start looking at alternatives that aren’t premised on holding them hostage.
• diebeforei485 6y ago
  It's not the first time Adobe would have deleted stuff. I remember the Backblaze fiasco from a few years ago. Also, App Store Review didn't protect users from this.
• jacquesm 6y ago
  Happy with that cloud based software yet? There is nothing more frustrating than to see all these software packages that have been turned into eternal cashcows by forcibly grafting on a service that absolutely nobody needs. Then to top it off they lose your data. Fantastic.
  • themodelplumber 6y ago
    We should come up with a grassroots cloud service measurement system. You know how lakes and reservoirs sometimes have an "N deaths so far this year" sign. Something like, "N cloudfails the last 3 years" for us cloud software users. Kept in a nice table so you can sort by least-bad records.
• jiggliemon 6y ago
  From what I gather, this only affects the new Lightroom app, and primarily the iOS apps.
• Brajeshwar 6y ago
  In another story, I needed Lightroom for about a week to do some photo work. I started with their subscription for the month and I wanted to let go if I'm done in the first month. While trying to cancel my subscription, I realize I can only do that after paying for the remaining 11 months (rough calculation). With no other option, I paid my penalty and left Adobe for good. I have deleted my 15+ year old Adobe account. Alternatives and to serve nostalgic attachments, I bought the whole suite of Affinity[1] Products. I've also bought Darkroom[2] for photo editing on iPad. 1. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ 2. https://darkroom.co https://darkroom.co P.S. (edit/addition) I ended a 25+ year relationship with Adobe. I paid myself through my school and college with PageMaker, and other softwares (both open source, free, and paid).
  • brailsafe 6y ago
    I love Affinity publisher and hype their products up as much as I can. For Adobe, could you not have issued a chargeback or in some other way dispute the cancellation?
    • Brajeshwar 6y ago
      Not worth the time, irritations, and headache that will follow. I'm struggling to survive our Startup[1] and this is definitely not something I can digress my attention. 1. https://valinor.earth https://valinor.earth
      • brailsafe 6y ago
        Ooh thanks for the link. Remote Sensing is a particular area of formal and informal study/interest, and have had similar ideas to components of what your startup seems to do, but am not currently doing anything related. There is so much underused public data available.
      • wolfpack_mick 6y ago
        I checked and at least in Germany Adobe offers the monthly subscription. It's a little more expensive as can be expected. I purchased it some years ago, and then cancelling after a few months they tried to charge the rest of the year, but when I pointed them to the subscription type I had, they complied.
• cma 6y ago
  Apple's 30% pays for strict reviews that should have prevented this...
  • jug 6y ago
    Good point. User safety is Apple’s argument for their fees, and one made quite recently too.
• coding123 6y ago
  My wife tells me to never update apps on phones. The updates are never worth it, they are just mucking around, no real progress is made on these apps, and worse, sometimes the updates introduce ads. The red circles beckon me anyway, all the time. I can't stop myself. I just disabled my updates, and I'm finally going to listen to her. Beyond this major disaster, I updated my phone about a month ago. Ever since Chrome just randomly freezes now. I have to switch apps, and switch back to get it flowing again.
  • panpanna 6y ago
    Since Mozillas major update to Firefox on Androiz last month (the new UX is wrong in ar many levels it's mindbuggling they let it pass QA) I am also doing thins.
  • VoxPelli 6y ago
    This is really bad advice. If nothing else, you do want to get the security updates that are released. In general: Update but if possible, don’t be the first one to update to a new version, wait for a day or two
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  It was amazing that Lightroom came with free upgrades, year after year. I would probably have happily paid $99 each time there was a major version number increase, even if that meant paying effectively $99 a year. That’s not far off the subscription price. Something about the subscription model feels so arrogant though, on Adobe’s part, that I just can’t stomach it. Is it because it feels like rent? May Lightroom 6, and the hours and hours of face and location tagging I’ve sunk into it, last forever.
  • DigitalComrade 6y ago
    Every year I buy a 1 year license off amazon for the photography plan (which includes both lightrooms and Photoshop). It works out cheaper (£89 for the year instead of £10 x 12) Each year I revaluate the alternatives, but so far they always come up short.
• virgilp 6y ago
  Does anybody know a good photo management software that's not Lightroom? I don't actually need to do edits to my photos - I need to manage my photo library. Lightroom is not great at it but is passable - is there anything else? What I'm looking for is software that: - Is fast - Is capable of leaving photos where they are ("import-in-place"). - imports photos from card to NAS, organized by time ( year/month/day) - allows me to make selections & export e.g. to Google Photos (exporting to a different local folder is good enough, I can setup google photos to sync, it's only slightly inconvenient). - Ideally has good features for finding image duplicates, and maybe for searching. - Keeps my photos locally/ doesn't insist on a cloud location.
  • hosteur 6y ago
    While not as advanced retouching features as LR digikam matches the features you list. I have used it for more than 10 years and like it.
  • prox 6y ago
    open source darktable is what I use. http://www.darktable.org/ http://www.darktable.org/ It’s fast Leaves it in place I think it can make collection, but not sure on this point Not sure It keeps files locally Also it is open source ;)
  • isolli 6y ago
    I've been following https://photoprism.org/ https://photoprism.org/ for a while (without taking the plunge yet, as I was waiting for the product to mature).
  • keane 6y ago
    While people seem to be replacing Photoshop with Affinity Photo and Lightroom with Capture One (elsewhere in the comments here, my own experience as well), I’m not sure what the best library focused tool is. Maybe look at comparisons of “digital asset management” or this image specific roundup: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_organizer#Notable_image_organizers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_organizer#Notable_imag...
  • tzfld 6y ago
• blackoil 6y ago
  Honestly, from all the posts only actionable I could figure out, is to have multiple backups of important files, preferably real-time. Whole thread is about repeated tropes of why they hate subscription/Adobe/MS etc. All these comments on alternative s/w for Desktops are funny and typical HN as the issue is with mobile apps and none of the comments showed any pattern with Adobe of poor QA. Assuming, none of the alternatives will ever have a catastrophic bug is also ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
• puranjay 6y ago
  Slightly OT but does anyone else here just not update key software anymore? I haven't updated my Mac because the last time I did it, it caused a major startup error and I lost documents.
• panpanna 6y ago
  Top reasons I prefer Darktable over Lightroom: 1. It runs on all platforms 2. It is not cloud based 3. It does not delete your photos
• VoxPelli 6y ago
  At least, this time Adobe only deleted their own files, unlike in 2016 where they on MacOS deleted files owned by others: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35577498 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35577498
• trophycase 6y ago
  For many years now I've been a proponent of "never update unless you absolutely need to". I just updated my old Macbook Pro to Catalina and now it gets ridiculously hot watching even simple YT videos.
• cannedslime 6y ago
  Ah yes, the cloud! Trust in the cloud folks! How about adobe stops treating their pockets as my personal storage space, and keeps my files secure on my own device instead of deleting everything they didn't have a copy of. This is why I don't buy software that comes with a subscription and a deal with the devil.
• oedmarap 6y ago
  I switched to Phase One's Capture One a long time ago -- it's light years ahead of anything Lightroom has to offer. The biggest improvement is performance, due to C1's use of Sessions, which are basically folders where you store your RAW files, edits/history, trash, and exports per shoot. While C1 does support the antiquated method of using a Library, there's more safety and manageability in using Sessions, and most professional photographers use this for good reason. And regarding presets, C1 stores all (incl. user) presets in a standard directory in your home folder, so it's trivial to keep them automatically backed up.
• hellofunk 6y ago
  I think we can just chalk this up to a competition between Canon and Adobe on who can delete the most photos from the world.
• microcolonel 6y ago
  Darktable is great by the way; nothing's perfect, but its indexing and navigation is faster than Lightroom and the filters are basically what you use. I've also heard good things about RawTherapee.
• c0l0 6y ago
  I'd wish for every disgruntled Adobe client who now switches to another tool that satisfies their requirements, saving a few (or considerably more) bucks in the process, to donate a small part of that to the FOSS, libre alternatives for much of Adobe's product portfolio: https://www.gimp.org/ https://www.gimp.org/ https://inkscape.org/ https://inkscape.org/ https://darktable.org/ https://darktable.org/ https://krita.org/ https://krita.org/ ... You could do so much good with relatively little! :) Thanks everyone who considers donating!
  • ungzd 6y ago
    Also http://rawtherapee.com/ http://rawtherapee.com/
  • ttsda 6y ago
    Digikam for the organization part of lightroom
• johndill 6y ago
  And that is why I use Lightroom classic with a hard drive local and an Amazon cloud drive backup. Still can't trust the cloud as your only backup
• officemonkey 6y ago
  I've just deleted every Adobe app from my phone and tablet. I'm not going to trust this corporation.
• whiddershins 6y ago
  This is another example of deeply yet inadvertent hostile behavior by a tech company towards artists and creativity. It is hard to overstate how much this matters, and is overlooked. I am constantly grateful that I live in a time where I have all these magical creative tools. At the same time, tech companies have a tendency to internalize ignorance about what artists and musicians actually need, and what is nurturing or destructive to creativity. I think the best example of this is the YouTube algorithms that favor frequent uploads for discovery. Probably nothing could be more hostile to human creativity, and I’m not sure it’s purely profit seeking. I think it is actually just ignorance. —edit— Apple has not made it obvious how to back up all the content from your apps, nor has Adobe, nor has either of them made it easy to do it in a non-proprietary fashion. This is anti-artistic. It makes me not have true control over my creations, and this is discouraging and damaging to creativity. —edit2– I believe almost any artist would say: “having control of the durability of my art is extremely important, the latest Lightroom feature is largely insignificant.”
• j45 6y ago
  The cloud, nor one computer should ever be your only backup
• blacklight 6y ago
  This is a common mistake when it comes to cloud synchronization with an equally simple fix. When you compare a set of items A on the user device against a set of items B on the cloud you should FIRST check (either through file name, hash or creation/modification timestamp) that: - An item in A is not present in B before uploading it to B. - An item in A is present in B and has changed on A before updating it on B. - An item in A is present in B and has changed on B before updating it on A. - An item in B was present on A but it's no longer there before deleting it from B. - An item in A was present on B but it's no longer there before deleting it from A. Seriously, this is the ABC of cloud sync. Many free products also got it right. There's no excuse for the engineers at Adobe not to get it right in their overpriced products.
  • ukyrgf 6y ago
    Spend one day trying to work on a graphic design project with the file saved in the Creative Cloud sync folder. The amount of "filename (Sync Issue1).ai" files you'll see accumulate will make you never want to use it again.
• kevincox 6y ago
  This is clearly not ideal and reflects poorly on Adobe's QA process but this is about items that are not backed up. Of course most of these users probably had their iOS device "backed up" to Apple's servers but this backup is just replication. It helps if you lose your phone, but it doesn't help if an app has a bug or you make a mistake. It would be very cool of Apple or Google device backups supported a point-in-time restore. (Ideally a per-app point-in-time restore).
• sarasasa28 6y ago
  just pirate it
• mtnGoat 6y ago
  You think Abode is bad, try cancelling any recurring billing from Google, even when fraudulent. A CC of mine was compromised and a YouTube premium account was made. I've changed my card number three times, yet somehow Visa let's them keep billing me. Finally had to cancel the CC account, Google kept trying to bill it for 90 days even after multiple chargebacks and the account being frozen from all charges.
• ChicagoDave 6y ago
  Are they saying they deleted the photos from your phone/tablet or just the adjustments in Lightroom? If they're just talking about Lightroom data, then although that's pretty crappy, it's what I expect out of apps. I remember the Apple Pages used to do this too. If you deleted or upgraded, the data was erased. That's all changed since they enabled cloud, but still was a horrible design.
• armandhammer 6y ago
  But but... I thought Apple's excuse for their 30% tax was that their App Review process and locked down OS etc is supposed to prevent apps from doing such malicious things on iOS? To keep us and our data "safe"? Err... right?
• adarshaj 6y ago
  It may be coincidence, but just earlier today, I had to use a photo for display pic and default crop won't let you keep the whole photo in original aspect ratio, so I installed Lightroom to do resize but filling a blur. I believe this was my first time installing the app from play store, I signed in through Google login, I was surprised to find some 40 to 50 photos of absolute stranger synced to my email! I don't know who that person is, I assumed they may have put in my gmail instead of theirs, but it's stupid that they would start associating backups without verifying the email! Adobe has lost any respect it had. I will never trust them with my data.
• Imagenuity 6y ago
  The title of this should be "Lightroom iOS app update..." and save some panic for a desktop user.