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On the other hand, I will give credit to Adobe: since the transition to Creative Cloud and the new incremental release model I've felt that they've been much mo

On the other hand, I will give credit to Adobe: since the transition to Creative Cloud and the new incremental release model I've felt that they've been much more responsive to actual customer needs. From an outsider's perspective, getting to this point seems to have been a cultural shift that took a lot of work to get to -- and they've been getting a ton of positive response to it. So I'm hopeful that Lightroom and the rest of the CC apps will continue to improve considerably because of culture rather than purely the goad of competition.

netcraft 12y ago
I'm not sure I agree with you - they released Lightroom 5 around the same time as the CC transition, and as far as I can tell they haven't updated it since beyond support for new cameras and bug fixes, which I would have expected for lightroom 5 anyway. The last major update I can find is over a year ago now. They have released Lightroom Mobile but thats all I am aware of. I hope you are right though and that they do improve based on culture - but if lightroom is the only major option for a digital darkroom and photo management, and most of their customers are paying monthly anyway, I don't see them pushing new innovations.
- calinet6 12y ago
  I think Lightroom was already a bit of a cultural separation from Creative Suite. It's more like Creative Cloud is playing catchup with Lightroom's model, which was already fairly modern and nice. I don't think the monthly model discourages innovation -- as a product person, more people using the new product is more motivating for the organization, not less.
  - netcraft 12y ago
    I hope you are right, but I am much more cynical. With a product for professionals like this, when they don't have to come up with a punch list of new features to convince you that the new version is worth spending your hard earned money on instead of staying with your current one, I don't see it as likely that they will be spending the effort they once would have. If the users don't like it, where will they go?
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >I don't think the monthly model discourages innovation -- as a product person, more people using the new product is more motivating for the organization, not less. Well, "more people/more motivation" wasn't exactly the case with Quark. Or with lots of enterprise software companies having their customers by the balls.
    - 1stop 12y ago
      Quark wasn't subscription and it fell down the "Who cares about OS X anyway" hole. Adobe saw that, and smashed indesign onto the market.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        I'm not strickly talking about subscription vs no subscription. I think the key distinction, which is common in Quark of old and Adobe's subscription model, is "having the customers by the balls". And the problem I'm reffering to with Quark was not the "Who cares about OS X anyway". It was about arrogant and complacent company, not caring about its customers in general, even in the platforms it did support.
        1stop 12y ago
        Adobe have picked up the pace massively since CC. I'd call it the opposite of complacency. I work heavily in most of their products (the entire Adobe suite), and the amount of features they are releasing and the speed at which they are doing it, is amazing given their size. If you focus on one product (like lightroom, which is a minor product at best) then sure, it doesn't look like much, but take a look at Edge, InDesign, Flash, etc, and there is a lot of improvements taking place. How are they not caring?
        coldtea 12y ago
        >Adobe have picked up the pace massively since CC. Yes, but it's also the opening stage of this. They would risk a backlash if they started their CC-only period as complacent. After all CS6 still works atm. A few years down the road though? After all Quark was also innovating and caring at first.
- mesh 12y ago
  Whats new in Lightroom 5.0 to 5.5: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html This includes a ton of new features, as well as the release of Lightroom mobile, web and sync services.
  - netcraft 12y ago
    The major features in that list were introduced as part of lightroom 5 - the only other features to lightroom itself came in lightroom 5.2 and these are small enhancements and bug fixes. All other changes are lightroom mobile, which while i'm sure they are useful, I don't consider to be improvements to lightroom itself.

netcraft 12y ago

I'm not sure I agree with you - they released Lightroom 5 around the same time as the CC transition, and as far as I can tell they haven't updated it since beyond support for new cameras and bug fixes, which I would have expected for lightroom 5 anyway. The last major update I can find is over a year ago now. They have released Lightroom Mobile but thats all I am aware of. I hope you are right though and that they do improve based on culture - but if lightroom is the only major option for a digital darkroom and photo management, and most of their customers are paying monthly anyway, I don't see them pushing new innovations.

calinet6 12y ago
I think Lightroom was already a bit of a cultural separation from Creative Suite. It's more like Creative Cloud is playing catchup with Lightroom's model, which was already fairly modern and nice. I don't think the monthly model discourages innovation -- as a product person, more people using the new product is more motivating for the organization, not less.
- netcraft 12y ago
  I hope you are right, but I am much more cynical. With a product for professionals like this, when they don't have to come up with a punch list of new features to convince you that the new version is worth spending your hard earned money on instead of staying with your current one, I don't see it as likely that they will be spending the effort they once would have. If the users don't like it, where will they go?
- coldtea 12y ago
  >I don't think the monthly model discourages innovation -- as a product person, more people using the new product is more motivating for the organization, not less. Well, "more people/more motivation" wasn't exactly the case with Quark. Or with lots of enterprise software companies having their customers by the balls.
  - 1stop 12y ago
    Quark wasn't subscription and it fell down the "Who cares about OS X anyway" hole. Adobe saw that, and smashed indesign onto the market.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      I'm not strickly talking about subscription vs no subscription. I think the key distinction, which is common in Quark of old and Adobe's subscription model, is "having the customers by the balls". And the problem I'm reffering to with Quark was not the "Who cares about OS X anyway". It was about arrogant and complacent company, not caring about its customers in general, even in the platforms it did support.
      - 1stop 12y ago
        Adobe have picked up the pace massively since CC. I'd call it the opposite of complacency. I work heavily in most of their products (the entire Adobe suite), and the amount of features they are releasing and the speed at which they are doing it, is amazing given their size. If you focus on one product (like lightroom, which is a minor product at best) then sure, it doesn't look like much, but take a look at Edge, InDesign, Flash, etc, and there is a lot of improvements taking place. How are they not caring?
        coldtea 12y ago
        >Adobe have picked up the pace massively since CC. Yes, but it's also the opening stage of this. They would risk a backlash if they started their CC-only period as complacent. After all CS6 still works atm. A few years down the road though? After all Quark was also innovating and caring at first.
mesh 12y ago
Whats new in Lightroom 5.0 to 5.5: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html This includes a ton of new features, as well as the release of Lightroom mobile, web and sync services.
- netcraft 12y ago
  The major features in that list were introduced as part of lightroom 5 - the only other features to lightroom itself came in lightroom 5.2 and these are small enhancements and bug fixes. All other changes are lightroom mobile, which while i'm sure they are useful, I don't consider to be improvements to lightroom itself.