Something that should be very clear from this long chain are the differences in workflow used by various photographers. Something else that should be plain to see is that often those differences are driven not only by personal preference or experience, but by the type of photography.
For example, somebody said that using the import dialog to cull work was ridiculous because that should be done in Library after the import. (Might have been in a different chain, but the same topic.) For a relatively low volume shooter, that makes good sense. The landscape photographer who carefully chooses his tripod position and then uses Live View to focus isn't going to have nearly the same volume of photographs as the sports photographer who often shoots in bursts. The first photographer doesn't need to do a quick and dirty selection; the second photographer will have one or two thousand shots of which many do not need to be imported. Culling at import makes good sense and saves considerable time. This isn't a technical evaluation--is it in focus?--but rather a subject evaluation. It allows the sports photographer to quickly remove those shots where the referee is standing in just the wrong spot: right in front of action. Because referees (or rodeo clowns in my case) ALWAYS get in the way. Those lovely, oversized check marks in the middle of the darkened preview image, a feature of the new import dialog, seem to be taking lessons from those referees. They, too, seem to always be in the way.
Will that import dialog change get in the way of someone who imports everything? Nope, it probably wouldn't. What is a major frustration to one photographer wouldn't affect another's workflow.
Another suggested that the "move" option really isn't necessary. As one of my non-photographic pursuits I put out a church newsletter, and I often get photographs from others. These JPEGs are all over the map as far as quality, and very often I find that I need to do some minor tone mapping, particularly white balance, and cropping. Although there are a number of tools available to do this work, I've found it easiest to import them into a LR catalog, do my cleanup there, and then export the adjusted and resized images. Without the move option I would have to import and then remember to clean up the submitted images from where I stashed them. The move option makes my job much easier; I don't have to remember to clean up directories later.
Those are just two options that have been altered or eliminated in the new, improved import dialog. I find having to change my workflow to accommodate those changes extremely frustrating, particularly as I see no good reason for changing the import process in the first place.
Others have different reasons, some probably more valid than mine, to complain about the changes. For those photographers, this is not a "tempest in a teapot." The changes have very real impacts on the way that they work. Even if you don't use a specific feature doesn't mean that it's removal or modification doesn't have consequences for other photographers. Have the courtesy to understand that your views and needs may not match others. After all, __I__ don't use the Map module, the Slideshow module, the Web module, or the Book module. I wouldn't advocate dumping those just because I think they're a waste of space.
One last point. This controversy has nothing to do with the "subscription service." I have a perpetual license, and I'm impacted as much as any CC user.
Tom
