The Future of Lightroom

[David Mantripp]

I'm really not sure that Lr has any future going by some of the discussion here. Really, if all people are interested is Raw development then the question needs to be asked, what does Lr have over Ps/ACR? Absolutely zip, IMHO. The tools that Aperture, and then Lightroom, bought to the table were intended to provide a single environment within which photos could be managed, catalogued, developed, and edited (how many people here know what "edited" means?). Aperture, with tools like the light table, comprehensive stacking, versioning and organizing, and the book editor provided a fantastic environment for working on a project. To risk the Wrath Of Schewe, I'd say that no pre-release screenshot of "Shadowland" I've ever seen indicated that Adobe had thought of anything even vaguely on those lines, and all the non-Develop Module stuff looked to have been rush built and bolted on in 6 months - and never improved since. But nevertheless, Lr has these tools, and since the competition has self-immolated, they're no longer second rate, and for me, they're mission critical. Slightly better NR at ISO 25,600? Not so much. Capture One, on the other hand, does not offer much beyond Develop - and yet, apparently, people are flocking to it. So, the conclusion must be that the market for the non-Develop stuff is very small, and therefore, the justification for Adobe to support 2 advanced/pro-level Develop-focused suites is very low.  Hence, push the advanced crowd back towards Ps, and use the Lightroom brand awareness to create a new / replacement product to compete in the consumer market.

That's one way I could see it going. I hope I'm wrong. But also, having been an Adobe customer for years, long enough even to remember Adobe Fetch, Streamline, Dimensions, etc, I really don't think they are capable of winning in the consumer market. It's just not in the company's DNA - or what's left of it.

[digitaldog]

Thom Hogan tells all:
 analysts. Adobe spent a lot of time outlining their growth and income targets (20% compound annual growth through 2018), then gave fiscal 2016 forecasts that were below what most analysts at the meeting were predicting ;~). Still, to grow at the rate Adobe is forecasting, they need many more customers, period. That means that they have to make successful products such as Lightroom reach out to even more customers. Ones that might be put off by a “daunting” import process. 

And that's fine. Make the product better for those masses. But don't remove functionality of which 5 versions established workflows for existing customers. If that means a "dummy" and "expert" mode one selects, with "dummy" being the default, I'm OK with that. To break existing workflows is unforgivable. The product managers screwed up big time. I've never seen such an egregious example like this from Adobe so I'm worried a bit.

[jdyrek]

I am worried as well.  I have everything based on LR, I am a full time professional shooter and a CC subscriber.  Mr. Schewe is not even using the new update.  The guy who writes the books is not using it and that tells us something.  I spent time yesterday afternoon looking at Capture One tutorials.

[NancyP]

The combination of DAM (cataloguing and labeling/ keywording/ collections) and parametric development in one application is attractive to me. Of course, those who do one-off jobs might not need the keywording and collection functions. I prefer parametric because I like saving snapshot versions and then returning later to decide which I like best - and not having a zillion physical files of the same RAW-source image to name, file, and find space for. Obviously being able to print is important, but the books and slides could have been optional and I would still be happily using, figuring that a plug-in could supply non-core function. Face recognition? Meh.

[ButchM]

The product managers screwed up big time. I've never seen such an egregious example like this from Adobe so I'm worried a bit.

Too true ... but I was really taken aback (but not completely surprised) by the aloof, abrupt and out of touch initial response by Mangalick which more or less told us too bad, deal with it ...

[CatOne]

And that's fine. Make the product better for those masses. But don't remove functionality of which 5 versions established workflows for existing customers. If that means a "dummy" and "expert" mode one selects, with "dummy" being the default, I'm OK with that. To break existing workflows is unforgivable. The product managers screwed up big time. I've never seen such an egregious example like this from Adobe so I'm worried a bit.

Well, though, that's the challenge.

If you NEVER remove features, and you support umpteen arcane-and-specific uses of the product, you end up with something that is IMPOSSIBLE to maintain and which you can never move forward. It is often necessary to "re-think" things and come up with newer, better, and sometimes simpler ways of doing something, and if you make a better product for 99% of users, and a worse product for 1% of users, that MAY be a compromise you're willing to take. That's the real challenge of things.

I mean, on the flip side, you could come up with something like Photoshop. Which for 99% of people is just unapproachable. I won't touch it, because if I go more than 30 days without using it, I forget many things I need to even get around in the product. It's a franken-app which is only usable by people who spend hours in it every day. Hell, I've seen some of the weirdest "recipes" ever for getting ideal results (my favorite ever was to increase saturation and contrast by duplicating the main layer, convert the duplicate to black and white, then double the saturation on the main layer and merge them). And most Photoshop users really feel more attached to the application BECAUSE it's so damned complicated and BECAUSE they went through 4 years worth of pain to get to be "experts."

That's a fair bit of a digression, but my point is that if you never remove functionality, and you never take what you've learned in 8 years of shipping a product and try to "re-think" some things, the product will end up being noticeably worse and more complex over time. The first implementation isn't always the best.

I'm not saying what they've done with the import dialog is an improvement, and I'm certainly not saying the way they rolled this out is excusable. But I _do_ think it's sensible to take analytics of how people _are_ using the product, and to try and make something that's more useful to more users. I think this is a great example of "good idea in principle, and terrible execution" more than anything else.

[Rory]

If you look at the last couple of releases, one has to question the competence of the lightroom developers and management.  On the other hand, the lightroom community is passionate and vocal, and that may be the saving grace in the long run.

[digitaldog]

Well, though, that's the challenge.

If you NEVER remove features, and you support umpteen arcane-and-specific uses of the product, you end up with something that is IMPOSSIBLE to maintain and which you can never move forward.

Photoshop hasn't really had such issues, been around since 1990. Further, there's nothing arcane about the functionality that broke workflows (mine included) as a result of the new import dialog. So, sorry no, I'm not buying into that as an excuse.

[ButchM]

I'm not saying what they've done with the import dialog is an improvement, and I'm certainly not saying the way they rolled this out is excusable. But I _do_ think it's sensible to take analytics of how people _are_ using the product, and to try and make something that's more useful to more users. I think this is a great example of "good idea in principle, and terrible execution" more than anything else.

I don't don't think anyone who is upset, annoyed or even outraged by what we received with v6.2/2015.2 believes that a developer should NEVER make changes to their offerings, even delete deprecated tools ... but if they wish to remove functionality that a good number of users have come to rely upon ... I think it would behoove the developer to be quite sure the analytics they are using to base their decisions upon is accurate and complete.

Even heavy users savvy in the intricacies of complicated solutions appreciate simplification ... after all, it really isn't the number of sliders a 'pro' invokes that is distinguishable from the average user ... it is why certain sliders were used and to what degree. Removing some of those sliders without warning based upon incomplete metrics is perilous at best.

[Rory]

A change to Lightroom that I would support is a redesign of the develop architecture to support layers, where each layer could be masked using the gradient, radial and brush tools, with all of the controls in the dev module available for each layer.  I am not a fan of the duplication of edit controls, with many missing, for localized editing, as per the current design.

[Rusty]

It is interesting to note who is not participating in these various threads on this topic.
I've been considering subscribing to PS/LRCC but not in any rush and now will wait. I'm at CS3 and LR 5.7 and can happily remain there for some time.
Perhaps LULA will post something on this authored by Jeff/Michael/Kevin?

[Tim Lookingbill]

Coming from someone who's processed most of my 3000 or so Raws and jpegs in ACR (CS3-CS5) and also finally bought Lightroom 4 just to check out PV2012 (still not sure I'm liking it on all images) LR's overall UI feels like it was designed by someone who tends to either make a lot of mistakes in editing or not sure of what they're seeing or is way too obsessive and not sure they like their results to the point they need a big sign (called a bezel for some strange reason) flashing right in the middle of the image to tell them what each little tweak stored in History state they performed.

And then the histogram reflects the internal data (not output) in %'s throughout the UI. Percentage of what? I don't need the curve tool telling me a point node is reflecting 37.8%. And then I have to set Soft Proof to ProPhotoRGB to get the black point to preview as it will appear in Photoshop and other color managed apps.

I'm so used to ACR's twiddle, tweak (command Z-Mac) twiddle tweak some more, save to xmp, open directly in Photoshop because the preview doesn't show exactly how it's going to appear downsized for the web (same as LR). And then open the image again and do some more tweaking. I don't need to be told everything I did and wonder if it is saved/embedded in xmp sidecar or in catalog and buried in a long history state list.

I still haven't gotten used to LR's workflow scheme. It's just too complicated.

[CatOne]

It is interesting to note who is not participating in these various threads on this topic.
I've been considering subscribing to PS/LRCC but not in any rush and now will wait. I'm at CS3 and LR 5.7 and can happily remain there for some time.
Perhaps LULA will post something on this authored by Jeff/Michael/Kevin?

Jeff already commented in another thread saying his feedback during the testing was to NOT release the changed import dialog, but they "took that under advisement" and released it as-is. There are 7 or 8 threads that basically are saying the same thread, so I can see him being unwilling to comment in all of them ;-)

[Schewe]

Jeff already commented in another thread saying his feedback during the testing was to NOT release the changed import dialog, but they "took that under advisement" and released it as-is.

Actually I said the other beta testers provided negative feedback but they went ahead and did it anyway....I also said I thought it sucked :~)

[D Fuller]

You are missing some key points in your comparison here. While I am in no way defending Apple's FCP X fiasco, for they handled it extremely badly ... there is a huge difference between the two situations.

1. FCP X is not now, nor has it ever been, offered as a subscription where users were locked into at least an annual agreement and likely feel compelled to update in order to benefit from new camera RAW support and more or less be forced to accept other shortcomings as a result.

2. FCP X did not break any existing workflows as adoption of FCP X was purely voluntary. Users could trial the app before purchasing and their previous versions of FCP were still as capable as before FCP X was introduced. Adobe Lr CC users were stuck paying for the effort of creating v6.2/2015.2 regardless of the outcome.

3. Adobe Lr CC subscribers will not get a refund or a pass for the month because of this debacle. While no one was forced to incur additional expense because FCP X came on the scene.  FCP X has also received some remarkable and totally free updates over the past couple of years in their effort to remedy their past difficulties and lost sales Apple has experienced in losing market share. Adobe's income won't see any measurable change for Oct. 2015.

I will say, today, FCP X is a much different experience and I'd be lost without it. Though it took some time for me to feel confident about moving forward with it.

I hope Adobe is willing rectify their error as well.

Of course there are differences. And of course FCPX (or Lightroom 6.x) only breaks your workflow if you download it and install it. And I understand that you are incensed aout the subscription aspect of the Lightroom thing, but none of that changes the fact that this reminds me of the FCPX release. A lot. In speculating about the future of Lightroom, it seems useful to look at what followed that event. Can anything be learned from that? You seem to think not.

I think there is quite a lot to be learned, or at least quite a lot to be pondered. What I'm sure is to be learned is that big companies lie Adobe and Apple have different agendas than I do. So it is important not to let my workflow so depend on any one peice of software that I can't survive their taking a different direction. It's one of the reasons I've been exploring Capture One in the past year or so.

I'm not so sure I agree that Apple has "rectified their error." They've certainly improved the program, but it's in the direction they seemed intent on taking it in the beginning. They have the market power to do that. So does Adobe. And I don't have the market power ot do much about that. But I do have the market power to explore other options so I know where I can go if I have to choose a different way of getting my work done. I haven't user Photo Mechanic in a long time, but I'm interested in trying it again.

[D Fuller]

Dunno, but it underlines that you always need an exit strategy - what do you do when LR no longer meets your needs, either as a result of changing, or by not existing any more.

This.

It's good to let them know you're unhappy, but better to know your options.

[Robert Roaldi]

I don't earn any money from photography (likely never will) but was willing to spend $200 (CDN) on Aperture when I first bought it and also about $150 (CDN) on LR, which I haven't used much. It annoys the hell out of me when products are suddenly discontinued or drastically changed. (I know I don't have to upgrade right away but I also know that eventually I will have to.) I can imagine how much more frustrating it is for people who earn their income from photography and rely daily on those software tools.

But the fact is that $200 and $150 are trivial amounts of money. I spend more on gasoline every month and way more than that on groceries. I don't represent significant revenue to Apple or Adobe, so the odds of them caring what I think are slim. I think this may be more generally true.

The importance of these tools to individual users is far greater than their purchase or rental cost. That's partly why we like them but that's probably also why we don't have much clout when it comes to their re-design. I used to write software for a living and had enough trouble getting specs from a small in-house user base. I can't imagine trying to satisfy the needs of thousands of photographers world-wide; just look at the difference of opinion on this forum alone when it concerns to just the one Import function and how it's used.

But this is the pricing model we have and it brings some inescapable consequences. I certainly don't know how to improve things; I stupidly hoped that computers would be an appliance by now. But there is a difference between an appliance and a tool. We live in a world where we each are our own systems manager and that seems to mean being perpetually up to speed on software releases, or substitute programs from competitors, to prevent being caught out by a supplier's sudden design decision. I don't see this changing anytime soon.

[ButchM]

Of course there are differences. And of course FCPX (or Lightroom 6.x) only breaks your workflow if you download it and install it.

Other than the fact that CC subscribers were contractually obligated to pay for the update to Lr 6.x and no one was compelled to reward Apple monetarily for FCP X or obliged to upgrade to achieve basic OS or integral peripheral support, yes, your analogy fits.

And I understand that you are incensed aout the subscription aspect of the Lightroom thing, but none of that changes the fact that this reminds me of the FCPX release. A lot. In speculating about the future of Lightroom, it seems useful to look at what followed that event. Can anything be learned from that? You seem to think not.

First, I am not incensed about the subscription model, merely aware of the potential issues the model poses for end users ... I have no illusions that the folks at Adobe can avoid the pitfalls such a model creates. I take no joy that my concerns came to fruition. But, yes, the overall resulting disappointment between the to instances have a similarity in outcome.

I think there is quite a lot to be learned, or at least quite a lot to be pondered. What I'm sure is to be learned is that big companies lie Adobe and Apple have different agendas than I do. So it is important not to let my workflow so depend on any one peice of software that I can't survive their taking a different direction. It's one of the reasons I've been exploring Capture One in the past year or so.

I whole heartedly agree. The lessons that such tools never last forever and their developers have a tendency not to handle delivering 'change' well ... speaks volumes for always having a workable Plan B at the ready as needed.

I'm not so sure I agree that Apple has "rectified their error." They've certainly improved the program, but it's in the direction they seemed intent on taking it in the beginning. They have the market power to do that. So does Adobe. And I don't have the market power ot do much about that. But I do have the market power to explore other options so I know where I can go if I have to choose a different way of getting my work done. I haven't user Photo Mechanic in a long time, but I'm interested in trying it again.

I too, don't think Apple may have fully rectified their misstep, but I do think they have been working diligently since the introduction of FCP X in 2011 to rebuild at least some of bridges that were damaged in the process. I am hopeful that Adobe will make similar attempts to that end as well for Lr going forward.

[Gene51]

Maybe Adobe will address this by restoring Lightroom to it's original functionality and release a crippled version for the computer-challenged users they want to bring into the fold.

[D Fuller]

Other than the fact that CC subscribers were contractually obligated to pay for the update to Lr 6.x and no one was compelled to reward Apple monetarily for FCP X or obliged to upgrade to achieve basic OS or integral peripheral support, yes, your analogy fits.

Yes, you are obligated to pay for CC as long as you want to keep using it, but no, you are not reauired to install every update. And it seems that these changes were visited on non-subscription users who downloaded the updates as well. (I don't know that from my personal experience, just my understanding from other posts here.)

[offtopic/]
But here's the thing in the FCPX case: for any user of cameras using actively-evolving codecs, or that get frequent firmware updates, or that are buying new cameras, it is a very short time before you have to update your edit software if you are going to keep upgrading the camera firmware. Sure, you can transcode and use an off-line/online workflow, or transcode and never go back to the raw files, but if you want to keep working with you raw files in the edit system, you have to upgrade because they require an updated SDK in the edit software, and by EOLing FCP7 the same day they introduced FCP8, Apple put a lot of people inthe position where they would have to change their workflow the next time a camera came in that didn't work with the existing version. It was certainly as disruptive to as large a percentage of the user base as this Lightroom update. And the screams from the video forums were just as loud.[/offtopic]

But other than the off-topic bit, it seems we generally agree.