# 10 years of Lightroom



## Ian.B (Feb 19, 2017)

I thought there would be a happy birthday thread for LR being around for 10 years --- or did I miss it ?  
Who was there from the start? I was very much against the new way for adobe to get us pay for another program ; however  I did start  with LR2 and still have the DVDs

I have read much of Victoria's LR history lesson (email). How it has all changed so much from editing, computers, cameras and photography styles although photography itself has not really changed and it will all continue to charge as nothing stays the same. A good example is the ON1 RAW program which I feel it's one of the biggest "threats" to LR and even PS for photography we have seen

When you start to get bored with LR and the LR forum Victoria you might look at doing it all again with ON1 There is a _BIG_ opening for new ON1 forum where info and ideas can be shared without trying to get that idea info from the very top . 

But LR will be here for awhile yet imo and the next 5-10 years will be very interesting . I think more PS tools used by photographers will be moved to LR --- clone tool, layers, grid, rulers and full transform would make LR the only program I need  to do it all. And I'm sure Adobe is looking closely at ON1 as those tools are now available although only in a limit way compared to the PS/Lr power houses  . I have posted a couple of all done in ON1 (rough) collages on my FB page 

happy birthday Lightroom


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## clee01l (Feb 19, 2017)

Yes. Tomorrow, 2/19 marks 10 years since the release of v1.0.     I gave it try and gave up.  Too foreign a concept for my (then) workflow.  About v2.4 when I began searching for a DAM tool to manage my inventory, I rediscovered LR after working my way through the DAM tool options available at the time.   This time it clicked.   That was also about the time I discovered LightroomForums too.
Here is the whole timeline courtesy of Wikipedia.


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## Jimmsp (Feb 19, 2017)

I recall I started with LR 2.0. Used it for a while, moved away into Capture One (v2 or 3), then ran LR 4 -5 in parallel with CO for a few years through CO7. Moved back to LR full time a few years ago (5.x?).
I'm always willing to celebrate a birthday.


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## Tony Jay (Feb 19, 2017)

I came in with Lr 2.x so not an index user from the get-go.
Never regretted it though - particularly once I got a robust workflow going - that did take a couple of years, however!

Tony Jay


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## Jim Wilde (Feb 19, 2017)

I actually started with Pixmatec's Raw Shooter, which was taken over and killed by Adobe (so that they could get the engineers and some of the code, I believe). All RSP license holders were given a free LR1 license, which I installed but never really played with all that much. That began to change when LR2 was released and I started to use it more seriously. I discovered this forum in early 2010 when the LR3 public beta was underway, and have since made several changes to my "workflow" over the years, mainly as a result of knowledge and enlightenment gained here.

Just for a laugh, I just tried to install RSP on my Win10 system and was a bit surprised to find that it works OK (but obviously only with raw files from my Canon10D or other cameras that were released before mid-2006).


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 19, 2017)

I started with Aperture 1.0 and Lightroom 1.0 (first the beta) and wrote books about both. For my own photography, I obviously couldn't constantly use both, so I had to make a choice for that. I chose Aperture for its much more elegant interface and non-modular design. I switched when Apple introduced the new Mac Pro, without doing anything to make Aperture scream on those machines. I knew enough: Aperture was history. I still miss Aperture from time to time.


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 19, 2017)

Ian.B said:


> I have read much of Victoria's LR history lesson (email).


For anyone else who is wondering, it's live as a blog post too: 10 Years of Lightroom | The Lightroom Queen 



Ian.B said:


> When you start to get bored with LR and the LR forum Victoria you might look at doing it all again with ON1 There is a _BIG_ opening for new ON1 forum where info and ideas can be shared without trying to get that idea info from the very top :(.


Thanks. I've thought about it, but they're covering the education side of things quite well themselves.


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## johnbeardy (Feb 19, 2017)

My approach was from cataloguing programs - first Extensis Portfolio, then iView MediaPro - and as an early adopter of DNG. I took advantage of how the raw image's adjusted appearance could be displayed in those asset managers.

But I was pretty dissatisfied with one program to browse images, another to keep control of them all and find ones I needed, Adobe Camera Raw to edit raw settings, refreshing the DNG embedded previews in iView, then Photoshop to dodge and burn and a few other things. There had to be a better way - certainly better than all the scripts I used to tie together a "workflow".

I got to a pre-release demo of Aperture on London and could see it wasn't the "Photoshop killer" that had been rumoured, but was all about managing and processing your pictures in a single app *. If it hadn't been limited to Mac and had been cross-platform, I might have been more interested. As it was, Lightroom appeared a month later, initially on Mac while I was PC-based, so for 6 months I learnt enough about it to convince my publisher to commission a book. I bought my first Mac later that morning, and the following day Lightroom appeared on PC.

John

* One funny thing was that the presenter responded to every slowdown or criticism by saying he wasn't buying the program for what it was then, but for what it would be at version 3....


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 19, 2017)

johnbeardy said:


> I bought my first Mac later that morning, and the following day Lightroom appeared on PC.


LOL the same thing happened to me. The Windows version was released between ordering my Mac and waiting for it to be delivered. I'm glad it did though.


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## johnbeardy (Feb 19, 2017)

If I'd stayed up later the day I got mine, I might have seen the Windows announcement before going to bed!

John


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## Ian.B (Feb 19, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> For anyone else who is wondering, it's live as a blog post too: 10 Years of Lightroom | The Lightroom Queen
> 
> 
> Thanks. I've thought about it, but they're covering the education side of things quite well themselves.



True , they are doing a good job with education ,  however I feel more is needed now or will be later. I would certainly appreciate a book with lots of pretty pictures as I needed for PS / LR ;  I'm getting sick of videos that also eat up much of my rather limited data


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 20, 2017)

Ian.B said:


> I'm getting sick of videos



Interesting. I thought there were already books on on1, but I'll take another look.


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## Ian.B (Feb 22, 2017)

good forum would be so much better once one has a handle on it Victoria. ON1 do have a forum but only open to those who pay for it  with a 'premium' subscription  which also gives 'better' editing and photography 'training' . ON1 has already cost me over $1000 'cause I needed the new (basic) lappy  due to graphic card issues with the asus

Open forums like yours are great to get fast answers to dramas like 'who stole my histogram and nav images?  

ON1 certainly does not come near LR yet for keywording and searching power  

As with learning LR after PS, I found it best to turn off all other programs and concentrate on the new one only until I had a reasonable understanding of it --- newbies seem to make it so much harder trying to use more than one program.


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## oleleclos (May 6, 2017)

Jimmsp said:


> I recall I started with LR 2.0. Used it for a while, moved away into Capture One (v2 or 3), then ran LR 4 -5 in parallel with CO for a few years through CO7. Moved back to LR full time a few years ago (5.x?).



Hi Jimmsp. Can I ask what made you give up CaptureOne? I know people who sing its praises, and I had a go at their trial version, just to see what the hubbub was about.

People say that RAW files look better in CO, but the way I saw it, CO just processes the files a little harder by default. I made a fairly simple Lr preset (involving highlights, clarity, vibrance, tone curve, sharpening and noise reduction) that perfectly simulates the CO look, but ended up not using it much because I prefer to start editing from a less processed image. Of course I often end up with something much more processed, but I wouldn't like to start from there every time.

I wish Lr would do what CO does and make ALL tools available for local adjustments, and I wish Lr layers were proper layers, but I have to admit that these are not things I miss very often. On the plus side, I love Lr's intuitive interface and organisation tools. CO's looks very complex in comparison, but maybe that's partly because their Sessions based approach isn't what I need.

Anyway, just curious. Sadly I feel the need to keep an eye out for options to Lr because of a sneaky feeling that Adobe may dump their non-subscription customers at any time. If they do, I will dump them on the spot. I've used Adobe software of all sorts for 30 years, but I won't be held to ransom.


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## Johan Elzenga (May 6, 2017)

oleleclos said:


> Anyway, just curious. Sadly I feel the need to keep an eye out for options to Lr because of a sneaky feeling that Adobe may dump their non-subscription customers at any time. If they do, I will dump them on the spot. I've used Adobe software of all sorts for 30 years, but I won't be held to ransom.



I'll never understand this hostility about the CC subscription. People rent things all the time, some even rent the house they live in. You may like or not like it, but it's a normal option when paying for stuff. But when Adobe gives you that option it's called 'ransom'...


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## oleleclos (May 6, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> I'll never understand this hostility about the CC subscription. People rent things all the time, some even rent the house they live in. You may like or not like it, but it's a normal option when paying for stuff. But when Adobe gives you that option it's called 'ransom'...


I agree. As long as ownership is available, subscription is an option, not ransom. It's just that uneasy feeling that Adobe will pull the ownership option, in which case subscription is no longer optional.

That feeling is partly down to Adobe withholding new functionality from stand-alone users. I don't expect freebies, but reasonably priced updates to get the new functions would signal a continued support for owner-users.


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## Johan Elzenga (May 6, 2017)

Even if Adobe didn't offer a perpetual licence anymore, it would still not be ransom. Nobody holds a knife at your throat and forces you to use Lightroom. Nobody threatens to kill your son if you don't pay the monthly fee. You are free to choose between using Lightroom or using something else. In fact, if you stop your CC subscription, a large part of Lightroom keeps functioning for free.


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## Jimmsp (May 6, 2017)

oleleclos said:


> Hi Jimmsp. Can I ask what made you give up CaptureOne? I know people who sing its praises, and I had a go at their trial version, just to see what the hubbub was about.
> 
> People say that RAW files look better in CO, but the way I saw it, CO just processes the files a little harder by default. I made a fairly simple Lr preset (involving highlights, clarity, vibrance, tone curve, sharpening and noise reduction) that perfectly simulates the CO look, but ended up not using it much because I prefer to start editing from a less processed image. Of course I often end up with something much more processed, but I wouldn't like to start from there every time.
> 
> I wish Lr would do what CO does and make ALL tools available for local adjustments, and I wish Lr layers were proper layers, ......



This is a complicated question. I suppose the biggest reason for my switch was the very poor interaction of Capture One with their DAM, Media Pro. Media Pro came with a lot of promises - but Phase One never came close to getting it to work properly. I liked the CO results, but found I could reproduce them in LR. I really did like the way CO handled lighting on faces, and the ability to use a skin color as a white balance.

I found that my workflow involved moving back and forth between the DAM and the processor - and Lightroom made it really seamless. I move between the Library and Develop a lot during a processing session - in choosing which photos to work on, to comparing them, to adding keywords as I post process. I was also moving files to Photoshop Elements in those days for final pixel level edits, and LR made it the best to go to and back. Then when CC came along with what I considered almost a free Photoshop - my decision was finalized. As my post processing skills got better, I do a lot of work in PS as well these days, and the workflow between LR and PS is perfect for me.


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## PhilBurton (May 7, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Even if Adobe didn't offer a perpetual licence anymore, it would still not be ransom. Nobody holds a knife at your throat and forces you to use Lightroom. Nobody threatens to kill your son if you don't pay the monthly fee. You are free to choose between using Lightroom or using something else. In fact, if you stop your CC subscription, a large part of Lightroom keeps functioning for free.


And you can use your perpetual license LR forever.  Of course, if you do get a new DSLR, that camera won't have built-in support, but there is a feasible workaround.

Oleleclos, I'm not defending the subscription model.  I also have a perpetual license and keep wondering if/when there will be a LR 7.0 perpetual release.

Phil Burton


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## oleleclos (May 8, 2017)

Jimmsp said:


> This is a complicated question. I suppose the biggest reason for my switch was the very poor interaction of Capture One with their DAM...


Thanks, that makes sense. And also points to a couple of things Lr will hopefully one day do better


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## oleleclos (May 8, 2017)

PhilBurton said:


> ...I also have a perpetual license and keep wondering if/when there will be a LR 7.0 perpetual release...


Yes, it's that uncertainty I object to. That's what keeps me looking for options, which I wouldn't otherwise do. But of course it is nothing compared to other uncertainties of today...


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