Software for Digital Prcessing

[Hermes1]

Compared to the cost of other professional grade software applications, say for something like mechanical drawing, Photoshop and Lightroom are dirt cheap, even by subscription.

Mechanical drawing?? How about photography? I'm betting we're all photographers here.

Now don't get me wrong I recommend Lightroom as the photo app of choice but I think the dirt cheap characterization is off base.

Let's do a side by side cost comparison over 5 years: Adobe's easy -- 60 months X $10.00 = $600.00. If at that point you decide to stop paying the software stops working.

By comparison let's go with one of the more expensive options and pick an app that is frankly more sophisticated and more capable (as an editor) than Lightroom, Capture One. Purchase price is $300.00. Phase One has behaved very traditionally and consistently over the years and you can expect a new full version about every 18 months. At that point your upgrade cost is $99.00. If you buy each upgrade when released in five years you'll have spent $600.00. If you skip one of those 18 month cycles because you didn't buy a new camera every 18 months Phase One is cool with that and will still charge you only $99.00 to upgrade. Let's do that and in five years you'll have spent $500.00. If you decide at that point to buy no further upgrades your software will keep working -- indefinitely.

Now with the purchase of Capture One you don't get Photoshop, but since Capture One is a more capable parametric editor than Lightroom what do you really need Photoshop for -- cloning out utility wires? Most photographers using Lightroom will tell you they get the job done in Lightroom and rarely use PS. If PS is only needed for light duty like some occasional cloning or spotting you can supplement Capture One with a cheap PS clone like Affinity for $49.00. So over the course of five years using Capture One and Affinity you save $50.00 compared with Adobe and have working software even if you don't want to spend more. By comparison, Adobe is not dirt cheap.

Joe

Exactly and both the software programs you mentioned are the two I will be looking at more closely.

 

[Ysarex]

Compared to the cost of other professional grade software applications, say for something like mechanical drawing, Photoshop and Lightroom are dirt cheap, even by subscription.

Mechanical drawing?? How about photography? I'm betting we're all photographers here.

Now don't get me wrong I recommend Lightroom as the photo app of choice but I think the dirt cheap characterization is off base.

Let's do a side by side cost comparison over 5 years: Adobe's easy -- 60 months X $10.00 = $600.00. If at that point you decide to stop paying the software stops working.

By comparison let's go with one of the more expensive options and pick an app that is frankly more sophisticated and more capable (as an editor) than Lightroom, Capture One. Purchase price is $300.00. Phase One has behaved very traditionally and consistently over the years and you can expect a new full version about every 18 months. At that point your upgrade cost is $99.00. If you buy each upgrade when released in five years you'll have spent $600.00. If you skip one of those 18 month cycles because you didn't buy a new camera every 18 months Phase One is cool with that and will still charge you only $99.00 to upgrade. Let's do that and in five years you'll have spent $500.00. If you decide at that point to buy no further upgrades your software will keep working -- indefinitely.

Now with the purchase of Capture One you don't get Photoshop, but since Capture One is a more capable parametric editor than Lightroom what do you really need Photoshop for -- cloning out utility wires? Most photographers using Lightroom will tell you they get the job done in Lightroom and rarely use PS. If PS is only needed for light duty like some occasional cloning or spotting you can supplement Capture One with a cheap PS clone like Affinity for $49.00. So over the course of five years using Capture One and Affinity you save $50.00 compared with Adobe and have working software even if you don't want to spend more. By comparison, Adobe is not dirt cheap.

Joe

Exactly and both the software programs you mentioned are the two I will be looking at more closely.

Some qualifications to my last post along with full disclosure:

I'm a retired academic but I still teach part-time. Most of what I teach now are classes where Lightroom and Photoshop are the choice software. I endorse that especially Lightroom. When I'm asked what software should a photographer use my one word answer without further qualification is: Lightroom. I don't see that changing any time soon. I will get a classroom full of students up and running and producing decent photos faster and more successfully using Lightroom than any other software. Adobe gets well deserved credit for that.

Paradoxically I don't use Lightroom for my personal work, but as Derrel noted above Adobe doesn't pay real good attention to the raw processing needs of some of us using less popular camera brands. (The big guy isn't too concerned with us little guys -- a classic Adobe problem). I'm shooting with Fuji X cameras now and Adobe doesn't play well with Fuji's X-Trans CFA. So I've taken my Fuji camera elsewhere, but I'm not in business now. I'm retired and I have the time to waste. If I were working as a camera for hire I'd be using Lightroom day in and out as an essential business tool.

Lightroom is still available as a perpetual license stand-alone app. Adobe doesn't advertise that but you can still get it. What the future will bring is unknown. Lightroom was released in 2007 and so this year marks it's 10 year anniversary. Lightroom deserves recognition as a revolutionary product for photographers and continues to hold the top slot as best-in-class overall. It's just not dirt cheap and I think what Adobe has done forcing the subscription model is unfortunate - not for the working pro but for the enthusiasts who can do the math and compare prices over time.

Joe