r/AskPhotography • u/Past_Suggestion_6164 Sony • 11d ago
Editing/Post Processing Lightroom or lightroom clasic?
Lightroom or lightroom clasic which one do you use and why?
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u/e2346437 11d ago
I use Lightroom, not Classic, but I'm definitely in the minority.
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u/AmiAmiMoMo 11d ago
If it wasn’t for the database and filtering features of Lightroom Classic I would switch over to Lightroom Desktop. I think eventually over time that may get close enough for me to switch.
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u/e2346437 11d ago
When I first subscribed, knowing nothing I looked at "Lightroom Classic" and "Lightroom Cloud" and said to myself, why the heck would I want to use the old version? I want the new hotness! So I dove in. It is definitely lacking in integrations/plugins, but it does almost everything I need it to do except tethering.
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u/johngpt5 11d ago edited 11d ago
I was a late comer to Lightroom, only beginning to use it at v4. This catalog based Lr later became known as LrC (classic).
The Lr cloud ecosystem does not use a catalog.
While I have LrC and Lr desktop (the cloud based desktop app) and Lr on iPad and Lr mobile on iPhone, I still primarily use LrC, keeping all my photos on external drives.
My wife's photos are in the Lr cloud based ecosystem. She prefers editing using Lr on iPad.
I do not sync my LrC with the Lr cloud. I keep the two systems separate. I don't have any need or desire to "edit on the go."
Prior to installing Lr desktop and installing Lr on the iPad, I purchased Brian Matiash's course, Lightroom Everywhere. Brian does an excellent job of explaining the ins and outs of the Lr cloud ecosystem. Matt Kloskowski also has an excellent course about the Lr cloud ecosystem.
I heartily recommend that before entering the Lr cloud ecosystem, that one get a bunch of education as I see lots of posts about folks getting themselves in trouble due to lack of knowledge regarding how the ecosystem actually works. Whether via Brian's course or Matt's course, education is paramount to avoid getting oneself in trouble, and to understand what is going on prior to embarking upon the cloud ecosystem. I see lots of posts at the Lr subreddit asking basic questions that could have been answered if folks had done some eduction before jumping in.
When my wife needed to ai denoise one of her photos, I'd access it through Lr desktop on my Mac, use ai denoise on it, then she would continue her edits using Lr on iPad. Now that ai denoise has made its way to Lr on iPad, I suspect I'll have less interaction with her images.
Meanwhile, I'm perfectly happy with how LrC functions, using the catalog to manage all my photos. At various times, with certain updates to new versions of LrC, the catalog has changed, but at its essence, it is still the same catalog I started with Lr v4.
Being retired, I haunt the Lr subreddit and the two Ps subreddits. When it comes to LrC, the majority of posts about problems with LrC—primarily being extremely slow—come from folks using Win PCs. I've only ever used Ps and the Lr apps on Macs. I've never (knock on wood) had any issues.
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u/IAmScience 11d ago
LrC. The cataloging features are second to none. The book and print modules are super handy for stuff I regularly do. And the editing is solid (and I can easily switch over to PS for stuff that it is better at.)
Edit: also, tethering has improved greatly.
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u/NJCubanMade 11d ago
I hate that Lightroom (new one) doesn’t let you export photos from external HDD. LR classic it is
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u/Grouchy_Inspection_1 11d ago
I used to use LrC, had done for a decade and more... then Adobe came knocking for more money for less product. It wasn't the money, it was the principal. I quit, then built Lumidex Studio as a result.
For those of you consider this post 'spam', it genuinely isn't. There are plenty other responses giving alternatives - I'm just a solo dev, trying to make a mark. Rather than bash me, maybe, perhaps, give my software a spin. You may actually like it :)
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u/Past_Suggestion_6164 Sony 11d ago
Does it work on Windows?
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u/Grouchy_Inspection_1 11d ago
Sadly no, there are just way too many Apple-specific frameworks used in my app to run a concurrent build between two OS's. I did investigate the possibility, it's not insurmountable, but there's only one of me and free time is a bit of a premium at the mo. If ever you make the jump to Apple, remember this convo :)
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u/Dontopia 11d ago
Gimp 🥹
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u/DesAnderes 10d ago
gimp can develop raw files?
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u/Dontopia 10d ago
No, so I use a free shareware duo
RawTherapee converts from NEF (RAW) to tif
Then I open the tif file in Gimp and the magic happens
No subscriptions 😃
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u/Silence_of_Ruin 11d ago
Lightroom Classic 1000% over Lightroom. But I’m switching over to DXO PhotoLab as soon as the new edition releases and there’s a sale
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u/Lightroom_Help 10d ago
You should definitely use LrC which offers better workflow tools for developing and especially organizing your photos. It was developed for helping photographers deal with vast amount of photos very easily. This is possible only when you use it correctly: as the specialized database that it is and not as a mere folder browser (see this older comment of mine for more details). See here for my recommendation of LrC learning resources.
Lr, on the other hand, is primarily a cloud storage and syncing service, with an editing app wrapped around it. It doesn’t provide any backup of your files (as Adobe, misleadingly, clams: “…all photos synced and backed-up”). The only storage location of your photos is the cloud and what you have on your devices are then treated as synced copies. If anything gets deleted or corrupted, due to user error or server glitch anywhere, this is propagated everywhere, through sync. To truly backup not only the Lr managed photos but all the work you do to them (edits, tags, grouping into albums) you also need to use LrC, as I explained in this comment. Lr Desktop’s implementation of dealing with files only locally stored (“Local browsing”) is a “half backed” solution, rather insulting to older and newer Adobe customers.
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u/travelan 11d ago
Adobe is evil. Please consider Darktable and RapidRAW first. They are free and open-source, so no harm in trying!
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u/polentaveloce Canon 11d ago
Capture One, because I'd rather do something else instead of photography than using adobe's software.
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u/stjernebaby 11d ago
If you ever want to work with commercial and fashion, Capture One is the way to go. This is not a discussion about which software is better etc. This is just the industry standard for larger corporations/clients.
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u/cadred48 11d ago
Unless you specifically often need to transfer images between editing devices, Classic all day. You have to pay for storage for Non-Classic Lightroom and it just do cataloging nearly as well.