July 21, 2019

Next Step from LR

After a hiatus for all kinds of other activities, I'm back to spending some time getting my photos organized and updated. Now that On1 has their 2019.5 release out, the features are better than ever. While this LR alternative still lacks the ability to publish directly to SmugMug (the awesome host for alwpics.com), they're starting to hint that could be in the works.
So today I'm using the On1 Lightroom plugin to migrate my edits in LR to Photo Raw 2019. After that, I'll be playing with the app for a while before I make the final decision to stop using LR.
I have to say at this stage that it's pretty likely I'll make the switch, especially because I really don't use Photoshop (the other half of the subscription with Adobe) anyway. Other than resetting the workflow I use to back up my images to my SmugMug site, using Photo Raw looks like it'll be a joy and very similar to using LR. I'll write another post about how it goes soon.
Also just a note about Lightroom: I've really liked using it. Adobe is, of course, the most experienced developer of photo imaging software and still the most widely used by creative pros for a lot of good reasons. For part-time enthusiasts like me though, the subscription and forced links to Adobe servers are not worth it. Having a lower-cost, perfectly suitable alternative is just fine.