Lightroom, Photos…. where to go from here?

Call me a hopeless Apple fanboy…. you’re welcome! What I know is that until July 2006 I was a PC guy, I built my PC’s, I upgraded my PC’s (far too often) and I built a loooong stream of them. Then I got an iMac, and it’s still working. It’s my daughter’s computer right now. I never was tempted with updating (not that it would be easy), and the Macs have a way longer life than any PC, well worth the higher price. And never ran any anti-virus software since 2006 on multiple Macs in my family. Just somme common sense keeps me virus-free….. until now.

With the Macs came iPhoto, then Aperture, and I was quite happy with those applications. Essentially Aperture was nearly as powerful as Lightroom and much easier on the old brain.I never had such an intuitive program that could do so much. And in the same time it integrated perfectly with my Apple-World.

Then I heard that Aperture was out! Then came Apple Photos!

It’s no match for Aperture, that is sure! Well, as an aside let me tell you that I am currently running a public beta of Mac OS/X 10.10 El Capitan, and here Photos seems to get some Extensions, just like the Photoshop/Lightroom plugins. But will they be any good? Time will tell.

Presently, Photos has got some adjustments at the ready, but they all disappoint me. Here Lightroom has clearly the better set of tools, reactive, well done, powerful, PROFESSIONAL! That what Apple is missing: Professional Apps! But do we really need them?

Lightroom’s Clarity tool is way better that Photos version, as is the Adobe version of sharpening and noise reduction. There is really no contest as to who wins here.

But now the thing I really don’t get within Lightroom… it’s that Catalog – Collection thing. What are they, what are they good for? This is simply by far the greatest advantage of Photos.

A simple interface to handle all my photos (there are over 11,000 in there), fast and intuitive. An easy way to share those photos, ALL OF THEM, with friends and family, view them on my iPhone, update my Flickr…. Gorgeously thought through by the guys and gals at Apple.

Stop! Do I really need to have all 11,000 photos available on my phone each moment (Do I need to have the millions of tunes of Apple Music?). It’s convenient, but certainly not necessary!

Now the cost factor. In order to accommodate my Photos library in iCloud I rent some space there at € 3,99 per month for 200Gb which is not excessive. Otherwise the app is free with all free updates to OS/X (take a hint Microsoft). Adobe on the other hand charges  about € 12 a month for the use of Lightroom and Photoshop. Barely OK for me. That’s € 144 a year, nearly 3 times the price of Affinity Photo, the new contender for the Image Manipulation crown.

Anyways, If there was a free trial for Affinity Photo I’d like to try it out, but there is none (It can use all Photoshop plugins). Until then I’ll have to think what’s more important for me, convenience of an integrated system or powerful tools.

One way that would use both systems in manipulating the files in Lightroom and importing into Photos is possible, but certainly not sensible. At the cost of twice the storage space and the constant threat of diverging versions of my Photos it is not a viable solution.

What say you? Any comment is welcome!

Until then….. see you soon!