Workflow without Adobe?

[John Pilkington]

I'm trying to break free from Adobe. No single app will do the job, so Lightroom and Photoshop functionality needs to be shared between several apps. Does anybody have any advice? Here's my current thinking:

1. Import, tagging, filing, catalogue: ThumbsPlus.
2. Raw conversion, processing, export: Affinity Photo.
3. Upload: PicBakMan.
4. Cloud storage: Flickr.

Any thoughts about this? Anybody out there working independently of Adobe?

Thanks,

John

[tclune]

I don't use Adobe, but I also don't do most of the things you list. My version of your step 2 is somewhat more elaborate than yours, though. I am a Nikon shooter and use Nikon's software to import (it will also support tagging, but I've never bothered with that sort of thing) and raw conversion. I also do the kind of tweaking that NX Studio does well (cropping, straightening, white balance, highlight/shadow mapping enhancements, minor object removal, selective brightness/contrast/RGB adjustments, etc. I then output a tiff file to import into PaintShopPro. I use that mostly because it supports most (not all) PhotoShop plug-ins. I use Topaz modules for noise reduction, some detail enhancement, B&W conversion, etc. and FocusMagic for final sharpening. PSP also supports layers if I want to use them. I then delete the tiff intermediate after creating the final jpeg. NX Studio creates sidecar files for its part and PSP does not keep records of any sort for what was done in it, so there is no advantage to saving the intermediate files. I'm not saying that my approach is optimal, just letting you know how one other person approaches post-processing without Adobe.

[xpatUSA]

I'm trying to break free from Adobe.

Good man!

No single app will do the job, so Lightroom and Photoshop functionality needs to be shared between several apps. Does anybody have any advice? Any thoughts about this? Anybody out there working independently of Adobe?

Yes, John - my computer is totally Adobe-free ...

Here's my current thinking:

1. Import, tagging, filing, catalogue: ThumbsPlus.
2. Raw conversion, processing, export: Affinity Photo.
3. Upload: PicBakMan.
4. Cloud storage: Flickr.

Here's my stuff, for what it's worth:

1. Import, tagging, filing, catalogue: XnView MP (doesn't catalog **), PhotoMechanic.
2. Raw conversion, processing, export: RawTherapee, the GIMP.
3. Upload: CuteFTP
4. Cloud storage: My own website, for stuff to post or illustrate.

** I don't catalog after using Adobe's Elements 7 long ago - it took over the app, slowed my Win XP single-core computer to a crawl and, once activated, their bloody Catalog couldn't be turned off!

Adobe ... 'you vill do as ve say' ...

These days, I leave everything where it ends up and use XnView MP's superb search engine to find stuff.

[billtils]

...No single app will do the job, so Lightroom and Photoshop functionality needs to be shared between several apps....Raw conversion, processing, export: Affinity Photo.... Cloud storage: Flickr..... Anybody out there working independently of Adobe?

John

In response to your "Anybody out there working independently of Adobe?", yes, I am. My first DSLR camera was a Nikon and I used their software for RAW conversion and editing for a bit then moved to Apple's now defunct Aperture. When the writing was on the wall for it I explored the free trial downloads of pretty well everything and settled on CaptureOne and Affinity Photo, but spent a year with Lightroom and Photoshop (short version is I was President of the local camera club for 2 years and thought it a good idea to at least familiarise myself with those two).

I was happy to get back to C1 and AP as soon as I reasonably could.

For me the two most important things are: does your software do what YOU want (not does it do what other people are doing) and how comfortable are you with using it.

The above 2 programs fit the bill for Bill, and that's really all that matters but I would like to add a few words about AP. I went through a period where I got lost in its extended capabilites and used it less and less (the decline pretty well in line with increases in what C1 had to offer me). However, the problem was caused by poor documentation from Affinty and poor awareness on the part of the user and the more recent versions of AP and the user guides are way better than they were.

Add that you buy it outright for a very modest outlay and receive free updates and it's a hard to beat package.

I don't use cloud storage as such, and prefer to keep copies of the camera cards and my libraries locally on dedicated external drives but I do use flickr for photosharing and tend to keep at least a few from each photshoot there for easy reference.

[John Pilkington]

Thank you Tom, Ted and Bill. I am very encouraged by your responses and will do more research into the apps you mention.

Yep, Adobe is dedfinitely a straightjacket. I would add that while becoming entrained into "doing it their way", it is not always at all clear what that way is. I cannot get my mind around Creative Cloud, and I always seem to need more storage even when I can't see how it is being used. Also, I don't like the subscription model. I agree with you Bill that AP seems like a good deal, I look forward to using it - the only reason I'm holding back is that I'm having the local computer company build me a dedicated workstation so won't be trying new software until it is ready. The imminent arrival of the new hardware is what has prompted me to review my workflow.

So now, lots of new software ideas for me to look at. I'll try to keep this post open, look forward to continuing the conversation, and let you know what I end up with.

[John Pilkington]

I'm trying to uptick the replies as Helpful Posts; button seems not to work. Why is this??

[John Pilkington]

Hi Ted,

4. Cloud storage: My own website, for stuff to post or illustrate.

Now there's an idea!

John

[stuck]

[QUOTE=John Pilkington;767773...
2. Raw conversion, processing, export: Affinity Photo.
...[/QUOTE]
Look at DxO Photolab for Raw conversion. It is available as a fully functional 30 day free trial. However, if you were to go for that software you've just missed buying it at a significant discount in their Black Friday event, when I think it was half price.

[xpatUSA]

I'm trying to uptick the replies as Helpful Posts; button seems not to work. Why is this??

John, you have to hold down the button for a sec or two. A quick click sometimes doesn't work. And doing it twice can cancel the first click. All to do with connection speed and site latency, I reckon.

HTH

[AaronRoberts]

Here is my decidedly Adobe-free (and subscription-free) set of tools:

Culling: FastRawViewer (cheaper and, I believe, better) than Photo Mechanic
Raw Pre-Processing: DxO PureRaw
Raw Processing: Capture One Pro (sessions only; I don’t use their catalogue)
Additional Editing: Affinity Photo
Asset Management: Photo Supreme
Backup: ChronoSync (local) and Backblaze (remote)
Most Things Cloud Related: I just don’t. (I like to say that I maintain a healthy skepticism about putting personal info online)

I’ve found that I can accomplish anything I need to with some or all of these tools. I can replace one piece of the workflow without scrapping anything else. And nobody taps my checking account every month!

[John Pilkington]

John, you have to hold down the button for a sec or two. A quick click sometimes doesn't work. And doing it twice can cancel the first click. All to do with connection speed and site latency, I reckon.

HTH

Thanks!

John

[DanK]

John,

I cannot get my mind around Creative Cloud, and I always seem to need more storage even when I can't see how it is being used.

I'm not advocating for Adobe (although I use their products), but I think their terminology has you confused.

"Creative Cloud" doesn't refer to cloud storage. It's their name for their subscription-based suite of apps and for the software app that controls it. The basic photography plan, which in the US costs $9.99/month, includes 20 GB of cloud storage. If you pay twice that amount, they give you 1 TB of cloud storage. However, you can use the Creative Cloud apps, like Photoshop, without using any of that cloud storage. I've had the Adobe subscription service since it started, and I have never once used any of the online storage. (I use Smugmug for most of my online display and Backblaze for my online backup.)

I haven't used other photo editing software for many years. I briefly used Paint Shot Pro, first when it was owned by JASC and then when it was bought by Corel), but that was a long time ago, so I have no recent experience with which to answer your question. In my circles here, the people who don't use Adobe use On1 or Capture One.

Dan

[John Pilkington]

Thanks Aaron. There's lots for me to think about here.

John

[John Pilkington]

John,



I'm not advocating for Adobe (although I use their products), but I think their terminology has you confused.

"Creative Cloud" doesn't refer to cloud storage. It's their name for their subscription-based suite of apps and for the software app that controls it. The basic photography plan, which in the US costs $9.99/month, includes 20 GB of cloud storage. If you pay twice that amount, they give you 1 TB of cloud storage. However, you can use the Creative Cloud apps, like Photoshop, without using any of that cloud storage. I've had the Adobe subscription service since it started, and I have never once used any of the online storage. (I use Smugmug for most of my online display and Backblaze for my online backup.)

I haven't used other photo editing software for many years. I briefly used Paint Shot Pro, first when it was owned by JASC and then when it was bought by Corel), but that was a long time ago, so I have no recent experience with which to answer your question. In my circles here, the people who don't use Adobe use On1 or Capture One.

Dan

Hi Dan, yes, you are correct. Adobe terminoogy has me confused! Like the recent mix-up about Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, which they seem to have sorted out now. I'm only a little bit stupid, and I don't like products that confuse me.

The other thing is, I don't like paying for a service that I'm not using. The basic 20GB cloud storage is not free, it just is covered by the subscription. I want to use Flickr anyway because of the social media aspect, and with Flickr Pro I get "unlimited" (whatever that means ...) storage for a modest $60 pa which looks like a bargain compared with Adobe's offering. So if there is some software that gives me just what I need, I really don't want to pay for things I don't use.

I'm so grateful to you and all who have replied to this thread, not only for helpful advice but also for the opportunity clarify my thoughts.

Cheers,

John

[Manfred M]

John - in my view, what matters most to me is creating strong images and I really don't care which tools are used to create them.

Be a strong photographer who captures great images, understand the strengths and weakness of them and improve those in processing, have a strong, consistent workflow that allows you to achieve your post-processing goals effectively, what more do you need?

I do use the Adobe product suite, but in my case, I use a lot of their Creative Cloud software in my workflow; the integration of Illustrator, Premiere Pro, InDesign, etc. is important to me, so I have no issues paying for the services. I do very much the same thing with Microsoft 365 (another suite that I "rent").

[pnodrog]

Four or five months ago I would have congratulated you on trying to be Adobe free. I used nonsubscription LR6 and Photoshop CS8 for years and was very anti the subscription model.

However I upgraded my PC and decided to trial the subscription versions. There were just enough improvements (Haze adjust being reasonably useful) to make it worthwhile for me. So after a bit of pondering I became another Adobe subscriber. Lately I have been more active with my photography and if I look at the overall costs (travel, petrol, park entry fees, accommodation etc) the subscription costs are not particularly significant and certainly do not outweigh the benefits gained. I come from an era when $800-1000 was spent on film and processing for each of my usual two trips a year plus at least that again during the year. If you look at the costs of replacement equipment including computer and storage/backup photography is not a cheap hobby. The Adobe subscription is a monthly reminder of the expense of photography but it is still a relatively minor part of the costs overall.

Since my weakening/treachery Adobe have updated the selection and masking tools which are particularly significant and useful for LR. At this point I have to very reluctantly and grudgingly confess that I should probably have switched sooner.

[DanK]

I have long thought that once one reaches a moderately high level of proficiency with any complex software, the best software package is the one you are used to. The more complex the software, the more this is true, IMHO, but even with relatively simple software, it's true to some degree. The worst for me was switching between statistical software packages, but even something like word processing is a pain. For some years, I used Word on the PC and Open Office/Libre Office under Linux. Most of the transition was easy, but often enough, I would run into something that I could do in seconds in one of them but had no clue how to do in the other. I'd have to stop work and learn how to do whatever it was. So, I won't leave Adobe behind unless something else is sufficiently better for my needs to make it worth the frustration and the many lost hours. If I were an experienced user of an alternative like On1, I would have the same reluctance to leave it behind, I think.

But that said, while I disliked the subscription model when it started, in the end I came to the same conclusion as Paul. As I tended to keep up to date with the perpetual license versions anyway, I'm not sure it costs more, and in any event, the marginal cost relative to other alternatives is trival compared with the huge amounts I spend on other aspects of photography. I also came to appreciate how effortless it (usually) is. When a major update appears, I often wait a few weeks just in case, and then I hit the update link in the creative cloud app. Once in a great while, one has to reinstall plugins or whatever, but that's rare. Usually, the upgrade is effortless.

In terms of features, I think the new masking tools in Lightroom are the biggest single improvement in that software in the years I've been using it. The subject selection function is of course very helpful, but what I find to be the big deal is that all of the masks are now neatly listed in a separate dialog, along with the options to combine them.

It took me a long time to start making use of the DAM features in Lightroom, and I'm still a light user, but I'm finding them increasingly useful. E.g., I now make considerable use of collections. And I find it very helpful to have a home base that includes everything I do, including the products of external editors like Photoshop and Zerene. But then again, if I were a user of competing software, I'm sure I'd be able to go on and on about features in those software packages that I had come to rely on.

[revi]

Using Linux here, so Adobe isn't an option anyway

1. Import, tagging, filing, catalogue: Digikam
2. Raw conversion, processing, export: Darktable
3. Upload: not used
4. Cloud storage: not used

Re 3&4: I do have backups on a NAS, but don't use (a)social media, so no need to upload

Oh, and both Digikam and darktable are available for MS-Windows and MacOS.
And there are a few alternatives to darktable out there: RawTHerapee and ART come to mind.
All three quite capable, but not necessarily easy to use for someone used to Lightroom and Photoshop.

[John Pilkington]

Four or five months ago I would have congratulated you on trying to be Adobe free. I used nonsubscription LR6 and Photoshop CS8 for years and was very anti the subscription model.

However I upgraded my PC and decided to trial the subscription versions. There were just enough improvements (Haze adjust being reasonably useful) to make it worthwhile for me. So after a bit of pondering I became another Adobe subscriber. Lately I have been more active with my photography and if I look at the overall costs (travel, petrol, park entry fees, accommodation etc) the subscription costs are not particularly significant and certainly do not outweigh the benefits gained. I come from an era when $800-1000 was spent on film and processing for each of my usual two trips a year plus at least that again during the year. If you look at the costs of replacement equipment including computer and storage/backup photography is not a cheap hobby. The Adobe subscription is a monthly reminder of the expense of photography but it is still a relatively minor part of the costs overall.

Since my weakening/treachery Adobe have updated the selection and masking tools which are particularly significant and useful for LR. At this point I have to very reluctantly and grudgingly confess that I should probably have switched sooner.

That's a very interesting perspective! Thanks, Paul