Not long thereafter, Adobe announced a radical new version of Lightroom with a redesigned user interface, using the Adobe cloud for image storage instead of local hard drives. I’d heard a lot about Lightroom and I considered the modest subscription fee for the Adobe Photography Plan (which also includes Photoshop and space in the Adobe cloud) a justifiable expense. I had only recently begun to get serious about photography, and almost immediately grew out of the free photo editing app that came bundled with my humble Nikon D3200 kit. So when Adobe changed its bevy of media applications to the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription model, I saw it as an opportunity to finally get away from free, but inferior, software. I’d much rather pay a small amount each month, for which I get immediate access to an application that would have cost me at least a year’s worth of subscription fees to purchase outright, and that gets updated frequently without my having to do anything. As a developer, I understand that without a steady income, a software company can’t continue to meet users’ demands (and when they do release a new version, they have to charge a steep upgrade price). As a photographer, I want the latest features in my photo editing software, and I don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for a software package that I’ll have to upgrade every year or so. I’m a software developer as well as a photographer. I appreciate that sentiment, even if I don’t share it. They want to hold on to whatever version works for them (for which they usually paid a lot of money) and never have to shell out another penny for that functionality. Some people hate subscription models for software.

Lightroom 6 on catalina