Adobe NEVER Promised Lightroom Standalone Forever :: Lightroom Alternatives :: And More X-Trans Content

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Did Adobe Really Promise LR Standalone Forever?

Now, I can get it that many people are annoyed by the fact that, unlike rumored elsewhere, Lightroom 7 will never come, and that now you have to pay a monthly subscription to get Lightroom Classic CC instead.

I’m with you: I don’t like monthly subscriptions, and I join the criticism.

But now I see websites claiming, that Adobe “promised” us to offer forever a Lightroom standalone version and these claims bring the hate and shitstorms against Adobe to a level where it should not be, since Adobe never promised such a thing.

In fact, here is their full official quote from blogs.adobe back in 2013:

“Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely.”

I’m not a native English speaker (it’s actually my 4th language), but to my knowledge “indefinitely” does not mean “forever“, but more “for an unspecified period of time“. So let’s critizise Adobe based on what they do and not based on fake clickbait news.

With that said, the new reality is called Lightroom Classic CC… so let’s see how it works.

Some Lightroom Alternatives

  • Capture One is a great alternative, especially since they recently improved the X-Trans support (but we still wait for a few more things sich as Fujifilm GFX support and film simulation profiles). Check out also this Fujifilm-centric Capture One webinar.
  • Also ON1 has made progress in the Fuji X-Trans world. They improved the X-Trans demosaicing first on February 15 here, and then on June 7 here. They promised film simulation profiles on July 21 here and On1 Photo Raw 2018 is coming with a lot of new features.
  • MacPhun Luminar is coming big in the last few months, with versions for Mac and Windows. Definitely worth to check it out.
  • Iridient is a much-loved RAW demosaicing software by the Fuji X community.
  • The “RAW Power” App brings Aperture style interface & functions to MacPhotos. We reported about it here.
  • Another appreciated alternative is darktable. It’s free and is full of features (now also for windows). Moreover, the sourcecode is opensource and if the development stops, other people can go on with it.

X-Trans Zone

  • Image Editing Experiments With The Fujifilm X-T2 and Film Simulation JPEGS at thewanderinglensman
  • Image Editing Experiments With The Fujifilm X-T2 and Film Simulation JPEGS; Part II at thewanderinglensman
  • There’s a special offer at this moment to get DXO Optics Pro 11 Essential for free! Check it out at: dxo.com/us/practicalphotography. Keep in mind that DxO does not support Fuji RAW files, so you have to convert your files to TIFF to be able to use them. Offer expires November 30. Thanks to Arnoud for the link: www.arnoudlievense.nl
  • ApolloOne, a very popular photo viewer for Mac just got an update to version 2.0.0. Version 2 adds a number of new features. The most notable ones are: fast image tagging/culling with Auto Advance mode, new built-in RAW decoder (based on LibRAW, same as the one used by FastRawViewer), and the association of XMP sidecar files for RAW images (change rating, delete, rename). In addition, you can now view HEIC image files (and HEVC videos) on macOS High Sierra with complete EXIF info. The best part is that it is now free to download at the App Store here, so you can try before you buy. Check it out!

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