UKH

Time for the perennial question...

I'm currently paying Adobe ~£10/m for their photo plan. I only really use Lightroom, and even that is increasingly infrequently. I have a database with about a decade worth of photos in it, mostly of average quality.

Instead I'd like to pay once for an application that I can install locally (beefy desktop pc, decent monitor, WIndows 10). Hopefully this app would be able to inhale my Lightroom database and keep my current library intact. Fallback is to export everything and start again.

So what's the app-de-jour for migrating off Adobe? How has it worked out for those who've tried it?

Might be worth noting that after I stopped paying for Adobe I could still access the library module in Lightroom to make very basic edits, apply the default presets, and export. It's the develop module etc that got disabled. So you should still find that you can export any previously edited files from Lightroom. You'll be limited in terms of making any further edits, but in my experience you won't lose previous work you've done which might take the pressure off the decision if you aren't using it much anyway at the moment.

My camera hasn't been out much recently other than for family pics, which I've just been shooting in JPEG, so I can't comment on alternative apps as I never ended up getting round to sorting out a proper alternative to Lightroom (I initially had a similar plan to you, and was in a similar situation, but other things took over).

Not sure about keeping the catalogue intact as i never gelled with it (i hated it) in Lightroom but i have been using Exposure X7 for a while now, very similar to Lightroom, i don't have any issues with it, give the free trial a whirl

They have a migration tool but i have no experience of it

https://support.exposure.software/hc/en-us/articles/360009233573-Lightroom-...

I use Phase One Capture One Pro. I wouldn’t use anything else now. It’s worth looking into. 

For Photoshop duties I have Affinity Photo. It’s really good and inexpensive.

https://www.on1.com/ - Just to add another possibility to investigate and consider if it fit your needs.

I bought ON1 this year having been with LR for years. ON1 do have a migration tool for importing from LR, but for various reasons I choose not to use the LR catalogue and just to import the photos and side car files. That was very easy - just copied certain LR photo folders ignoring the cat folders and previews, etc, and just transferred the master folders containing all the sub folders of photos and edits from 8 years photos to an external drive, pointed ON 1 program to the drive and clicked import. ON1 created it’s own catalogue (equivalent; it’s a database) and previews on import (in the background so you can ignore it working behind the scenes).

Whilst I didn’t import the LR catalogue, I’ve got all the keywords and edits from the import of sidecar files. You don’t have to import btw into ON1 to use the program; might be useful for say if you are not sure you want to stay with ON1 for any reason and complicate moving stuff again.

I’m happy with ON1; it’s not flawless and has it’s own peculiarities which you have to work with though (does not backup like LR for example). Some reviews say it’s complex to get a grasp of since there are several ways/methods to do the same thing. Personally though, I found it an easy learning curve coming from LR. They have very good learning materials on their website (some available only to Plus members at extra cost) if you have time to go through it.

Word of warning if you sign up for emails you will get a lot!! To be fair many are very useful/helpful (eg links to videos of how to do “x” or links to help documents, etc), but many for just trying to sell you more like an new update, a subscription, plug ins, other extras they do, etc, etc.

They do do a free fully working program trial to let you try before you buy/subscribe. If you do this don’t bother to import to try/experiment.

Do check that the latest version on sale (just released Oct) can still do a LR migration (though I would be surprise if they have changed that). Also, check the recommended pc spec; a SSD is really needed unless you want to slow down. HDD is a bottleneck as the program is fast if you have the PC spec to let it fly at full speed. 

I had exactly this problem a few months ago 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/photography/lightroom_alternatives-749206

I checked out the alternatives, but before I made a choice the Adobe Photography plan was on sale at £70 for a year on Amazon, which was cheap enough to make me stick with it.  Black Friday is coming up and the deal may be available again.

I'm still using Lightroom 5.7 from years ago and its still works well.

You are welcome to a copy.

However I had a play with the trial version of Photolabs DxO and am seriously considering buying a licence for it.

As someone who makes a living from writing software that people pay for, I'll pass on that.

Thanks for the suggestions and info. I'll check out Exposure, Capture One, and ON1.