In reply to Andy Johnson:
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.
Post edited at 09:48