Lightroom - older version question

[Peakbagr]

I'd like to get a little more serious with my digital photography but don't want to have to learn or spend the money on Photoshop.

I understand that Adobe now charges a monthly 'rental' fee for Photoshop and Lightroom v5.
I can purchase Lightroom v4 but before I do wanted to be sure that it's an 'own-it' not 'rent it' version of Lightroom.

 

[Paul_Bear]

I bought Lightroom 4 when it was relatively new, so unless things have changed you don't have to rent it. It used to sell in the $75 to $100 range, so price may be an indicator.

One thing to be aware of is that they stopped adding RAW support for newer cameras once Lightroom 5 came out. I bought a new DSLR and LR4 can't read the files.

I see Amazon has LR5 for $135. It doesn't really say, but at that price I would think it shouldn't require a monthly fee. This may be worth investigating.

 

[DougPaul]

One thing to be aware of is that they stopped adding RAW support for newer cameras once Lightroom 5 came out. I bought a new DSLR and LR4 can't read the files.

You might find dcraw (an opensource raw decoder) to be helpful--it has become a standard tool both within and outside of the opensource community and can read RAW files from a variety of cameras and is actively kept up to date.
http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dcraw

Binaries and instructions for compilation are available for a variety of OSes including Linux, WinOSes, and MacOSes. (Search on "dcraw microsoft" or "dcraw apple" for more info.)

Doug

 

[Peakbagr]

From what I've seen, V5 of Lightroom requires a $10 monthly software licensing fee. Sweet deal for Adobe since they seem to be getting away with it.

 

[DougPaul]

FWIW, if you do get the subscription version, it looks like you can still access your photos after the subscription is terminated. http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjou...ns-to-lightroom-after-my-membership-ends.html

Doug

 

[sardog1]

My wife runs 5 on her Mac and says the subscription is required only if you want to use a tablet and run their Creative Cloud feature. She does not, and the app functions fine as it is.