Last month I mused on my online photo future. The shift in the New Adobe Photography plans has me wondering about the future for Lightroom Classic, and I’ve always been leery of reliance on a subscription model for software. I’d rather feel as though I owned something.

I’ve already pre-purchased a subscription for Adobe’s Photography plan which had me thinking I’d have a year to figure out what I wanted to do moving forward. Until, that is, Luminar 2018 was announced. This app has been a well-regarded up and coming RAW developer for about a year, but biggest deficiency was the lack of Library feature. With the advent of Luminar 2018 this deficiency is set to come to an end. While the feature won’t be available upon release, the coming year will see the arrival of a Digital Assets Management system to use in conjunction with Luminar. While the feature will be a paid add-on for Luminar 2018 ¹, those who pre-order will receive the DAM for free. I mused over the prospect of migrating to Luminar for my Photo developing and organization for a few days before I decided to give this up and comer a chance.

What really tipped the scales for me were the bonuses I’d get for pre-ordering. In addition to the announced DAM and several other bonuses to use in the new application ², those who pay the $59 pre-order price are gifted a year of SmugMug’s power plan! I really enjoyed my year with SmugMug and was sad to have to deactivate my account, now I’ve got another year on the platform ³!

I’m excited by the prospect of the overlap, with both Lightroom and Luminar at my disposal, I’ll have in 2018. If I like Luminar enough to migrate away from Adobe’s platform I’ll be able to cancel my subscription at the end of 2018 and save a good sum of money moving forward. If I feel I want to continue on with the Creative Cloud Photography plan, I’ll be able to pass on Luminar to my son and I’ll still of had the benefit of using SmugMug for a second year ⁴. It’s a perfect opportunity to try something new.

One aspect of my current workflow, however, keeps me dragging my feet. I love Lightroom Mobile. So much so, in fact, I’ve travelled across the county without my MacBook because I knew I could pull my photos off my camera and do much of my editing right on my iPad. Even better, my tablet would then upload them to my Creative Cloud account. I knew when I returned home the photos would download to my Lightroom Library without a hitch. Sadly, Luminar has no such workflow ⁵. It would be something I’d miss. But it’s also a future I’m willing to explore.