Should I suck it up a pay for Lightroom Creative Cloud?

This is very much true. You'll never get the camera support in FLOSS software like a dozen paid professionals can do, also with getting help from the manufacturers.

But it's not always that big a deal.

At least the basic camera support is pooled together between several FLOSS developers. (See: raw.pixls.us) Rawtherapee hasn't seen a meaningful update in years so judging this one project is not 100% accurate view of the whole FLOSS softwarescape.

Raw Therapee V5.9 was out in Nov 2022, has support for the Z5, Z6-II, and Z7-II. I guess that means the .NEF files. a .DCP is not included, the newest being the "Nikon Z7.dcp". Interesting that ART has more .DCP files, fortunately the two are compatible.
 
We should really open another thread for this.

BUT- I looked in my LR6 intallation and note MANY .DCP files that are not in ART or RT. The filenames are longer.

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom\Resources\CameraProfiles\Adobe Standard

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom\Resources\CameraProfiles\Camera

Nikon Df Adobe Standard.dcp

Change to

Nikon Df.dcp

Now I have a Nikon Df profile in ART and RT that the software finds for "Auto-Matched Camera Profile".
This option was not present until I did the Hack.
The colors for the Df now are very close to the in-camera JPEG that I am comparing with.

SO- ".DCP", a standard file format. The file naming convention is different it seems, a simple rename worked for me. I can take all the Lightroom color profiles to ART and RT.
 
I just copied All of the .DCP files from LR6 of this computer to my new one: ART and RT allow you to specify the .DCP file to use. SO- just Browse to where you put them on the machine and click on it. LR has various profiles for the same camera. They all appear to work.


.DCP is an open standard, and appears to be based on DNG spec. SO- that means a .DCP file for one application should work with any other that implements the standard correctly.
 
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I just copied All of the .DCP files from LR6 of this computer to my new one: ART and RT allow you to specify the .DCP file to use. SO- just Browse to where you put them on the machine and click on it. LR has various profiles for the same camera. They all appear to work.


.DCP is an open standard, and appears to be based on DNG spec. SO- that means a .DCP file for one application should work with any other that implements the standard correctly.
Interesting. I just snooped through the DCP directory in ART and note that there are no files for Leica. I upgraded to 1.18.0 out of curiosity, and not there either.

It seems to work well enough with my DNG raw files from my 240 but still I find it curious.

If I had a copy of Lightroom, I'd do as you and see what difference it made to have a Leica M 240.DCP in there but alas...
 
So... Lightroom has the .DCP files for the Leica cameras. What you do is to rename the file to whatever camera name is displayed by ART or RT.

SO- for the M9 the filename must be "Leica Camera AG M9 Digital Camera.dcp". ART and RT use the camera name stored in the DNG file to allow the "Auto-Match" option.
 
I've really grown to appreciate the cloud storage. Not only does it act as a backup, but I can upload from my laptop while on the road, rate and reject during downtime with my phone, and edit on my calibrated monitor back at home.

I'm fully in the Creative Cloud for work though. When I retire, I'll certainly seek out a cheaper, cloud alternative.
 
To tangent the original woe, I see no real indication that Capture One is going fully subscription based.

They seem to offer a perpetual license that you own for life. It is priced at around 18-20 months of subscription use of the same software. Pricier than Adobe for sure. But it's there. Run the same piece of software for a decade and you've done well for yourself?

I believe I may have mentioned that and I do stand corrected. Some of the articles I read, not referencing the original release from Capture One stated that they were going subscription only because perpetual licenses were costing them money.

I knew I should have dug a little deeper.

 
There have been mixed and nebulous messages coming out of Capture One. Something is coming in February, and pricing is obviously being set now to encourage subscriptions, particularly in the way perpetuals are going to get updates (or perhaps not get them is a better way to put it). The community is quite upset about this and if they do not make changes I suspect they are going to lose a lot of non-pro users. Maybe they do not care about that. For pros, I would guess most are on subs anyway or it is not a big deal as the expense is pretty small for a business.

Personally, with the recent changes I am considering moving from C1 to something else. I got a free copy of LuminarAI (from the hot deals section here I think it was), but I have been underwhelmed thus far. I installed darktable last night, it does seem a bit overwhelming but I will hang in there. I have RawTherapee on the list. This has been a very interesting thread since I am looking around right now.

My biggest concern with subscriptions is not the monthly fees. The issue is what happens when you stop paying the sub? My understanding is that for most paid software, it either ceases to run at all, or you have very limited access. Talk about lock-in. I am probably the exception in that I also do not like cloud-centric software, for the same reason. And I want to keep all my images on my own local storage, thanks.

I am probably just an out-of-touch old guy who should get with the times. I am not there yet.
 
Gave up Adobe when they went to subscription.
Apple Photos does all the cataloging and most of the editing that I need.
I supplement with Snapseed, Luminar 4, and on occasion Affinity as needed.
 
There have been mixed and nebulous messages coming out of Capture One. Something is coming in February, and pricing is obviously being set now to encourage subscriptions, particularly in the way perpetuals are going to get updates (or perhaps not get them is a better way to put it). The community is quite upset about this and if they do not make changes I suspect they are going to lose a lot of non-pro users. Maybe they do not care about that. For pros, I would guess most are on subs anyway or it is not a big deal as the expense is pretty small for a business.

Personally, with the recent changes I am considering moving from C1 to something else. I got a free copy of LuminarAI (from the hot deals section here I think it was), but I have been underwhelmed thus far. I installed darktable last night, it does seem a bit overwhelming but I will hang in there. I have RawTherapee on the list. This has been a very interesting thread since I am looking around right now.

My biggest concern with subscriptions is not the monthly fees. The issue is what happens when you stop paying the sub? My understanding is that for most paid software, it either ceases to run at all, or you have very limited access. Talk about lock-in. I am probably the exception in that I also do not like cloud-centric software, for the same reason. And I want to keep all my images on my own local storage, thanks.

I am probably just an out-of-touch old guy who should get with the times. I am not there yet.
You are not alone in this regard.
 
I can run LR4 on as many machines as I want, but not LR6. I can only run it on one Laptop- probably as it was an upgrade for $79. You can no longer "deactivate LR6" and reinstall on a new computer. LR6 handles my Df without having to Hack the files.
BUT... I moved all the DCP files from LR6 to LR4, which worked.
LR4 will not open a Nikon Df .NEF unless you change file offset '0183'x from an "f" to a "4". That is the only difference between a Df file and a D4 file. I'll probably write a code to go through all of the files in LR4 and change "Nikon D4" to "Nikon Df", see what that does. I used to change all the Df to D4 in the .NEF files, which worked. One time I changed all the compiler error messages as a prank on a new engineer. Look on his face when the error read "Mark, you really screwed up this time"
 
After switching to Lightroom when Apple abandoned Aperture I gave it up when they went subscription only; but have now relented and pay for the 20Gb Photographers bundle. The new masking edits are very very good and worth it to the point that I now hardly use Photoshop or any other editors apart from Topaz SharpenAi.

Also, why don't you use Adobe DNG Converter to change your Nikon, Canon, Leica etc. files to the DNG format which will normally allow them to be read by any version of Lightroom. You can then have the original RAW version and a DNG copy if you want, and as DCP files were originally developed by Adobe then using should not be a problem.
 
Is there a LR feature comparable to C1 layers? For that matter does anything outside of Adobe products or C1 have something comparable? Layers is a very useful feature of C1 to me and I would miss it a lot.
 
After switching to Lightroom when Apple abandoned Aperture I gave it up when they went subscription only; but have now relented and pay for the 20Gb Photographers bundle. The new masking edits are very very good and worth it to the point that I now hardly use Photoshop or any other editors apart from Topaz SharpenAi.

Also, why don't you use Adobe DNG Converter to change your Nikon, Canon, Leica etc. files to the DNG format which will normally allow them to be read by any version of Lightroom. You can then have the original RAW version and a DNG copy if you want, and as DCP files were originally developed by Adobe then using should not be a problem.
DxO PureRAW also has the option to export to DNG, so you can actually make it a pretty seemless workflow. Import and DeNoise through PR, then open in LR. I’ve been doing that lately, but going to On1 instead of LR.
 
I've really grown to appreciate the cloud storage. Not only does it act as a backup, but I can upload from my laptop while on the road, rate and reject during downtime with my phone, and edit on my calibrated monitor back at home.
This is why I caved as well. Super useful feature for me, saves me so much time. And while it may lack some ultimate image quality compared to some rivals, the number of shots where I really need that difference is incredibly small - and certainly not worth giving up the time gain I get from the cloud features. I might get DxO PL6 as a plugin once my budget allows it, but for the time being Lightroom CC does everything I want apart from soft-proofing.
 
Lightroom 4.4, with LR6 .DCP files loaded, and the Nikon Df .NEF changed to indicate it is a D4.



AND ART- Second image, With the Lighroom 6 .DCP color profile specified.
The D4 vs Df Hack- just so LR4 processes the .NEF. Changing "Nikon D4" to "Nikon Df" did not work in the cameraraw.dll. I did write some code that would change every occurrence of "D4" to "Df" in the installed package. I might try that- but this did not take long. It batch processes all of the files.
 
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So it took about 4 seconds to hack every .NEF for the Df on this computer- several thousand. Just treat them as Fortran Direct Access files.
 
Fortran? Whoa... I haven't touched that since around 1980, on an IBM 370 mainframe. I am sure the toolset has changed a little bit since then. :p

(I used to be a dev up until around 2010, many languages, platforms, etc.)
 
Fortran? Whoa... I haven't touched that since around 1980, on an IBM 370 mainframe. I am sure the toolset has changed a little bit since then. :p

(I used to be a dev up until around 2010, many languages, platforms, etc.)
I use the Watcom compiler- still Fortran-77 with extensions. I still do a lot of assembly language coding. A LOT! Pays the Bills and people worried about me retiring.
I'm going to have a look at the source code from these packages. Uses GNU C/C++, I have that setup.

I also downloaded and installed GIMP. This is the Freeware package that performs the functions of Photoshop. If you know Photoshop, very short learning curve.
At this point- I have LR4.4 Hacked for all my cameras but the Nikon Z5, and I have ART outputting the same colors that I get from Lightroom. I have Raw Therapee and Darktable installed. I like ART and RT, they are "Lightroom" Like. Darktable- is not intuitive for someone used to the Adobe products.

SO: GIMP, ART, and Raw Therapee: free alternatives for someone used to Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.
 
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