Escape from Adobe
For a big chunk of my photographic life, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop were simply part of the landscape. I didn’t choose them so much as inherit them. When Apple ended Aperture back in 2014, Adobe became the default path forward, and like many photographers, I followed it without much thought.
But over the years, something shifted. The subscription costs crept up. New AI features arrived that didn’t match the way I work. Support became slower and less helpful. And the catalogue — the heart of my entire photographic history — began to feel more fragile than I was comfortable with.
The breaking point came when my Lightroom catalogue corrupted itself and locked me out of decades of images. I had backups, thankfully, but the experience shook my confidence in relying on a system that felt increasingly brittle and increasingly expensive.
That moment sent me looking for alternatives. I wasn’t searching for a professional studio solution or a new ecosystem to buy into. I just wanted something stable, affordable, and respectful of the way I actually work.
What I found surprised me.
I ended up migrating forty years of photography into ON1 Photo RAW — and two years later, I’m still glad I made the switch. The process wasn’t perfect, and I ran into a few bumps along the way, but the end result was a workflow that feels simpler, more stable, and entirely under my control again.
I’ve written a full post about the whole journey — the frustrations that pushed me to leave, the migration process, the unexpected benefits, and the alternatives worth considering if you’re feeling boxed in by Lightroom.
If you’re curious about what “escaping Adobe” actually looked like for me, you can read the full story here:
👉 Read the full article on my website: