It likely would have been an equally dark and murky experience in the depressingly small world of slow-performing photo editors that also help catalog, tag, and share your work in every way imaginable. What greener pastures existed for me beyond Lightroom are quite unclear. Today, with the introduction of Lightroom 6 come speed enhancements that will keep me around at least until Lightroom 7. Yesterday, Lightroom was a brilliant all-in-one library catalog manager and color/tone editor that I didn’t want to live without, but that I was still considering leaving for something else. the traditional sharp-cornered square logo. If you like the work I do, please consider signing up for my low-volume newsletter that I use to announce new projects, items, and giveaways that I think my readers would be interested in.The Lightroom CC logo (left) differs just slightly from the standalone Lightroom 6 logo (right) with rounded edges (reminiscent of the style of an iOS application icon) vs. Read all about it here: Using DNG Converter with Lightroom 6 and New Cameras. There’s a way forward, however, which I describe at Complete Digital Photography: add a step to your workflow and use Adobe’s free DNG Converter utility to create DNG (digital negative) format files that Lightroom will read and edit. It still works, but there’s a catch: it won’t be able to read raw files from new cameras. However, as of the end of 2017, Lightroom 6 is no longer being updated or supported. And some people are perfectly happy with Lightroom 6, the last standalone version that Adobe sells.

There are plenty of alternatives to Lightroom, but switching to one from Lightroom can be a giant undertaking. As I’ve written elsewhere recently, some photographers just don’t want to pay for software as an ongoing subscription.