I am a LR user whom is seriously considering abandoning my, and my sisters (whom I support across the globe AU>USA) LR and other Adobe subscriptions. Why?...
I am just as tired as others in other forums that I have read, with issues currentlyin your LR product. They who for years have noted that we the customer seem for years have become a 'Soccer' or 'Football' between Apple and Adobe because of their relationship history. My choice of hardware is My choice, not Adobe or Apples. For the record, I'm a Windows ADMIN by trade, that switched to Apple, but none the less MY CHOICE.
Both companies, from reported support interactions, seem to always finger point to issues as each other’s fault and do nothing to resolve them even if the power is in your hands. I also am tired of ADOBE LR itself doing its OWN thing (see below), in spite of and ignoring what we the customer have done, or what we want out of your products, and need them to do.
As a retired person I’m also finding the pricing model a bit steep on a retirement pension to maintain in a scenario where I’m not really getting what I need.
Adobe LR team need to properly code your programs to work as we the customers want it to on the platform’s we choose to run them. Adobe also need to cease being lazy and generally focusing on changes that are not much more than cosmetic. FIX real issues is our cry!
Example:-
- Adobe LR, Not treating Digital cameras 'Date Taken' and 'Time Taken' as sacrosanct information. This seems to be, and if not the single most frustrating reported issue out there.
- It seems to me that Adobe LR is making the 'Date Taken' and the 'Date Captured' the same field. Every time the image is 'touched', whether in Lightroom or not, e.g. Backups, it changes and corrupts OUR FILES and OUR photographic history timelines.
- As a computer Admin I understand the need for the Fields 'Date Created and Time created as OS files, but Adobe needs to work with this, not ignore it as you are doing. Just blindly moving on with 'Blinkers' on. (If you are all too young to understand that analogy, research Blinkers and Cart Horses to understand). These fields bear NO relationship in my or any photographers workflow but are necessary for very different reasons…For me, they have not as much importance as my camera Date Taken or Time Taken information.
- I had overnight (28-29/May2020) LR overwritten the Captured Dates even in the images thumbnailed in Library view that I had not even keyworded as I slept….. BAD, BAD, BAD.
- I thought LR was supposed to non-destructively touch my files.
- Adobe as forgotten these are OUR files NOT yours.
- Ignoring this will force us to abandon you and there are now a number of upcoming apps that could suit our needs. ADOBE (LIKE IT OR NOT) need to realise that we the 'PAYING' customer should be treated better than you do.
- From my perspective as recently retired Windows Admin of some 20 years’ experience surely the fix is simple. Here is how I see a possibly cheap solution to the fix. Please note I’m not a good writer so please excuse any writing issues, and try to
- Also realise that our photo library is a future inheritance for our descendants to know life as we lived it photographically. Thus IMPORTANT.
- Understand my real intent in what’s written. But I think ADOBE LR Team will see this issue differently now.
LR should be coded so that on import from any source, (Camera directly or memory card via a card reader), to create some additional metadata fields, EG 'Date Taken', Time Taken, or some other name that reflects our need to permanently retain this information history.
A maybe workable process may be as follows, but ‘hey’ you guys are supposed to be genius’ and love a challenge.
- The import process should if it can’t retain it as it works safely, read the Actual Historical Date and Times Taken to memory or in case of system crash additionally into an import log file as a ‘field compatible’ piece of text. So that touching these files will NOT change the Data we need retained.
- Then create the Actual Historical Date and Times Taken ‘Metadata fields’ needed in the file to be moved as it moved.
- Then the import process should merge the information from the log file so that Actual Time and Date taken into the files to be imported as they were captured and to be protected from LR or the OS changing these.
- This is needed because, Modified, Capture, Created Dates and times are used by any OS, and will always reflect the action time stamps of the or any actual move, or later as I suspect, things like OS side backups even are doing.
Some other points
- Maybe making said import log file to only contain one or five or 10 years of import information? Adobe need to calculate how big it might get to decide how small they should be kept to.
- Append new imports, not replacing the information until another file is created.
- Name the ‘import log files incrementally for use later in an orderly manner, by Lightroom or External scripting should we choose.
- This maybe will give LR an additional real option us Customers need to replace dates as well
- These new fields data should remain in all actions in LR untouched and only read, not changed.
- They should also appear inside Exported files, and also virtual copies.
- Allow us to use it in LR.
- Maybe allow Lightroom to have two definable models in the Left pane folders view.
- When we did it,
- (imported) it as it is now,
- Or When we took it as we want it to be
- A big issue once we start dealing with later historical photos, maybe scanned or photographed with our cameras. I have family photos over 120 years old and I want to be able to have them catalogued by the date originally taken not when they were imported.
- Maybe a coded action to use these new fields to reorder our catalogue layout by these new fields. Yes, will take a while but once done its what we want, right?
- There should also be a displayable Column for these new fields and also selectable/visible in the Library filter bar above Library thumbnails and also appear in the metadata or a separate panel on the right pane
- And maybe the Keyword panel might have it as an a way to show keywords by year/ Month or day?
- Yes it will slow up the import process a bit, but more preferable than loosing this information and trying to fix it.
- I would gladly sacrifice my diskspace for these files to be retained until I decide to remove them.
Adobe seems to need to reconsider your development models…
So back to my original thoughts and frustrations that to us photographers the DATE Taken is of paramount importance. And key in my decision as to renew my subscription or not.
Adobe LR seems to have ignored the fact that, and needs to reconsider your development models…
Steve
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