Deleting Adobe

Today, I deleted the Adobe apps from my devices.

This was not due to some sort of protest or reaction to policy or subscriptions fatigue or anything like that. I did it because I needed to make a decision about how I manage and process my photos.

I wrote just a week ago about how I’m going to be using only Lightroom because I couldn’t deal with the combination of Lightroom and Lightroom Classic.

What I seem to write every time I switch to something other than Capture One Pro is something like, “Now, I’d prefer to use Capture One Pro, but…”

But what? It doesn’t sync with iOS? It’s too complex? I’m tired of managing files? All of those are true, but in the end, Capture One does the best job with my images and is as powerful as I could ever need.

I sometimes forget that I enjoy doing deep and detailed edits of my photos. It’s fun! Hell, one of the reasons I avoid shooting film is because I don’t want to wait to get to a computer and see what I can do. This isn’t what I’m supposed to be saying. I’m supposed to be saying, “Oh, I just shoot film and send it away for processing so I can focus on my art and not sit at a computer all day.” I’d be lying if I said that. I’d love to be that person, but I’m not.

Here’s what happens. I spend a couple of months in Capture One and get comfortable. Not bored, necessarily, but the novelty wears off a bit. Then I read a blog post where someone is doing something cool with Lightroom or Lightroom Classic and think, “Ooh, that sure would be nice.” and the next thing you know I launch Lightroom and breath a sigh of relief at how simple and sleek and new it feels. And it syncs to all my devices! And I don’t have to have a process for bringing in my iPhone photos. They just appear!

But then I try to add a layer or rename a file or organize things in a way that I prefer and Lightroom fails. Or I’m not sure I like the look of how Lightroom has rendered such and such an image, so I launch Capture One and breath a sigh of relief that I’m back where I belong and this is how I want to edit photos!

And around and around it goes and I’m tired.

Each time I switch I have to re-learn how I manage exports and watermarks and labels and organization. If I’m being honest, I have to admit that I like that part, but it’s getting in the way and I think I’ve finally reached a level of frustration that merits a more permanent decision.

That decision is now to move forward (again) with Capture One Pro and remove any temptation of “just trying it in Lightroom a second”.

So I’ve deleted Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop from all of my devices and I’ll be canceling my subscription as soon as I’m sure I won’t end up missing any photos.

The Photoshop thing is another pain point. I am terrible at Photoshop, but just knowing it’s there is comforting. I know that no matter what I want to do, I can do it in Photoshop and can find a resource online to help me figure out how.

This means it’s time to learn to use Affinity Photo for those cases where I need some extra fancy sauce.

Now, we’re all friends here and you know me. I change my mind. Will this time be different? I don’t know, but I’ve never gone this far toward forcing myself to stick with something, so maybe it will.