If you’re one of the more wide-eyed people who updated to Adobe Lightroom 6.2 right after it was launched a few days ago, you have likely come to rue that decision. Between the “Fisher Price”-ification of the Import flow to the ridiculous crashes caused due to bugs in the software, this update left much to be desired. Fortunately, Adobe has made good and released a critical maintenance update that supposedly fixes some of the issues.
I still take umbrage with their decision to regress the Import workflow functionality by removing key features in the name of making it more ‘accessible’ to the broadest set of users. That rationale is preposterous. If making your software more ‘accessible’ is such a concern, why haven’t we seen the emasculation of apps like Photoshop or Premiere Pro? Perhaps it’s because there is a dying line of Elements-grade apps built to cater to the more novice user. If this is such a concern, then go ahead and release Lightroom Elements to appease that demographic.
But to move forward with watering down one of the most critical processes of a photographer (the import process) because it’s too hard for novices is an insult to the legion of dedicated power users who have invested years with you. By dummying down this process, you end up castrating your users from growing into the product and maximizing its potential. You also take away some key features that are actually a boon, like automatically ejecting the media card upon successful import. Why get rid of it?
I know why. It’s because you’ve been seeing a population of users leaving your solution for something more simplistic, which translates into lost revenue. I can appreciate that. Trust me, I can. But the route you guys took is simply awful. Don’t penalize your user base by removing core functionality because you can’t figure out how to recapture lost subscriptions. Either build more educational materials and make them super-discoverable or build an Elements-grade version of Lightroom.
Playing with my photo editing tools is like playing with my emotions. Quit it.
Direct links to the Lightroom Patch Installer:
Mac
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Brian Matiash is a Portland-based published photographer and author. He is a member of Sony’s Artisans of Imagery as well as the owner of Matiash, Inc. and the Matiash Shop.
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Filed under: News, Opinion Tagged: Adobe, Brian Matiash, Lightroom, opinion, rant, update 
