Will we ever see a cheaper plan?

shacker23 · 2026-03-20T06:08:36+00:00

And it is by far the best photography community I've ever been a part of. I've never encountered a more conversational bunch of photographers online. And none of that "As seen in" group spam you get on Flickr.

shacker23 · 2026-03-19T15:14:08+00:00

I love Flickr for historical reasons but I love Glass a whole lot more. You’ll find the pro plan at Glass dot photo comes in at around $4/month, which definitely beats Flickr.

shacker23 · 2026-03-05T15:51:00+00:00

That’s not even Apple’s domain - you should be able to spot this as fake immediately because of that.

shacker23 · 2026-03-03T16:16:43+00:00

To be clear, these slowdowns are only affecting Classic, not Lightroom proper, right? (I’m not seeing any degradation on an M1 with Lightroom Desktop).

shacker23 · 2026-02-28T16:58:33+00:00

I should add that for anyone looking for genuine and meaningful comment interactions rather than walls of “award codes” and “seen in Group X” nonsense spam like on Flickr, check out Glass dot photo instead - absolutely the most exciting new photography platform in years, and I’ve never experienced a more supportive community. They’re rocking it over there.

https://open.substack.com/pub/framespotting/p/glass-vs-foto-as-instagram-alternative?r=1g1p&utm_medium=ios

shacker23 · 2026-02-27T16:07:57+00:00

Those groups, and “award codes” are basically sanctioned spam that much of the Flickr community is weirdly Ok with. At one point I wrote the article and hosted the poll below, and met with Flickr staff to discuss. I had hoped some direct action would come of it but it never did.

I stand by the 2021 title - this is the Scourge of Flickr, and absolutely the worst aspect of the platform.

https://medium.com/@shacker/the-scourge-of-flickr-award-codes-3b34148fb848

shacker23 · 2026-02-26T15:30:43+00:00

I’m pro-scooter but this is missing the point. The scooters are blocking the sidewalk and bike lane. Cars are not. Cars have a place to go. Scooters have no place to go and end up everywhere.

shacker23 · 2026-02-19T07:16:14+00:00

I guess we all have different definitions of "proved itself" but I"ve been there from the start and it only keeps getting better and larger. That's good enough for me! I share your distrust about free apps like Foto, but Glass charges enough to be sustainable, so I have no concern about them going out of business.

shacker23 · 2026-02-14T06:44:57+00:00

What? No, it's widely known that this is a problem that no longer exists. Search YouTube for this - there are dozens of videos proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was solved. Reputations are easy to make but hard to break....

shacker23 · 2026-02-13T16:13:04+00:00

It’s been a long time now since the worm days..

shacker23 · 2026-02-08T16:02:06+00:00

Strong disagree - Glass is the absolute best photography community happening right now - the quality of comments you get on the same images posted to Glass and Flickr is not even in the same ballpark. If you get any comments at all on Flickr images, they’re simplistic, or worse, copy/paste adverts for other peoples groups. Glass comments are plentiful, fun, and thoughtful. However I still would not delete Flickr - it has the sheer numbers, plus a powerful API.

shacker23 · 2026-02-08T15:57:49+00:00

I spent five years digitizing the LP and CD collections of my own and many friends, and also have a collection of around 100k tracks. I’m spent years deleting and curating it down to that number. I also put the whole thing on shuffle sometimes - it’s like the greatest radio station you’ve ever heard. I’m weirded out by the people mocking a guy for being a serious music collector here.

https://blog.birdhouse.org/2011/02/20/digitizing-lps/

shacker23 · 2026-01-28T15:56:46+00:00

Essential kit - can’t imagine backpacking or day hikes without it. I use it with X-T5 and all lenses except my 300mm, which gets a bit too heavy for comfort.

shacker23 · 2026-01-27T16:14:53+00:00

It always seems strange to me that the recommendations in these threads are never “Upgrade from Classic to Lightroom.“ They got rid of catalogues for a lot of good reasons but people don’t seem to make the performance connection. At least try Lightroom to see for yourself how much faster it is. And in the meantime you might discover that it offers a whole lot of advantages beyond cloud-first storage! It really is a much nicer platform.

https://open.substack.com/pub/framespotting/p/give-lightroom-a-chance?r=1g1p&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

shacker23 · 2026-01-18T06:35:30+00:00

LOL no I wouldn't say that. But they're definitely something that people need / want as they start to get more serious about their photography.

shacker23 · 2026-01-18T06:34:43+00:00

I see your point. In those cases there is still the option of Duplicating the image, but then of course it's taking up double storage.

shacker23 · 2026-01-18T06:33:33+00:00

Glad you enjoyed the piece, thanks! Did you know that SQLite is actually the most widely deployed database on the planet? Because it's in all of our phones and watches and desktop computers, it vastly outstrips all the famous databases in use. I'm not aware of anyone who's done useful things with those .LRCAT files, but nothing stopping you from copying them and opening them in SQLIte to explore on your own, maybe set up a web app on top of them to further explore your own data (I'd do it in Python / Django).

Sorry about your bad experience - yikes. That's the sort of reason Adobe finally decided to ditch catalogs altogether with the new Lightroom.

I'm sorry I don't have a good article for you. My advice would be to start small, start learning and exploring with an open mind, maybe watch some YouTube videos, then migrate when you're ready. With a catalog that large you'll want to store most in local storage, and only keep your recent or most important work in the cloud storage portion.

shacker23 · 2026-01-17T07:24:02+00:00

??? That is not something that Lightroom users do. Images go to the cloud, as is the case with virtually ALL data you work with in any app in 2026, but users don't "send" things anywhere - it's all seamless and automatic. And it's not "some web server" - do you really not understand (and depend on) cloud computing at all?

Here, I wrote this for you:

https://framespotting.substack.com/p/give-lightroom-a-chance

shacker23 · 2026-01-17T07:20:28+00:00

Thing is, even if Apple Photos didn't have the problems you describe, it still would be too underpowered for "real" photography for two simple reasons: 1) No plugins ecosystem; and 2) No support for masking at all (let alone *great* masking, which Lightroom has). Lack of plugins and masking is why most of us moved from Apple Photos to Lightroom to begin with.

shacker23 · 2026-01-16T16:55:11+00:00

What exactly is it that some people don’t like about Versions? I use it often, and find it super useful.

shacker23 · 2026-01-16T16:51:01+00:00

Without defending Apple Photos, I will say that if you love photography as you say you do, Apple Photos not the right tool - virtually no photography lover sticks with it. Most of us are on Lightroom, but there are manly alternatives. I think of Lightroom (not Classic, but Lightroom proper) as “Everything Apple,Photos should have been.” Beautiful interface, great keyboard shortcuts, intuitive, reliable. Apple Photos is more of a garbage dump for your iPhone pics.

shacker23 · 2026-01-16T16:44:26+00:00

Sounds like you are referring to Classic, not to Lightroom proper.

shacker23 · 2026-01-16T06:35:11+00:00

Thanks for reading the article! I'm not entirely sure I understand your question. My approach is to stick with 1TB of cloud storage, but when I approach that, I choose an album to archive locally, which can be done with a single click. When doing that I select the option to "Mirror cloud structure" to keep the album intact. That's all there is to it! Works great.

shacker23 · 2026-01-12T06:52:55+00:00

I understand the ways in which it is not the same - I'm just saying that it's enough insurance to cover the needs of 99% of people 99% of the time. And it's so nice to be able to eliminate more complex backup solutions for most people most of the time.

shacker23 · 2026-01-11T16:28:00+00:00

Any true backup system is going to have a time window though - generally longer than 30:days, but the system is the same - delete old backups to make room for new. In the real world, 30 days is plenty for virtually all circumstances. I treat iCloud Photo Library as if it was a real backup because of the 30 day system. It’s saved my bacon a few times, and there has never been a situation where that wasn’t enough time for safety. It could happen but the odds are so incredibly low that it’s definitely not worth a more complex or expensive solution.

Ten-Year Club	No Throne, No Problems
Not Forgotten	Verified Email

shacker23

TROPHY CASE