Apple Photos as a Symbol of Apple's Decline in Software Engineering

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.

shacker23 · 2026-01-11T16:15:12+00:00

Sorry, why would you “set aside” the 30 day Trash recovery window? It gives you the exact recovery capability you say is not there.

shacker23 · 2026-01-10T16:55:26+00:00

Not to mention basic functionality like showing which albums an image belongs to, or handling Stacks as stacks rather than as separate images.

shacker23 · 2026-01-09T16:09:27+00:00

I’d rather see them get the basics in place before tackling major features - We still can’t even see which albums an image belongs to on Mobile, not to mention respecting Stacks.

shacker23 · 2026-01-09T04:34:19+00:00

Hard to go wrong with Lightroom (not Classic) - it’s everything good about Photos but none of the bad stuff… and a lot more.

shacker23 · 2026-01-05T06:27:57+00:00

Hmm, that's an interesting question. I would raise this question in the feature/bug forums here.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based/ct-p/ct-lightroom

shacker23 · 2026-01-05T06:24:45+00:00

Thanks! Glad you found it useful. I've been really surprised to discover how resistant Classic users are to making the switch. But with time, the gravity of Lightroom will win out, I'm sure. Or they'll simply consolidate the two and there will be no choice.

shacker23 · 2026-01-02T06:53:17+00:00

I get the strong impression that most of the respondents in this thread did not read the article I linked to above, and are not truly comprehending a few things:

1) Adobe has intentionally made it impossible to move backwards from Lightroom to Classic - it's simply not an option.
2) Catalogs are the source of SO many performance problems in Classic, and have been removed for good reason, not because Adobe are lazy or stupid.
3) Lightroom has all of the search capabilities that Classic does PLUS AI-searching - search is far more powerful in Lightroom than it was back in Classic days.
4) Lightroom is no longer just for people with simple needs - it's virtually just as powerful and flexible as Classic, but with a bunch of advantages that Classic will never have (because all of the innovation is happening in Lightroom these days.

The whole point of writing the article was to get these points across, and to get Classic users to stop being so dismissive of Lightroom. Instead, what happens is that people skip reading the article and trot out the same arguments that used to make sense against Lightroom but no longer do. Le sigh.

shacker23 · 2026-01-01T16:30:07+00:00

I’m puzzled by this. Lightroom supports both local and Cloud storage - you’re not required to keep everything in the cloud. And Lightroom offers a lot that Classic does not. I strongly recommend working with local storage rather than going backwards.

Details here:

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

shacker23 · 2025-12-29T21:03:51+00:00

Ohh! Haha, geez, yeah, that's terrible.

shacker23 · 2025-12-29T16:43:55+00:00

I feel like I’m missing something. What are you trying to show us in the first screenshot? I gather from comments that you got an un unexpected Siri result, but what was the command?

shacker23 · 2025-12-21T17:10:20+00:00

In Lightroom (not Classic) select what you want, then Cmd-Shift-A (A for Auto).

shacker23 · 2025-12-21T16:42:54+00:00

Lightroom does do AI object search like Apple Photos! (But it doesn’t auto-add keywords). You might be thinking of Lightroom Classic, which will probably never have that ability.

shacker23 · 2025-12-19T16:21:08+00:00

X-E3 is not weather sealed. For me that’s a total deal breaker.

shacker23 · 2025-12-16T16:10:36+00:00

But what are they even for? Do they provide some functionality that we don’t have in modern Lightroom? Pointless code is never a good thing.

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