Is Lightroom 6 worth the Mac OS upgrade?

<p>Hello everyone,<br>

I am running an iMac with the Mavericks OS. My photo editing software is LR5. This setup is doing all I need so I really have no complaints.</p>

<p>Recently I started wondering if maybe I shouldn't upgrade to LR6 before Adobe makes it part of the CC and I'm forced to pay $9.99 forever to use the software. When I went to see if the software worked with Mavericks, I found out no. I'd have to upgrade to the latest Mac OS.</p>

<p>See. Here's thing. I like Mavericks. It is stable. Does all I need it to do. And I absolutely <em>hate</em> being forced updates by Apple yearly. Before you know it your system is running at a crawl not because it is really that old and slow, but b/c Apple has pushed out OS updates that your system can't handle. Anyway...</p>

<p>My question really is this: Is LR 6 worth the hassle of upgrading my Mac OS? Or is this a case of "If it ain't broke, don't mess with it?".</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

Jack... I'm running non-CC LR 6.7 on my 5K iMac with macOS Sierra and have no issues. For me it wasn't a hassle

upgrading macOS.

<p>I'm running non-CC LR 6.8 on a 2008 iMac with El Capitan OS and it's working just fine. I had to add RAM to upgrade to El Cap (and can't go to Sierra), but once I did that the upgrade was easy, and I've had no stability problems with El Cap. </p>

<p> I have LR5 but the catalog thing is a pain. However I can work with it but I do not want another program. I am sure the LR5 is my last adobe product. I shoot B/W film so my editing is really very basic. Maybe about 1 minute or less and it's off to the printer and the job is done.</p>

<p>$10 a month for Lightroom isn't really the whole truth. For that, you get Photoshop, too. I do nearly all my processing in Lightroom, but, when I do go into Photoshop, what I'm doing there is very critical. It's as important to have the best software tools as it is to have the best camera and lenses. I acknowledge that "best" is a matter of opinion; for my purposes, my opinion is the only one that matters.</p>

<p>Anyway, if, for you, LR5 is "best", then you should stay with what you have.</p>

<p>Not that this applies to you -- I don't know anything about your equipment -- but I know lots of people who spend thousands on cameras and lenses, but would never pay $120/year for software. Seems silly to me.</p>

<p>>>> It's as important to have the best software tools as it is to have the best camera and lenses.</p>

<p>I disagree. Speaking for myself, having <em>the best</em> camera, lenses, or software tools has never been particularly important to my photography. I have an adequate camera (mostly my phone), and LR works just fine.</p>

<p>Lightroom is a product I use every day. Lenses don't degrade over (reasonable) time, but operating systems and expectations from software continually improve. I have two subscriptions for Creative Cloud - complete for my desktops, and PS/LR only for my laptops. The latter is worth every nickel, and $10/month is less than I would pay for sesquiannual upgrades. Adobe has dropped or will shortly drop further support for CS6 software. It's time to move on.</p>

<p>If nobody noticed, there were a lot of compatibility issues between Adobe and Sierra. These are mostly resolved now. Those with older OS systems and versions of CS/CC are left in the cold on two fronts.</p>

<p>I have Elements 10 and LR5 and use them both. If I had to choose only one program I would go with Elements 10 as the dust tool is better, the crop tool is better and you do not have to use catalogs at all. . The LR5 basic panel has a couple things about that I like.<br>

However the bottom line is I have purchased my last editing tool. I doubt I will need another used camera or lens in my life. I did just buy a new printer which is very nice. I bought the Canon IP8720. My Artisan 50 started printing purple highlights and so I canned it. It worked fine for quite a long time however. The Canon has that grey cartridge and it prints dead on to my monitor so I am excited about that. </p>

<p>Anyway I plan on spending up to $300.00 on film, chemicals this year. </p>

<p>@Brad: I think you are agreeing with my point. I said that having the best equipment and software was equally important, and that seems to be exactly what you said. (I'm taking "adequate" and "just fine" as more or less the same degree of "best".)</p>