Adobe nightmare

Adobe products have always run just fine since we started using them at Photoshop 6.

When we did have one problem, contacting Adobe got someone sensible on the phone who talked me through how to fix it.

As with any market leader there will be detractors, but at the end of the day it is the industry standard for good reason.

That it was full of viruses. If that was the case Defender etc would pick up on it, and Adobe would be dead in the water.

My recently purchased mac was flagging up an update to High Sierra software, which like an idiot I clicked. Next day the software I use for work, AutoCad, wouldn’t run - panic mode! The repair patch on the website would’t open either. Two issues, large tech companies like Apple, Autodesk etc conceal their contact numbers so it took an age to actually find a way to speak to someone, and as I had bought directly from the manufacturer in the US I had no licence number to apply on their website.. Problem apparently is the new Apple software (and I bought my computer only three months ago) uses a different format for writing certain files.

Anyhow, Lightroom fortunately ran ok but the lesson here is if you get a similar major update message to wait and check very carefully first.

Well my problem seems fixed. I no longer get Adobe CC trying to "repair" itself each time I start my computer. The fix was to do a clean install and importantly "install as administrator". This is on Windows 7 (still !)

If anyone else is going to move from Elements to Lightroom Classic CC I suggest you do the same.

Thing is I have used Elements for over 10 years, so all my photographs are catalogued in Collections, and many have keyword tags attached to them too. This makes finding and viewing pictures very easy. Lightroom carries over the same system so it makes no sense for me to switch to a different system.

Fingers crossed things running smoothly and I never let the truth ruin a good story. Played with various versions of photoshop, can't get used to LR as it downloads whatever I was working on when etc. I know I should get organised with LR but it's just too easy to buy another big usb drive and store images on there

Well i store all my photos the same way Stan, on a seperate hard disc. I dont use any of the cloud facilities.

I don't think you are alone there. Saying that though what is the PPG or any sort of web site. I think I have a few images scattered about in various places. Wouldn't know if any have been "stolen"

That thread (from 2009!) is about Adobe Acrobat and outside of long loading times doesn't really explain anything. I'm still not sure what bloatware we are referring to

Surely on PPG you're presenting you images to a wider audience, like the PU gallery here. Neither are places to store or backup your images to, you'll keep your masters safe and sound on a separate drive. However some use the cloud for off site storage as an insurance policy should something happen to your home storage. Normally only you would have access to that cloud storage.

Well anything witth Adobe in the label! Install an Adobe product and get McAffee's Virus Scan and/or Chrome browser etc. etc. whether or not you want them unless you think to do a custom install.
Also PCs from a decade ago had less memory/storage so struggled with the bulk of their products taking over the computer. What others did in 100mb Adobe took 500.
Just try uninstalling Adobe products. It's virtually impossible; their uninstallers leave tasks running in the background even though the program has theoretically been removed. Guess you haven 't experienced it yet.

You sound very anti Adobe John yet millions of people use the software. I gree with the way they put unwanted stuff in the installers, I've been caught out with that myself, but usually read the notices that come with the software. You have reminded me of my first "real" computer. A Victor 286 with 640k ram. I was able to buy a used hard drive for it, an MFM 10Mb and thought Wow I'll never use all the. Didn't have a mouse, needed a chip to go on the motherboard, but it was great fun playing Solitaire on a green screen using the cursor keys, If I'm honest computing was a lot more fun in those days.

I can never remember adobe trying to push macafee or chrome onto me and ive been using photoshop since version 4.

Some users are so paranoid when it comes to computing...

I also dislike the fact that one has to untick the "extras" that the installers want to "gift" to you, but Adobe are not alone in this.

I have used Elements for years without issue, and this was the first time I had a problem when I needed to uninstall/reinstall an Adobe product. All sorted now happily.

I know many do not like the subscription model that Adobe use, but again they are not alone in this. Personally I think £10per month for LR and Photoshop together is reasonable.

FWIW, I lost LR 5 in a recent meltdown, but got it back this morning after a lot of searching and work on the Adobe website - maybe some day I'll actually get around to using it

In fairness perhaps I should say I do have Elements 11 installed and find several of its features useful. Its Panorama editor works very well joining multiple exposures seamlessly (better than anything else I've tried.) It's Magic Extractor is good for cutting sections to create layers for graduating or replacing skies. However its raw converter never comes up with an ideally balanced image, sometimes they are way off with the camera default being far superior (other RAW converters seem to be better.) It's also a nuisance that it only allows working in 8 bit for some of its features. I tried the giveaway old version of the full Photoshop but didn't feel I required many of its extra features and it was taking up far too much valuable space on my SSD so it didn't stay long.
My current favourite alternative is EasyHDR3 which does more than just HDR conversions. Once an image is loaded it suggests its ideal representation of the photo along with a number of alternatives. I usually agree with its default. It's similar to Photomatix but the images aren't as extreme and offers more processing options. Very reasonably priced too.
As to Lightroom, I've tried that too but cannot get along with its image importing system. Once its imported a photo it doesn't seem to like opening it again. And I don't want to 'load' all the images in a folder, I just want to open the image I wish to work with. I found it a very frustrating method of working. Certainly not worth 10p a month to me, let alone £10 ! I wouldn't even let them pay me £10 a month to have it installed.
Then there's all that 'phoning home' it does all the time. No thanks.