I shifted to Photomator and PixelMator Pro. Lifetime license. Will be trying AffinityPhoto next. Decided to simplify my life and go back to basic photo folder management rather than catalogs. I use a separate app to rename files based on exif info upon import. Does mean sidecar files are generated when editing but I can live with that. Had enough of Adobe. Nice to just edit photos and not be locked out of my edits if I don’t sign in, aka Adobe.
Discussion
Yeah. This has always killed me. It’s been a long time since I’ve done much photography tho so I just tried to ignore it. Going to have to bite the bullet soon though I think.
Varies from photographer to photographer I guess. I know some who just edit in the software that comes with their camera. Others do very little to their photos - maybe just a few edits in ACDSee, Gimp, et al and then save in local folders. Plus others who still shoot film and scan their images into folders. Then those who’ve turned their back on dedicated cameras and solely use their cameraphones, cloud storage and the phone’s ML/automated archiving, dating, location etc. I had been using Lightroom extensively for 15 years but not only did it get slower, as you say; it also went full creative cloud and subscription and that’s when the hatred started. Then changes to user agreements and privacy were the last straw. Good luck with the bullet biting and hope you find something that suits you. BTW your computer will likely feel faster when all traces of Adobe are removed. (I went extreme and wiped my MacBook to start afresh - Adobe has a tendency to spread installation/operation files all over the place).