Thanks for all the thought provoking posts! It feels to me like a new step is required to protect the images, and the problems here is the format of the "language" in which the picture is held. As pointed out if you import in the Nikon or Canon file language, there is no law that a program will support it in the future. Given some images are now 20 years old, is there are chance of files being unreadable, without the original camera program. The Adobe DSG file (I think I have that right??) was to be the "universal" file format, but was that just a product of their own invention. Because of the rate of progress nothing is universal, and rather programmes like LR of CC need to have either legacy features to future proof files, or transcription programmes to make sure the files not corrupted and current. More over, if the file is "universal" any program should be free to read it. Otherwise it is blackmail. I am swerving back to buying LR alone as an upgrade for now and not worrying to much about CC as I would rarely use it.