Hello, I have sold my 5th body part and bought a new computer and installed Lightroom. The worrying part is where do the photos go to?

Using Luminar, Corel etc. the photos are not stored in the cloud.
Does lightroom require the photos to be stored in the cloud in order to process? I currently use the file system and an external hard drive for back up.

I am not fond of this compulsory online storage world. “One drive” is very upset that I don’t start it at all. The idea of the “kind” mega companies holding my info does not interest me at all.

The question for me is - I drop the program are my files or photos no longer available?
Are we forced to pay for more space when our computers have unused space?

Thanks for your help, kind regards Journeyman