Answering Your Questions on Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC and More

402 thoughts on “Answering Your Questions on Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC and More”

1. When will support from Lightroom 6 end?

2. I have the all-apps Creative Cloud plan that only comes with 100GB of space. I contacted your customer service via chat and Twitter, and both told me that upgrading my storage was impossible.

   Either this post is incorrect, and that I can’t get $10/TB/month OR your customer support lied and told me I can’t increase my storage when I can.

   See here for more info:
   https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2396725

3. Any chance you could add batch HDR for processing real estate photos? Speed is slow doing one by one.

4. I take the full Creative Cloud subscription – will I get both versions of Lightroom included with my subscription?

5. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to regarding the Standalone version. I don’t like subscription based software. And it is because of this that I am phasing out my usage of LR. You guys don’t make enough improvements to LR to warrant a “subscription based” software.

6. Here in Europe most customers are completely fed up of Adobe’s pricing policy. The cost of CC in Europe does not reflect the exchange rate and we are tired of subsidising US customers. It is just taking the pi$$.

   When will Adobe take an honest approach to its pricing?

7. I prefer to use my own cloud (NAS). I have one with 8TB and very fast. Can I use Lightroom CC with my own private cloud?

   1. Well, yes and no 🙂 You CAN choose to also store all photos locally, and can specify the location for LRCC to store those files.

      However, all of your images will STILL get uploaded to the cloud, too.

8. WE have not signaled that we WANT CC apps. You forced our hands by not updating the base Lightroom program. The only reason I have CC is because my work pays for it. Otherwise, I would never be using it.

9. Given how many people I’ve spoken to on Twitter dislike being forced to upload their images to the cloud, could you please answer these two questions:

   (1) Does Adobe use some form of encryption to ensure that data is not intercepted by third parties when synchronizing between devices and the cloud? If not, how can you guarantee that the data is being “safely” backed up?

   (2) Will Adobe be conducting any kind of data mining on content that is uploaded to the cloud, either on an individual user or aggregate level? Will such data be shared with ANY third parties, including private or government organizations?

   (3) Is Adobe committing to supporting Lightroom Classic for as long as Lightroom CC (or a successive, like product) is sold and supported, or are you only saying you will support it for the near future (i.e., until resistance to the idea tapers off)?

10. I’m not sure I understand this. When I import images into Lightroom CC are they not stored locally on my Hard drives? How does back up work? Can I still import images the I have no internet connection?

    1. It’s up to you. If you go to LR CC settings, you’ll find an option “Store copy of ALL originals locally.” That way everything is available on your computer and through the cloud. Alternatively, you can use “storage strategy” and assign % of your hard drive for local cache. That way your local library will not take over your hard drive while still providing local access to most used/recent files.

    2. I’ve been playing around with it quite a bit. The images are still stored locally AND are uploaded to the cloud. You can configure where Lightroom CC stores the images locally by going to Settings->Local Storage. I’m still unclear on what happens if you fill up your cloud storage and try to import though. I’m not sure if you can still import locally or not…

    3. Yes, you can choose to keep a copy stored on your hard drive as well as in the cloud – there’s a simple checkbox in preferences to do so. You can then back up that local copy to as many different hard drives as you like, using your own backup software.

       1. Sounds like a new book will be in the pipeline Victoria.

       2. Victoria, do you know how Adobe is going to handle the licensing for schools with computer labs? I’ve decided to stay with the poorly-named Classic since I’m not a fan of storing photos in cloud-based system.

       3. Hi Victoria
          So I won’t be able to get Lightroom to import images to 2 external hard drives? Can I choose not to send images to the cloud when importing?
          I have 20GB / month data package with 10mbps download speed and 1 mbps upload I can’t see the cloud working for me as surely my 20GB will get used up very quickly and will make lightroom very slow at those speeds?

          1. You can’t import images to 2 external drives with LR CC, Natalie. You also can’t choose to NOT send images to the cloud – everything you import will be synced to the cloud.
             The 20 GB storage option is intended to allow you to try out LR CC – it will be inadequate for most people’s full libraries. Regarding your internet speed, you just won’t have full backups in the cloud and won’t have access to the the Adobe Sensei “Search” function or reverse geocoding until the sync is complete. Otherwise LR CC won’t be slowed down by the slow upwards sync.

       4. I do not want to store anything in Adobe”s cloud. The User Agreement is so vague that I do not believe my copyright are not being waived in some nefarious fashion.

          That being said, is there an option to not upload, export, of copy anything files to the cloud? If thee is not, then I will never upgrade. Period.

          1. David, at this point you can simply pause sync to prevent it uploading. Kind of defeats the opject, so you might be better sticking with Classic for now.

          2. David, Tom answered that above, when he said “For this 1.0 release, everything imported is intended to upload to Creative Cloud. We clearly understand that there are situations where a customer would not want all of their images uploaded to Creative Cloud so let’s talk about those situations and how we can address them. In the case where a customer doesn’t want any images in the Creative Cloud, Lightroom Classic is and will continue to be an excellent workflow choice.”

       5. Hi Natalie. At the moment, the new Lightroom CC app is 100% cloud. That may change in the future, but right now, Classic is the right tool for you, based on your internet connection.

11. Having like 3 people outside of Adobe comb over this PR disaster before it happened could have alleviated some confusion here.

    Things that stand out: Naming it Lightroom Classic inherently gives you the idea it’s on its way out. This was a terrible choice unless that’s actually your plan.

    Additionally, it was nearly impossible to find what additional storage past 1TB would cost, and now that I have found out, it’s hilarious. So I either use a product you sound like you’re going to deprecate to store all of my photos, or I pay $1200 a year to store them on your servers.

    Additionally, your constant specification of “Full Resolution” sounds shady as I’m unsure if that means you’re storing all the Raw data or not. Sounds like a classic PR trick.

    Anyways I’m going to be checking out some alternatives to your product barring some serious changes.

12. So just put it out there already. Will classic have all the same features as the new cc or will it be a lower version with less features?

    Plain english, is the only difference upload to cloud?

13. So what happens to people who have stand-alone Lightroom and do not require or want Lightroom CC? I have no use for Photoshop and do not need cloud storage. I am guessing I will have to use some other photo editing software other than Adobe that does not force one to pay monthly.

14. I think you are mistaken about the lightroom 6. People don’t want to keep paying more for your product. This leaves us to find another format.

15. I want a stand alone product . A disc with the software on only licensed to only one or two laptops /desktops if need be . With a one off single fee .i have no need or wish to upload all raw files to the cloud . With slow/ averge bandwidth .why would i ? I will not ever subscribe to an open ended for ever contract on a piece of photo batch editing software . What was the last year and which version Your product of LR allowed me to do this . ?

16. I still think the use of “Classic” is unfortunate. Classic denotes something old, venerated but old. To give the Desktop version this name whilst, at the same time introducing a new product with the old product’s name strongly indicates that the new product is a REPLACEMENT and not an ADDITIONAL product.
    It would have been cleaner, clearer and altogether more reassuring to have “Classic” called “Lightroom Professional” or “Lightroom Pro” with the new product taking a different Lightroom nomenclature.
    I am slightly more reassured now than when I first saw the update but I still think the name choice is a bad one.

    1. I liked that idea a lot. “Lightroom Pro” or “Lightroom Studio” for the desktop app and Lightroom (Creative) Cloud for the new app. “Classic” implies legacy software.

    2. Agree. Or just call it Lightroom Desk and call the new one Lightroom Cloud

    3. I’m with you. I’m also very disappointed that user who want to opt out of cloud storage can only use the “classic” version. I was very disappointed to hear that.

    4. I agree with this completely. The use of Classic in the name is extremely unfortunate. One of the strengths of Lightroom is its great community support and I don’t see how that continues when it is marketed as a legacy product.

    5. I am slightly reassured, but I also know that product names are a reflection of corporate culture. The choice of names says a lot about where Adobe sees market going.

    6. dear, Adobe wants more money… Classic only allows them to squeeze (you are captive subscriber paying monthly, year after year) u for software subscription… while they want both for software and for data and hopefully the more data you have in their cloud the more captive you are… that simple… so why’d they try to make less profitable thing to look more attractive ?

    7. Well said Paul .. my sentiments exactly. I can’t help but feel that Classic may very well go the way of Standalone and that the promises Adobe make now aren’t something I can really rely on longer term. Not because they are a bad company or people, they just seem a bit random these days in terms of their own plans. Rushing to meet some goals that they don’t convey well to us at all (IMHO) but leaving glaring bugs in Photoshop for many release phases. Breaking LAB workflow by disabling Color Balance Adjustment or the 5th plugin not working in the Filter menu, just two examples.

       I moved to Sketch away from Illustator, and the remainder of CC I have replaced with other things. Replacing Lightroom and PS is rather harder, they really are great pieces of software. I am not a fan of Adobe thinking nowadays unfortunately and certainly wouldn’t dream of entrusting my images and work to software maintained only by them.

       Which ironically is the argument their sales/marketing use for people not using Sketch and other alternatives to their product – you can’t trust or rely on a small company. Sadly you also can’t very well rely on such random large company either imho.

       1. Sorry for the duplicate posting …

          1. Dear moderator please feel free to delete ALL my comments posted today as ‘Darren’ and ‘Pendulum’. Thanks.

    8. Well said Paul .. my sentiments exactly. I can’t help but feel that Classic may very well go the way of Standalone and that the promises Adobe make now aren’t something I would like toy rely on longer term. Not because they are a bad company or people, they just seem a bit random these days in terms of their plans/actions. They always seem to be rushing to meet some goals, that they don’t convey well to us at all (IMHO), but leaving glaring bugs in the software for many release phases. Breaking LAB workflow by disabling Color Balance Adjustment or the 5th plugin not working in the Filter menu, just two examples in PS.

       I moved to Sketch away from Illustator, and the remainder of CC I have replaced with other things. Replacing Lightroom and PS is rather harder, they really are great pieces of software (thanks!). However I am not a fan of Adobe themselves as a consistent and reliable provider of software and services. I really wouldn’t feel comfortable having all my images primarily held on an infrastructure maintained by Adobe – they’re just making too many bizarre technical and business decisions.

       I would rather rely on a small company like Bohemian Software to deliver something like Sketch reliably and consistently, without bizarre changes in the roadmap, than deal with Adobe. Which is ironic because Adobe have posited themselves as the safe pair of hands. I think Sketch will still be here when Adobe XD has gone the way of the Edge product line, Carousel, Revel, Lightroom desktop etc. etc.

       What ever happened to that simplified Import dialog ?

       1. “I think Sketch will still be here when Adobe XD has gone the way of the Edge product line, Carousel, Revel, Lightroom desktop etc. etc.”

          Oh I neglected to mention Fireworks that I was using before Illustrator, before moving over to Sketch … Fireworks was abandoned. The roadmap is just too erratic and this new confusion with Lightroom is likely another case of Adobe’s very hard to follow and buy into direction of the last few years. IMHO ! 🙂

    9. I agree. The “classic” moniker was a poor choice. Lightroom Pro would have been a better choice. People have invested in presets and massive storage systems. Also, I’m not willing to pay for 3TB of cloud storage – not to mention the length it would take to upload and that Comcast would charge me a ton since they now have data usage caps.

       1. Excellent,

       2. Oh don’t’ worry I’m sure there will be a Lr CC Pro soon enough and it will all make sense. It will likely have Lr Classic’s features and Lr CCs UI style and cloud features for an extra charge per month. It will replace Lr Classic which no mater what is written here is clearly an EOL product. As already pointed out Lr CC took Lr Classic’s name and “Classic” is just a fancy way to say previous generation legacy product. Plus look at Adobe’s site. They are not pushing Lr Classic at all. All of the marketing push is for Lr CC now as if Lr Classic is already gone. The writing is on the wall for Lr Classic the same way ti was for perpetual licenses when the subscription price model was first introduced. Anyone with sense knew Lr 6 was the last Lr that was going to have a perpetual license just as now anyone with sense knows the next major Lr release will in all likelihood replace Lr Classic with something else. Its’ the only thing that logically explains such poor naming of Lr Classic and the entire confusing dual Lr mess they made. I mean Adobe would not need a blog post tp assure people Lr Classic is not EOL if it was just called Lr Desktop, Lr pro, ect or If new Lr CC had a new name and Lr Classic kept the CC name. Adobe’s choice of names was intentional and sends a very clear message about the future direction of Lr.

    10. Also agree “Classic” is poor choice of branding, signaling old, non-updated software. I am afraid Adobe might have to spend lots of PR and marketing time, diverting from this fact.
        Better choices:?
        “Lightroom Desktop”, “Lightroom Pro”, “Lightroom” (yes only Lightroom as compared to Lightroom CC)

    11. I agree that the word “Classic” is unfortunate, more than unfortunate, it’s foreboding. It’s telling me that first my Lightroom becomes “Classic”, then it becomes “Extinct.”

        I don’t like to be cynical, but I have heard too many reassurances in the past that certain software will always be supported, only to find that it’s been “extincted.”

        I hope that Adobe does not do this to us.

    12. Yes, there are way too many Classic products that get very soon phased out. Look at Volvo for example, all models get branded “classic” when they are end of life. And then they, as I suspect is going to happen now with Lightroom, get phased out.

        As a long time user, I am not happy about the change. Of course, we can wait and hope to see that the CC will provide more options for storage (not just Adobe’s expensive cloud) and features keep at par. But I suspect that is going to be long journey.

    13. Fully agree!!!!
        Lightroom Pro and Lightroom Online would of been better naming seeing Adobe already used CC for the other versions it’s really silly to snatch a name for a new different product, way to confuse everyone !

    14. Yes, classic denotes “on it’s way out… only backward people are using this now” – not a nice feeling.

17. No StandAlone version… it’s time to find another software

18. Disappointed no standalone version of Lr7
    Disappointed Adobe has increased the price structure.
    Cancelled my CC subscription
    Bought a perpetual licence for Lr6; hopefully by Lr8 Adobe will see the error of it’s ways.

19. Paul, or even Lightroom desktop.
    Or, heaven forbid, just “Lightroom”, then have Lightroom CC as the cloud version.
    We’re mostly intelligent, we’d work out the difference.

20. You say – customers are overwhelmingly choosing creative cloud? I don’t think you are giving them much choice by telling everyone that they can’t have a CD based option. By doing this your profits have gone up which is good for you, but you have now become money driven rather than ‘listening’ to your customers.
    A CD of the software costs less than £100 to buy outright and you sell your clod based version for £9.99 amonth, so you’re already £20 up per customer, then you sell then clod base storage from £9.99 a month., so that’s £240 a year you are better off, it’s not like you are investing this extra money in Lr. Give the customers what they want, a program that works and a program they can use when they want and without internet connection.

21. Totally agree with previous comments. Also please understand that we don’t all have blisteringly fast, unlimited internet connections, even in our homes and offices, let alone when out in the field.

22. I have LR CC on my laptop and Classic on my desktop. Will I be able to process on laptop and transfer to my desktop?

23. I was about to purchase LR6 (I don’t want CC or reoccuring bills or continuous updates).

    Does Lightroom Classic replace LR6? i.e is it in effect LR7?

    Or should I just drop back to buying LR6?

24. “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”

    Can you share some evidence of this? I’ve seem many, many comments on FB and elsewhere that people want a standalone one payment desktop app and nothing to do with Abobe CC.

    1. If I had to guess that overwhelming majority are probably casual/mobile phone users, not people shooting TB of photos with higher-end cameras and higher-end needs. I don’t think Adobe really needs to care about a minority if it can make enough profit from the majority and any PR problems will blow over in a year or so. It’s quite a betrayal based on their previous reassurance and it for sure lowers my trust in them, which was already getting low, but, what’s their negative feedback for it? Some comments on a web page? Who cares. They need to lose a lot of money over it for a standalone, no forced-cloud subscription version to come back, which is unlikely to happen, given that profitable ‘overwhelming majority’ and the probably highly profitable vampiric subscription model.

25. I am a LR6 stand-alone user, and for the 0.05% of my work that needs some more editing (cloning or adding text), I have a Photoshop Elements which covers everything I need.

    I have used LR since version 1.0, and have been upgrading every release to the next version. Like many, I am disappointed that you won’t be continuing with this option, especially as almost all of the code must be the same for both versions.

    If you did a Lightroom Classic (much prefer the Lightroom Pro name mentioned above) for £5 per month (no on-line storage needed, especially with my slow upload speeds), I think you would win over the thousands of disgruntled LR users who have supported the product over the years and who you are now forcing into a subscription model that they can’t afford or justify.

26. What is the difference between Classic and CC besides the cloud storage ability?
    To use Lightroom CC do I have to store all my photos in the cloud?

27. 1) The choice of the name ‘Classic’ is unfortunate and conveys the wrong message to users (based on the answer above).
    2) Similarly, replacing LR CC with the new programme conveys the wrong message. Both of these were poor decisions, unless the plan is to drop ‘Classic’ in the near term.
    3) Something must be done urgently to give users control over what files LR CC uploads to the cloud. Currently, it looks like a money grab ($50/month to store 5TB in order to use software costing $10/month). There are legal, ethical and other considerations about enforced cloud storage that need to be addressed.

28. The naming issue becomes a problem when people search for tutorials or other collateral needs. None of the old “Lightroom CC” materials will link to new “Classic” nomenclature . This is a rookie marketing mistake.

29. How do I use plugins (like Google Nik) with Lightroom CC?
    How do I upload to Flickr and update Flickr?
    How can I use my other cloud services (like iCloud, DropBox etc)?

30. When Coke came out with New Coke and realized their mistake they brought back real Coke and called Classic Coke. Eventually they just called it Coke once again after New Coke was discontinued because of poor sales.

31. I really like the option to have edits synced over various devices. But the current CC version lacks various features that my workflow depends on. As far as I’ve seen, I can’t work simultaneously on the same catalog in Lightroom CC and Classic. Am I missing something maybe? And is there any chance that features from Classic will move into CC one day?

32. TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.
    Not me. I’ve used LR since 1.0. Looks like 6 will be my last.

33. Bring a plan with lightroom classic CC, lightroom mobile CC and 100 GB sync storage! Me and many enthusiastic photographers would be very happy!

34. As an “All Apps” subscriber ($50/mo) I searched high and low yesterday for how to buy more than 100gb of storage space. Here you say we get up to 10tb for Lightroom CC. Can you provide a link?

35. I would buy a replacement to Lightroom 6. People haven’t bought the non CC platform because you quit updating it. . .

36. “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”

    I’m pretty sure of two things.
    1. You wouldn’t be releasing a special statement regarding the “confusion” around the new LR release if you had listened to your customers.
    2. I have no issues with paying for a subscription to LR as a service. However, your team needs to anticipate and create new tools and functionalities/improvements. Otherwise the subscription model doesn’t make sense on behalf of the user.

37. I’m still confused. Is there still a LR standalone download for photography enthusiasts, or have you done what you said you’d never do when CC was implemented? Your naming conventions are utterly no help.

38. I think you’re ignoring a huge population of photographers who do still want the standalone version of LR. I dislike the CC version for several reasons, 1. it’s slow & I don’t trust it (my father uses it; I use an older version on my computer); 2. I want to own the software I use. I’m more than happy to pay to own something; I don’t like the idea of paying to rent software that I need and use. I think both versions should still be offered. I don’t like the idea of being bullied into using CC either, if for some reason the standalone version stops working.

39. I find it very difficult to believe most people want cc.
    It’s far too difficult to actually download and pay for a standalone license. I think there is a large element of a self fulfilling prophecy here.
    I don’t trust this! Do your customers own nothing?

40. “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way…” For professional user this might be the preferred way, but in my opinion Adobe ignores the needs of thousands hobby photographers like me who used LR6 or previous versions. I don’t see any advantage in paying a monthly fee when I use LR only a few times a year like for pictures of special occasions or travel photography.

    1. Agreed. Photography is a great hobby, but sometimes I don’t use Lightroom for months. I purchased version 4 and upgraded to 5 and then 6. Would love to see an upgrade option to 7…

       … I’m definately not willing to pay 12 or 24 euros per month when I’m not even using it all the time. Perhaps a cheaper, offline (don’t need cloud storage) option?

       @Adobe: now what?

41. Will there be an ability to add camera profiles to Lightroom CC?

42. Will Lightroom CC be available with the full Adobe CC subscription?
    Currently it is only allowing the trial?

43. If you subscribe to the full Creative Suite do you get more then 20 gig of drive space now

44. Tom, thanks for the opportunity to ask questions, here’s a few I have on stopping the LR standalone version:
    – why did you make it so hard to find the perpetual licence version on your website, do you think that might have anything to do with the lower demand?
    – why did you promise a few years ago upgrades could be licenced under the perpetual model as long as you were product manager?
    – why do you think not a lot of people bought the LR6 version recently, do you think it might have anything to do with the fact the product is 2 1/2 years old?
    – don’t you think a lot of people would buy your new LR7 with a perpetual licence today if it were available?

    Thanks for taking the time to provide some insights on these questions

45. This is certainly creating confusion. Is there no integration between Classic and CC? When I import tomorrow’s set of images, after having a hundred thousand images already in Lightroom, what happens if I choose CC instead of Classic? Will the images I import using CC ALSO show up in my offline Classic catalog? If not, then what is my incentive to use CC, except in ways that we might already have used Lightroom Mobile?

    I agree that the name choices are unfortunate.

46. 9.99 per TB seems a lot to me, smugmug offers unlimited uploads for 50 dollars per year. I thin I’ll stick to LR classic and back up to the cloud via other parties.

47. Just about died when I saw the new Lightroom and the resulting loss of all of the NIK plug-ins which I use faithfully. I resurrected when I opened Lightroom Classic (which I find is a silly name as well..Lightroom Pro would be my choice).

48. Can I still use Lightroom Classic CC to upload to the cloud like I used to do creating a collection folder? So far what I have online is what I have uploaded in the past. My workflow consisted in uploading specific shoots so I can have the photos in Lightroom Mobile. How this will affect my current workflow?

49. Any possibility Adobe would increase the permitted number of Lightroom desktop (“Classic”) activations for those of us who have purchased both CC and standalone LR 6 licenses? I realize you can deactivate the product on one machine and activate it on another (e.g., when traveling), but that’s a nuisance and assumes that both the source and target machines have a satisfactory Internet connection.

    Failing that, would it be feasible to develop a module for LR 6 prior to its end-of-support date that would allow it to read and write Version 4 catalogs?

50. One thing is still not clear for me is what if I want to choose 1 TB plan and want to clear out old photos stored on cloud use free space to use new photos. Is that even an option ? Or I just keep adding photos and keep buying more space ?

51. i dont believe a single word you say.

    you said 2 years ago there will always be a standalone version of lightroom.

    once a liar alwys a liar…

52. first you cripple LR 6 features compared to LR CC thae you say nobody bought LR 6.

    you think we are stupid ?

53. G’day Tom, I am flabbergasted the company is making it sound like that this rental system is your customers preferred way. The vast majority of Adobe users I know hate it with a vengeance, but have decided reluctantly to accept it.
    Adobe completely ignored the firestorm (2011/12) of protest that raged around the web after they announced customers would have choice between cs and cc when cc was introduced, only to get rid of cs 6 months later.
    I am deeply suspicious about this split up. Of course it will be in Adobes financial interest to steer as many customers to the new cc version. Most photographers have anywhere between 5 and 10 Tb of images stored on their hard drives. They now will have to pay between 600 and 1200 bucks a year to have it on the cloud, just for the convenience to be able to access it on any device they maybe on at any given time. You have to be joking.

54. Hi Tom,
    you do understand that dropping the standalone version leaves many loyal customers very frustrated, do you? This is not quite what the community understood when Adobe confirmed a while ago that “Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely”. It makes you think how long the statement “we remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future” will hold.
    There is no debate that subscription-based licensing is the future. I work for a software company and understand the economics, as well as the (potential) benefits for customers. And, just for the record, at the moment I am a happy photography plan customer. The concern is about choice vs. lock-in. While the product is still the same (pun intended – there hasn’t been a lot of innovation to Lightroom over the last 2 years…) I am less happy today than I was yesterday. Because you have taken away choice. What if I can’t afford anymore the yearly fee once retired? I wouldn’t buy a new camera anymore, and LR would be just fine the way the way it is. I would still want to play around with my archive and, more importantly, with the database that I built over the last 20 years (adjustments, flagging, collections etc.). What if Adobe will start increasing the prices year over year, knowing that customers don’t have the “perpetual backdoor” anymore? It makes you think – do I take the red pill and hope for the best in the years to come? Or do I take the blue pill and consider moving on? Not that I want to (remember – happy customer?), but it would still be easier now than being forced to move on in a few years. There are more and more companies listening to their customers, who just don’t like to be put in a corner.

55. I thought LR CC Classic was the new LR version going forward but the 2nd question asks if LR Classic is being phased out? Or is that a different Classic? Maybe I’m being thick but if it isn’t the new version then why did downloading LR Classic delete LR CC from my apps.

56. > TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.

    orwellian doublespeak – the code is still on your computer… you simply prefer to get the money every month, instead of letting the same code to be purchased for use like it used to be…

    1. Agree, and the “standalone” licence was so damn hard to find on the website that it doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t sell well. I mentioned this every time Adobe asked me for customer feedback, but nothing was ever done with it.

    2. User preference? What? Standalone version was without any advertise from Adobe and on Adobe pages wasnt easy to find and buy standalone version.

    3. I couldn’t agree more. Adobe made it nearly impossible to order Lightroom 6, every attempt ended up on the CC edition. After succeeding, it still took a few hours to locate the download.
       And still you end up with a lot a ‘cloud’ stuff I don’t need or want…

    4. Yeah – this is the corporate equivalent of “jumping the shark”.

    5. Yes, 😀 chicken – egg issue:
       Supported that massive amount of the Adobe Communication, marketing “forces” you to go for the subscription method 😀 if you want standalone, it is somewhere at the bottom in small print 😀

    6. Absolutely!! I am keeping LR6 standalone. That’s what I am ” overwhelming choosing. ”

    7. Lightroom 6 will be my last purchase of Lightroom. I am NOT one of those customers that “are overwhelming choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan.” I do NOT want to be forced into a monthly plan. I have been a loyal customer and user of Lightroom since it was first released. So Adobe, if you want my business again, provide a stand-alone version. Otherwise, I will be taking my business elsewhere.

57. I have a creative cloud subscription for L/R classic and Photoshop, I downloaded the new products from the email but they tell me they are on a 7 day trial. As the down load deleted LR Classic and Photoshop how do I get them back if I don’t want the cloud based versions?

58. Over the last number of years Adobe successfully was hiding stand alone versions (on the website) of lightroom pushing customer to web based option. Are you intending to have similar strategy for classic?
    Is lightroom Classic going to see some features removed to make CC more attractive and have more people tied into your ecosystem? Please make it clear for customers so they can make an educated decision

59. So what about those of us living in countries which, according to Adobe, simply do not exist? Are we expected to resort to subterfuge, pretending to live in the U.S. rather than, say, Iceland? I’d have switched to CC long ago if not for this strange policy ….

60. I would love to edit my photos on both my Windows or my Mac or iPad or iPhone and have them avaliable on all platforms. However, I do not want to upload all my photos and risking Adobe holding them hostage to make me pay until I die.

    I could accept to have the latest 12 month of photos on the cloud but sync perodically with my NAS so I can keep
    control over my files myself. I could also accept having Lightroom access my files stored in Azure, AWS, Dropbox or whatever third part place, where I still have file control myself and could choose to change storage provider. Uploading all my photos and not being able to retreive them as files again without needing to use Adobe software is just to risky and screems NO.

    I need the possibility to change software provider and abandon Adobe if they don’t meet my expectations or get to expensive.

61. Agree, Lightroom pro would be more appropriate then Lightroom classic. Maybe change the name again while you still can?
    And also agree on ‘We clearly understand that there are situations where a customer would not want all of their images uploaded to Creative Cloud’. I won’t use this now at this price point. My suggestion, photos 1 year are synced to [insert local file share].

62. I don’t believe for one second that is not a market still for the standalone Lightroom product. Forcing us to use CC as the only way to get new features and the latest ACR is just going to open the door for other developers and loose Adobe more customers. Already there are thousands that have moved to the likes of Affinity , how many more do they want to lose?

63. I am in agreement with Paul Parkinson above. I too think that it makes little sense to rename the old product, while handing off the old product’s name to the new product. Making this worse is the the choice of the word “Classic”, which begins and ends with the letters “C” and “C”, respectively. Reading “CC” may seem like an abbreviation of “Classic”. The nomenclature chosen to differentiate the two products, “Classic” and “CC”, instead seems to conflate them. This will create customer confusion moving forward.
    Lightroom “Classic” should keep its original name of “Lightroom”, or perhaps be renamed “Lightroom Pro CC”, similar to what was suggested by Mr. Parkinson earlier. The new product, which Adobe has now reassigned the existing name “Lightroom CC”, should have been given a new name such as “Lightroom Elements CC”, which indicates a product more aimed towards the hobbyist photographer market. Or, perhaps it should be renamed something loftier such as “Lightroom Synergy CC”, which might hint towards the product’s similarity between its desktop and mobile applications, no matter the device.

64. How will these changes help higher ed? I have many students who can only afford usb drives but can’t store files within our educational license. Libraries are not accessible nor is creative cloud. What’s your plans for educational licensing? Curious.

65. I do not chose to want to be told I have to store my photos on the cloud, as I have them safely backed up on multiple hard drives. I especially do not want to grow my monthly cost from $9.99/mo to now what I read as that plus another $9.99 for various TB’s of storage. Why wouldn’t i be able to keep my photos on my hard drive, as I always have? This could be a game changer for me.

66. Tom,

    What would it cost you to keep a perpetual license? Even a ‘dumbed-down’ one?
    What would it cost to have an acceptable exit-strategy (with apps that keep functioning after x years of paying)?
    — Not much me thinks.

    But who am I? Just a little ‘customer’ for 13 years that didn’t ‘signal’ this direction, like many others, who depends on this software for his livelihood, probably earning a tiny percentage of your salary.

    In fact — it’s not the price that appalls me, but the fact that you leave us NO choice than to commit to this cloud-thing… and the fact that you and your company just don’t care about us (and don’t try to convince me it’s otherwise).

    I’m still using my perceptual license for CS6, praying with each OS update that it doesn’t break — and, sadly, there’s been not a single new function or feature in CC since 2013 that makes all this recurring costs seem worthwhile. Au contraire — when I hear the stories of the colleagues who jumped ship it seems that it’s less stable & thrustworthy than ever before…

    All your promises with the introduction of CC in 2011 are slowly turning in to lies…

    Lightroom (which is/was a fantastic piece of software) surely is destined to go down the same road… some great bell & whistles now, but in a few years time?

    This whole story bitterly reminds me of an old saying: “Find the customer, F**k the customer, Forget the customer”.

    Not that all this wil change anything, but now, at least, you can’t ignore the fact that some ‘customers’ are really, very, very disappointed in you…

    Benjamin

67. Still Confused!

68. Confused by the lingo to “try out the new cloud-based Lightroom offering”… Is this a trial run of the new Lightroom CC that’s included with Lightroom Classic & PS or will they eventually make Lightroom CC a separate monthly fee?
    Will Lightroom CC/Classic/PS continue to be $9.99/mo?

69. > TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.

    Read: “We have put guns agains their heads and guess what – they were all so happy to sign up for CC”

    No, Adobe, there are a lot of photographers out there who WANTS to buy a single license – without ANY dependencies of your servers, may it license checks or other “home talking” features. We want to install and work – without thinking of not having a connection or Adobe putting down services

    But what do i write here… Adobe, you showed us, with all power, that you
    a) don’t listen at all
    b) do whatever YOU think you like
    c) going start-up-nuts on cloud… maybe it’s a weed-cloud, don’t know i cannot argue with someone who really tries to tell us, that photographers have waited to upload ALL(!) RAWs in full resolution to a cloud… ALL because only one catalogue … wow… have to talked with professionals lastly? 3 TB is nothing… many have 6+TB RAW files on there local NAS

    again… no one of Adobe cares…

    1. Look at the promo video for the new LR! Adobe sells a feeling not a software. There’s no intention to reach the professional photographer in it whatsoever.
       Calling the desktop version “Classic” is the most honest part in all of this.

       When CC came out Adobe promised to continue LR standalone indefinitely. y\Yesterday they announced the discontinuation of it and promised the continuation of “Classic” (subscription) at the same time! It’s only about gaining subscriptions and gaining revenue through cloud storage sales. It’s neither about software, nor is it about photography.

    2. Congratulation Boris! Your post figures out all points and problems!
       I was using Adobe for so many years now. But enough is enough! I will change my workflow now definitively – but without Adobe products. I WANT to by a single license! And thats it. Cloud solutions might be nice and fine for the masses, but as professional photographer, I WANT to decide what is happen with my photos. And this is a local NAS – without ANY cloud solutions.
       BTW: Adobe, your cloud solutions are TOO expensive, too.

    3. Absolutely true. Tom, don’t offend me by having Adobe force something down my throat and then telling me I must have been happy because I went along with it. If there was a viable alternative, I’d switch in less than a heartbeat.

       1. Hopefully Affinity come out with a lightroom equivalent. I use their Affinity Photo App on both Mac & iPad & love it. I don’t wish to pay a monthly fee for an Adobe suite, when I have perfectly fine stand alone programs.

    4. I agree with you Boris. They forced clients to chose the CC . Always hiding more and more the complete version and now they tell us clients prefer CC.
       HYPOCRISY

       1. Vandenberg, I know what you mean, the Adobe web site made the standalone version of LR almost impossible to find and download. I keep hoping something comes along to replace LR now Aperture has been retired.. still hoping. I like LR a lot, but I’m just not paying a subscription.

70. I use Adobe Capture on my iPhone and then sync those to my Creative Cloud app on my phone making them available in Photoshop CC through my Creative Cloud Library. Is this flow still available to me?

71. I missed the announcement, unfortunately, but I take it from this that LR6 is going to be phased out and we will be forced to deal with subscription services and the cloud?

72. Now that I know this I’ll stick to LR6 as long as possible and will then switch to another product (which then hopefully has a good way to import LR6 data). Forcing users to switch to a subscription users won’t make all of them happy.
    I’d happily pay for a license but I only need one about every 2 years. And I hate to lose my data and edits when I can’t pay for a subscription or it’s discontinued.

73. As a U.K. resident how is that I have to pay the same in sterling as the US dollar figure? Since when was the exchange rate USD1 = GBP1? It makes the Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop plus 1Tb extremely expensive and the domain mainly of professionals.

74. “Classic” as in vinyl records…
    This amateur is disheartened…more by the poor communication (and marketing) than by the new product, as I’m not at all sure which way to go now?!
    Having invested in external hard drives, back up hard drives and LR classes this feels like yet another “challenge” or “dare” to find another product. And for those that travel, the new LR sounds mostly problematic.
    Arrrgh.

75. Can you have more than one catalog? I have many!

76. The new structue and nomenclature is very confusing and also concerning for the serious/professional/prosumer Lightroom users. The impression you have created is that ‘proper’ Lightroom [high volume of desktop managed images] is something akin to a classc car – quaint and geeky, but not the future. If it is your intention to manage down this sizeable user base, please tell us upfront, NOW, or categorically deny it. At the very least you owe it to us to be honest.

77. In LR CC where is Shadow and Highlight clipping?

78. Seriously… not everyone wants to be intimidated by Photoshop. All we want is Lightroom. Give us casual photographers a casual subscription price for purely Lightroom or give us that single license. There is a bunch of us that may only use Lightroom for our occasional holiday shots only.

    1. Fully acknowledge!!!

    2. Agree Gary. Why pay for Photoshop if not using it. I have only had LR 6 perpetual license. Also the naming is confusing. LR Classic CC and LR CC. ??? If LR Classic is the Desktop equivalent, why put CC (Creative Cloud,) at the end of it. Australian monthly subscription will be around $14……and for how long.

    3. Amen!

79. Will LR Classic sync between computers. If I import images to my desktop I want them available on my laptop. When I import on my laptop I want the images available on my desktop. This could be done on a local network or via Adobe servers. I just want my catalogs on my two working computers to sync. This seems to be what the new LR CC promises but why can’t those using LR Classic have the same user experience.

80. For a travelling photographer the Cloud version is a double edged sword. Love the idea of not having to carry around external hard drives with me, but the reality is that I can’t trust the internet speeds at the majority of the places I visit so I will never be able to use a solely based cloud workflow. And $10 a month per extra 1TB is highway robbery- I can buy a 4TB hard drive for ~$100

81. Hey Adobe,

    While I love the idea of editing my images on any device with all my photos in the cloud with your new Lightroom CC application…the workflow of how I can leverage both the Lightroom ecosystem of applications is not clear to me and is very, very confusing. I am a product manager as well and I challenge you to think of my photo editing workflow as a user story: As a photographer, I first import all my images from a given shoot into Lightroom and I then cull and select the picks I want to edit. This is almost always done on a computer. I want to then take only my selects and edit them on any device and then create a final album that I can share. This enables me to only upload select images to the cloud (1TB is too less in terms of space btw and I only get 100GB with the All Apps subscription with no clear way to pay more to push it to 1TB…please fix that) and then edit them on the fly while leveraging the Photoshop app on my iPad. I would love to use some of the AI based search features of the new Lightroom CC app but it has to be available not just on the desktop but on my Classic and Mobile apps as well. In addition, any Develop preset I create on my Lightroom Classic should also be automatically available on my mobile apps as well. This is the use case that most pro photographers are asking you to solve, and with ease. A video walkthrough of how someone can achieve this using your Lightroom ecosystem applications (both desktop and mobile) will be extremely valuable. The story must come together, and unfortunately it is not…hence the confusion from so many photographers. Come on Adobe, I challenge you guys to do better 🙂

82. i love the idea of all my files in the cloud but the storage prices are a joke…..even apple “only” charges 9.99 for 2TB…..it seems like 10TB is a plan most people would need (since it is the only option up from 5TB) and LRCC at this point is uploading ALL files to the cloud….so 109.99/month? really? it should be half of that….

    the other thing is NO CURVES?

    1. Totally agree with you

83. OK, I REALLY don’t know what is going on now:
    1. I have a standalone Lightroom program.
    2. Two months ago I decided to buy the Lightroom/Photoshop CC subscription. (I have been pleased: faster, more features)
    3. I updated Photoshp CC and Lightroom CC from the Creative Cloud yesterday.
    4. My Lightroom CC program is now called “Lightroom Classic CC.”
    5. I am unable to open my Lightroom standlone program (“The application ‘Adobe Lioghtroom’ can’t be opened”). This was my first attempt to open it since I bought CC.
    6. Has Adobe deleted my Lightroom standalone product without notification?

    Finally, a point of ambiguity in your post. I have a product named “Lightroom Classic CC.” Your list above includes only products “Lightroom Classic” and “Lightroom CC.”
    I am truly confused. Please clarify which versions of Lightroom exist (I at least want to know what I own), and lastly, tell me what has happened to my standalone Adobe Lightroom (at this point, I don’t really know what the new name is).

84. 1) If you go with Lightroom CC exclusively all your RAW files are lost after they got uploaded to the cloud. There is currently no way to get the RAW files back – only export in JPEG is supported in LR CC.

    2) Why isn’t there any way in LR CC to use the normal HDD file structure that you set in LR Classic before? Right now the so called “local backup” gets stored in one big library file. So if you use LR Classic and LR CC parallel you’re ending up with wasting twice the disk space.

    3) Has anyone actually tried to use LR CC with a huge library? I just uploaded a little over 150 GB (about 30000 pictures). Scrolling through the pictures in LR CC is super slow compared to LR Classic.

    1. 1. Export as Original exports as the raw file, and if you’ve checked the “store a copy of all originals locally”, they’re stored on your hard drive as well as in the cloud.

       2. They’re not designed to be used together.

       3. Yes, I’ve got more than 60k up there at 600GB+ and I have found it gets quicker to scroll over time.

       1. “They’re not designed to be used together.”
          So when LR Classic will be killed, Adobe can label it “a streamlined experience”.

       2. Hi Victoria,

          Thanks for pointing out the “Save as original” function.

          Regarding 2.: Jan vdL just wrote on the Adobe support forums that LR CC and Classic are meant to work together and sync all the content. My current workflow looks like this

          a) Shoot pictures and import them into Lightroom Mobile on iOS. The originals go to the Creative Cloud
          b) At home when opening LR CC 6 these files get synced and get saved automatically in my catalog located on a NAS

          If I migrate my catalog file now in the all-new LR CC: Will this workflow still work without any problems? Will I be able to open LR CC Classic at any time and the not yet synced pictures will be saved on the NAS?

          Regarding 3: When you’re viewing a picture and press like ten times the right cursor key very quickly. How long does it take to get to the 10th picture? Here it takes at least 5+ seconds while on LR CC Classic it’s like instant.

          1. All of the CC apps are designed to work together. Classic’s more of a distant cousin that talks a similar language.

             > If I migrate my catalog file now in the all-new LR CC: Will this workflow still work without any problems?
             I’d hesitate to make that promise. In theory, it should work, but it’s had relatively limited amounts of testing because it’s all so new, so it’s possible that bugs will be found over the next few weeks.

             > How long does it take to get to the 10th picture? The pictures switch as quickly as I can press the button. They might be a bit slower with edits already applied.

             1. >The pictures switch as quickly as I can press the button. They might be a bit slower with edits already applied.

                Thanks, something is definitely not working right here then. I just realized that even scrolling through all the pictures using lightroom.adobe.com is faster than using LR CC on my MacBookPro (2016).

                Really weird as LR CC Classic on the other hand works super fast now (compared to LR CC 6).

             2. > All of the CC apps are designed to work together. Classic’s more of a distant cousin that talks a similar language.
                Lightroom is a different type of programme than the other CC aps; direct linkage doesn’t really make sense and is not needed.

                Are you saying here that the new LR CC will integrate directly into InDesign and Illustrator? From what I’ve read, that seems unlikely. And none of the other CC aps are linked to cloud storage based on my experience with several of them.

             3. Post it at https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_lightroom_cc David so we can help you figure it out.

85. Please give us casual Lightroom users a cheaper Lightroom only subscription. Perhaps $6 per month?

86. Would Adobe consider putting the CC GUI on top of Classic, or at least offer the option of one or the other? I HATE THE CLASSIC UI! 🙁

87. Definitely NOT AGREE with question about Lightroom 6 as a perpetual license suspended/not supported anymore in the next future.
    Everyone on internet and every expert Photo Blog site talk about this move.
    All the people who’s got a perpetual license, constantly continue to support every new patch and new version, buying the latest version. (Considering they are not full time photographers, or 100% PRO and many have got a normal internet connection)
    So if for you is “the evolution” for most of us is called “business” and no people’s voice.
    You rule the game, the market and you are confident with your strategy, but this is a bad move for us “fans”.
    Tell us what is the problem if there are perpetual license or not in terms of problems/support…

88. I’m really sorry but today’s release mark the end of my trust toward the willingness of Adobe to support amateur photographer like me.

    As many amateur photographer, I’ve been owner of Lightroom desktop licences for more than 6 years now, regularly updating to newer versions over time.

    I’ll never switch to subscription, because simply I do not need cloud service, and I do not intend to pay more that the cost of my Netflix subscription for a tool that I use a couple of time per month, also considering that I’ve an archive of more than 4 TB .dng files.

    I believe that with today’s choice you are leaving back a large part of your customer base.

89. Still not interested in a subscription based captive system. I like to have the choice to update or not – I like to know where my images are stored – and I like to use other image tools.

    All I can see in this release is that Adobe want to make it as hard as possible for you to stop paying them a monthly fee.

    What happens if you want to stop your subscription – is there a means to download ALL of the images Adobe is holding hostage in the cloud? Or will they just vanish!

90. I’ve still not found anything referring to the previous unlimited smart preview storage allowance – has this now been removed? Also why does my account say I have 20GB storage and the mobile app 1TB? The storage costs are prohibively expensive for the average individual bearing in mind the increasing size of raw files,and you are defeating the point of having innovative software if it relies on such massive extra outlay for storage alone.

91. I love this idea. Now we can all go to buy a better product like Capture One.

92. Ok, so I’ve done some testing on my 4x 4.5GHz i7:
    – Import with preset, smart previews and 1:1: CCC 10% slower (1:1 previews still not utilizing 100% CPU)
    – Export: the same
    – Develop movement 1 by 1 photo: CCC about 25% faster on 4K LCD (without NR, Sharpening and CA, otherwise also about the same)

    Someone please tell me there are finally some performance benefits with more cpu cores (6, 8, 10..) so there’s smoe reasonable scalability. I understand there might be better experience during actual developing, can’t say for now, but I was definitely hoping for more.

    As for the new name and new product instead, one has to question the logic and priorities.

    And the only thing most users need to be in the cloud is the catalog, so we can easily work on more computers and in teams simultaneously.

93. So disappointed in this turn of events. It has to look to your customer as an obvious attempt to get more money from us by charging for storage. I have plenty of storage that is 100 times faster than the web based storage you offer.

    I said this before and I will say it again. A company that treats it’s customers like this deserves to lose their market share. I for one will look closely at a way to eliminate Adobe from my business needs.

94. Out curiosity, dear Adobe. I’m a concert photographer and I shoot thousand of pictures during a gig. So now if I want to use CC all most pictures (including crappy ones) will go into the cloud and then I will have to delete them? This is total waste of bandwith and resources. How about you work for the customers and your money, not for your money and… sometimes customers?

95. I have just installed Classic CC and it will not allow me to add keywords. I tried to uninstall and go back to the original Lightroom but it would not allow

96. This new system is so shady and under-handed. I made the mistake of updating and now I’ve been hung up on multiple times by customer service (probably accidents), but over an hour on hold is definitely not my ‘preferred way to access Lightroom’. Because my trial ends soon, I have client work to complete and customer service either won’t or can’t help me, I feel totally cornered.

97. I’ll join those who say that changing the name of the original app and giving it to a new app was a really dumb idea.

98. I appreciate the clarifications in this blog post. In my case, I think my Lightroom journey comes to an end. I like the software and the features, but the fact that Lightroom 6 licensing model is being phased out means that I have no option in the future to keep my catalogue functional without paying Adobe subscription money. Even the fact that I’m now on the CC model is kind of funny, because it’s the -idea- of being locked indefinetely that troubles me. There will come a time when I no longer persue photography in the same way, but still want to open a catalogue to find previous work etc.

    1. When you stop paying the subscription, Lightroom still works except for the Develop module and I think the Maps module. You DO NOT lose the capability to open catalogs, view all your photos, and still export. You just cannot make any further adjustments using Develop.

    2. When your subscription ends, most of Lightroom carries on working, so you’d still be able to go back and find and export your previous work. Only the Develop module, Map module and Sync (and Photoshop, of course) stop working.

    3. You were always locked in regardless of the pricing model. You will be locked in with whichever software you choose to replace Lightroom. The only difference with be the licensing model. It will still be up to you to choose to update and keep your system up to date. At some point you would always run into the issue that if you stop paying for the software for whatever reason, it will only continue to run as long as it works with the operating system. This is true of adobe products and any of their competitors.

99. Si je dois transférer tout mon travail, mon catalogue, mes paramètres d’import, d’exportation, mes filigranes mes mots clés hiérarchisés et mon historique de travail sur le Cloud pour bénéficier des nouvelles fonctionnalités mon seul abonnement LR/Ps ne m’octroie que 10 go qui ne suffiront pas, et je devrai acheter de l’espace supplémentaire. Et si je ne peux pas en acheter ? Je perds tout mon historique de travail en quittant le monde Adobe? Je suis client depuis la version 4 !
    Je redoute que vous ne fassiez plus évoluer la version Classic qu’avec le temps j’avais pu maîtriser . La nouvelle version Cc ne me donne pas l’impression de professionnalisme et d’efficacité que j’avais le bonheur d’utiliser dans l’ancienne version Cc
    Vous m’inquiétez !

100. As a LR user, but not a PS user, I am not happy that I am going to be forced to abandon my stand-alone LR6 and pay a monthly fee for a service that I will use half of. I would support a subscription based LR-only product, say for $5.99 per month or something, but it irks me to pay more for something I won’t use.

101. I am surprised nobody is asking where the cloud servers of Adobe are based? US only? What if I want to manage it from my own cloud?

     What about security and what will Adobe do to secure our photos are not being looked at by others for commercial purposes? What will Adobe be able to retrieve for data intelligence?

     With a 12TB NAS at home living in Europe I am not inclined to upload photos to an US based cloud with US conditions at US rates

102. How do we purchase this additional storage?

     I can’t find it on the website, and spent half an hour waiting for chat, only to chat with someone who had no clue there even was such a thing as extra storage to purchase. After spending another half hour while they tried to cancel my old plan and start a new one they never were able to suggest how to add storage to my plan, or even start a plan with over 1TB so I gave up. Where is this feature? And will support be informed of its existence soon?

     My use case: I intend to move all my lightroom catalog to a large external hard drive, and then sync each month folder with lightroom CC (~1.5TB total). I’ll then primarily run lightroom CC, which will selectively store the most recently used photos on my laptops internal drive, and access the rest over wifi, making my externals only periodically necessary. However, without being able to buy more storage , this workflow doesn’t work, and lightroom CC makes no sense for me

103. “TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”

     This seems disingenuous to me. LR 6 Perpetual was nearly impossible to find on your website, and if you did manage to buy it you couldn’t run it as standalone if there was a CC subscription on your account. In short, Adobe did everything possible to steer people away from LR 6 Perpetual, and are now saying that not enough people bought it.

     You’re now doing the same thing to LR “Classic” — burying it under the new mobile fluff — so it’s no wonder your customers are mistrustful of your intentions.

     1. +1, completely agree

     2. I wholeheartedly agree. It took me ages to find the link to LR6 perpetual. At every turn I was being forced to bypass CC being stuck down my throat.
        Additionally, in 12 updates to LR6 nit a single new feature was added. More camera support? big deal. In the main they were bug fixes. Bugs that shouldn’t have been in there in the first place!!
        What about Adobes previous “commitment” to providing Perpetual LR licences “Indefinitely”?
        See question 6 and the response here
        http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html
        It is clear to me now that Adobe cannot be trusted. Adobe has moved into intensive dairy farming now and they will be will be milking their herd (CC subscribers) for decades.
        CC? I think it actually means Cash Cow.

        I’ll stick with LR6 and Photoshop CS6. Both work and are perpetual.

104. Well, your branding sucks on the announcement. You should have called them Desktop or Pro (instead of Classic) and Mobile or Cloud (instead of CC). Using “Classic” just instills in one the notion that it is quaint, but outdated. Your calling it “a tool you know and love” fits into that view. And unless you want to lose professional photographers as a general category, you may want to think of them as a separate customer base. You assertion that “customers overwhelmingly [are] choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan” ignores the fact that those of us who are professional, desktop users were pissed that we were forced to go to the new CC system in order to maintain our updates. It is not our preferred access to Lightroom, it is what we were obligated to take. So, in the future, perhaps consider that you have two customer bases – professional photographers (who prefer desktop/laptop for their important editing) and non-professionals (who likely prefer mobile platforms because they are posting to social media or other web platforms). The nuanced work that I need to perform, the files I need to create, and the products I need to create are not suitable for mobile device (and thus cloud) work.

     Oh, and please provide a plug-in for Nikon D850 NEF files already. It’s been out for almost two months. I’d like to organize those files. Fortunately, you have a plug-in for Photoshop so I can process them. (Not sure how you have a plug-in for one platform but not the other, but that’s another story.)

105. You need to reconsider your decision to NOT offer a standalone version for purchase. There are MANY people who are not remotely interested in a subscription service plan. I for one, will continue to use my LR6 standalone version. Explain how you would lose money offering both?

106. I was really hoping that Adobe would use this opportunity to house/backup our entire image libraries in the cloud. Their meager offering of disk space means that I cannot upload all of my images, and the last thing I want is yet another partial storage of my library. As such, it seems really impractical to use the new CC at all.

107. Bye bye Lightroom. Hello Capture One!
     Well done Adobe.

108. Some features present in Lightroom cc for mobile is not found in this newer version for desktop, like tonal curves. And some features from newer desktop version do not present on mobile, like custom presets and geometry adjustments.
     It’s in adobe plans really unify these features?

109. It is too bad. Been a big fan and user of Lightroom for quite a while, and that relationship is going to come to an end. As an amateur I’ve become fond of the interface and cataloging features, but will not get into cloud storage that I do not control, and costs that I do not want to incur.

110. As a long term enthusiastic user of stand alone desktop Lightroom I am appalled that 6 is the last version and will cease to be supported. This is one user who will now be looking for a replacement. Adobe’s decision is a cynical move to extract more money from locked in customers. I’m disgusted.

111. This is going to suck for those that eventually upgrade their cameras and LR 6 ‘classic’ won’t read those raw files any more. I thought I’d be set with LR 4 until I switched from a Nikon D600 to the D610. LR 4 couldn’t read the NEF files in only one model jump.

112. I have nearly 40TB of hardware storage that I own and you want me to pay you for access to my own work….and this is something I and the majority of your client base asked for????

113. I’m afraid it looks like a great day for alternative software options.

114. I edit all my images on my desktop, with a large RAID external HD for all my photos.
     I DO NOT edit any of my images on any other device, and I have no need to either. maybe Pros do, But us hobbyist’s most likely don’t.
     If I do, it would be cell phone images… not really a big deal if I don’t us Lr Mobil.
     DO NOT PHASE OUT “Lr CC Classic”…. You will lose a lot of CC accounts when you do at $120 a year income.
     At least, if you do…. we will have the last Lr update on our desktop w/o CC capabilities.

115. “Why did you abandon the Lightroom standalone version?
     TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”

     You must be kidding. The only reason your customers ha e signaled this is because you’ve made it so difficult (and now impossible to continue) by forcing the subscription model on a basically captive audience.

     1. +1
        Adobe’s flawed argument logic

116. Thanks for the blog post – you clarified one thing for me – LIghtroom 6 will be my last version of LR, after having used it since its inception (and before – I used Pixmantec’s RawShooter Pro, which got rolled into LR after Adobe purchased it). I have no interest in Photoshop, I have a huge library (~560k photos/6GB LRCAT/8TB RAW files) so cloud is ENTIRELY out of the question, and would gladly pay for a perpetual license.

     Capture One, here I come…

117. When the hell are you going to utilize the GPU for JPEG export? Apple Aperture still runs rings around Lightroom in that regard, and it hasn’t been updated in years. Photo Mechanic skips to the next image as fast as you can hit the keys. THESE are the features we actually want.

     By the way, I have 30+TB of photos…no cloud for me.

     As for organizing things, how about adding some real usability to the import feature, like, I dunno, favorite folders? Navigating the hierarchy on each and every import sucks. Not everyone puts all their photos in the “ Photos” folder.

     Have you ever actually used your product?

118. “No, we’re not phasing out Lightroom Classic and remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future. ”

     We don’t belive you…

     When Creative Cloud was introduced, we were promised that perpetual licensing would always be available for Lightroom, now less than 3 years later it’s not.

     Yes cloud storage prices will fall, yes (maybe) my internet speed will improve, but I’m absolutely not convinced that inside 3 years a sensible way of working with a 15-20TB library (growing at ~2TB a year) in the cloud is going to be viable, then again as a really real, pay my bills with my images professional, I’m not convinced I’m your target audience anyway…

     1. And why would I, a creative cloud subscriber, be upset about the end of perpetual licensing?

        Because right now $70 a month is a business expense that I can ignore, but that won’t always be the case, at some point in the future I will retire, but I’ll still want to be able to look back on my archives.

        Being able to hop off a subscription and onto a stable *owned* version of Lightroom was one of the reasons I perceivered with the Adobe ecosystem when we were shoved to the rental model. Now I’m once again left wondering if I should abandon 12 years worth of edits and shift to an alternative in an effort to avoid having to abandon 30 years of edits at some point in the future…

        However you want to spin these changes they are user hostile even if by some miracle ‘all new Lightroom’ becomes feature equivalent to ‘classic’.

        1. That’s exactly my main concern now, too. Without the option to jump over to a perpetual license (and eventually just keep a certain version at some point) this product has disqualified itself as a future-proof DAM solution.

           1. What’s even worse, it seems that, from a marketing and sales perspective, Lightroom “Classic” CC seems to be semi-dead now. There is no information at all anymore on the classic product, only a mention it’s included in the photography plan. That does sound familiar, think of what was promised about the perpetual license after LR &/CC came out, it was a hard task to even find the (non CC) version on the page.

              So, whatever the product manager says here (he also said there will indefinitely be a perpetual version, right here on this blog), Adobe marketing is speaking a rather different language and management decides what best fills their stakeholders pockets.

              So, I will have to spent some time to find the LR 6 perpetual download, dig out the last LR CC/6 catalogue backup, and stay with that until some other company comes out with a reasonable DAM. Serif seems to be on it, they also have a good editor, which will have to replace photoshop now that I have to cancel my CC subscription. I do not want to, but it has to be done.

119. Missed opportunity : “LiteRoom”

120. If Adobe does not offer single licensed product to be used on MY DESKTOP (and not their’s, the so called CLOUD), then I am OUT of LR. There are absolutely great options other than LR out there for me. This monoply of trying to steer everyone to use what ADOBE wants rather than what CUSTOMERS want is ridiculous. One would not have expected this from Adobe, the organization that was built to this point by faithful customers like us!!!

121. With all respect and the love I have for Lightroom I’m sorry to say that you, Adobe, have lost your mind.
     There’s no way I’ll feel comfortable of practically sell my soul to you until I die. Today is $10/mo “Classic” or CC, and who knows when you’ll raise it to $20, $25…
     I don’t like the idea of give you all my RAW files that I don’t know in the hands of who will end in this era where no cloud company is really safe. All my work could end in the hands of some criminals that take my RAW files change the metadata and exifs and can claim that they are the true owners. And even if I agree to upload it all to your servers I will not pay $40/mo and eventually $60, $70, $150 forever. That’s not a realistic point of view by your part, and you know professional or enthusiast-pro-wanna-be photographers don’t agree with that model. You are changing professionals for people that take photos casually with their smartphones and only a few of them have cameras that shoot in RAW.
     I will not pay a subscription for use Lightroom or any other software like that never. NEVER. So, you can ditch the stand alone version, you have all your right to do it, but if you decide to really do that at least I will choose another software no matter how steep the learning curve. I’d rather use GIMP, organize my folders by date and not use a catalog at all.

122. LR 6 will be my last LR. Not interested in a subscription. Not interested in cloud.

     Good luck with that “overwhelming interest” after you made it almost impossible to purchase LR standalone.

123. Adobe you have lied in the past and I’m sure you are lieing again. You previously stated that perpetual licenses would always be available for Lightroom.
     You have now gone back on that promise.

     If like me you were one of the victims when your customers data was hacked a few years ago the likelihood of paying monthly for Lightroom is zero!

     I look forward to when there is a decent competitor for Lightroom – because when that happens your customers will leave in droves. Till that point I’m sure you’ll keep abusing your market position.

124. I’m astounded that someone in Adobe managed to push through the ‘Classic’ nomenclature for the Real Lightroom, that always has connotations of old, outdated and ready to be let go as soon as possible so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m suspicious of your motivations, es[pecially now that I see that the standalone version is discontinued despite your (apparently worthless) promises of a few years back.

     I like Lightroom and Photoshop and want to keep using them but it seems that the writing is on the wall and we may well need to start investigating alternatives.

     Of course it could be that the marketing genius of senior executive that approved the name change, and the connotations that go with such a change, is in fact an idiot, and had no idea what this suggests to your users.

125. I love LR, and I’m really hoping you mean what you say and that you won’t be phasing out the version you keep calling Classic but should have named Pro.
     I’ve stopped updating it because I read that LR Classic will no longer have catalogues. I’m concerned about losing my very carefully organized 2017 client catalogue (and all previous years’). What’s happening with all of that?
     Also, please listen to what everyone is saying and don’t screw us. We represent a huge population and a lot of money to you. There’s no way you’ll convince all the pros to switch to LR CC, not with those outrageous cloud fees. We’ll switch to Capture One and other editing software.

126. Your customers are choosing to use the ‘Creative Cloud” because your customers are, by definition, the ones still willing to give you money despite horrendous changes to the licensing model. I haven’t been willing to make the switch to CC, and certainly won’t with these new changes. The thought of uploading an entire image set into a poorly secured and expensive cloud rather than editing quickly on my secure home network…? Why would anyone – personal or professional – choose such a thing?

127. Guys, you are acting like Adobe is a natural person with ethics, morals and some kind of obligation to its customers. It is not. It is a corporation and they have a legal fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit while having no legal obligation to their customers other than to deliver what the customers contracted to receive. Their situation is this. They have products that are very mature. Improvements will be slow and minor therefore there will be little incentive for customers to pay for upgrades. They have a fiduciary duty to shareholders to overcome the resulting decline in revenue and profits that would result from continuing the perpetual license model. The answer is to make customers pay a monthly subscription to just keep what they have (plus the occasional small incremental improvement that they Adobe now has no incentive to provide). They have also seen they have a new revenue stream they can tap. That is cloud storage. They will push everyone onto subscriptions and cloud storage. They have no choice. To do otherwise would result in customers just keeping what they have on a perpetual license, not bothering to upgrade because the improvements are minimal. If they lose some customers, so what? It beats going bankrupt. But they will succeed because the cost to customers in time and money to abandon all their past edits and buy and learn new programs is huge.

     Stop complaining to Adobe. They don’t care what you think. If paying monthly fees for using the programs and eventually paying to have everything stored in the cloud works for you, then you have nothing to complain about. If it doesn’t work for you the sooner you abandon Adobe the happier you will be. No amount of complaining will change their new direction. They either do it or die. Your complaints are very, very minor in in comparison.

128. This is very confusing to me. On the one hand Classic is recommended if fast workflow and no cloud is needed, on the other hand CC is best for cloud based work. I am completely missing how this works together as I haven‘t seen any way to use both tools together (without doubling my photos) or at least I am not getting how Adobe recommends the combined use of both ways?
     For example I have now synched my classic collections, but I am not getting the original files uploaded into the cloud. This function is not considered in Classic, but would be needed for CC…. Really lost and signed to fast up 1 TB option which in fact I cannot use at the moment.
     Another issue catalogue migration doesn‘t work as for some reasons the tool is locally doubling my files instead of using the same file location! Hence not enough disk space.
     Very frustrating and feels like an expensive beta…. why wasn’t this properly thought through before pushing to professional users…
     I am really considering from moving away from Adobe now!

129. Really disappointed as a CC subscriber. I want the standalone version available. I hate the thought of being tied into paying “forever”. Additionally the naming of “Classic” makes me think I’ll be stuck sending everything to the cloud soon. At the release of LR6 Adobe said they planned to continue the standalone version… promise broken Adobe. Whats next? Lightroom Classic EOL? Sorry, I don’t trust you anymore. Sad because I love LR, I don’t mind the CC plan, but I don’t TRUST you anymore. Tempted to look at other options.

     1. Well said, Brian. And with all the fierce and professional competition on the market now, (MacPhun Luminar, ON1RAW, Topaz Studio, Pictorial, etc…), Greedy Adobe is going to be the big loser. I am definitely canceling my subscription.

130. I don’t belive you. When Creative Cloud was introduced, you promised that perpetual licensing would always be available for Lightroom, now less than 3 years later it’s not.
     So why should I belive, that LR classic will be continued. I wish a perpetual licence and of course I like to pay for it.

131. I have storage and back up solutions which have worked well for me since I became photography cc subscriber. I’m reluctant to complicate and pay more for a service I don’t need. I’m going to look for a standalone solution to my photography needs.

132. “Why did you abandon the Lightroom standalone version?
     TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”
     May I kindly note that Adobe has done a great job in hiding the option to buy the standalone version ever since the cloud version has popped up …
     In addition when browsing to fora I seem to have the feeling that more people are complaining about the loss of the standalone version rather than being thrilled about the cloud services …

133. Sorry Adobe, the cloud version of Lightroom Classic cost more than 140€/year. The latest update from LR5 to LR6 around 80€ for more than 1,5 years.
     Why shall I then rent a software for more money and if I do not extent the contract I can not use it afterwards!

134. They are totally ignoring, who their customers are. I’m photographing just for myself and my target is to establish and maintain a lifelong Archive of my Family photos, where I have direct Access to anyone of my Photos. I’m not photographing for Business, not for posting on the Web. So I don’t even think about spending another 10$ or what every month, just to have my photos handed over to a Cloud, where I can’t be sure, to have the same direct Access to them, anytime I Need it.
     I want the standalone Version available, otherwise Forget me, Adobe!

135. “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography”
     If you want to buy LR 6 in the past it is very hard to find this option on your site. Then the result will be that the people buys the cloud version.
     For Mac there is no download available … you have to contact the support to be able to download this version.
     Did you look at the internet for any comment on CC. Many not professional photographers want to have the download version!
     Please make this happen!

136. I am now a very confused user! I have dozens of questions – here are just a few to start with:

     I shoot tethered quite a lot – it appears that this is not possible in the new CC. So, I will have to use “Classic”. (hate the name by the way, you have really shot yourself in the foot with that decision) to shoot tethered. Will these new images then sync to the cloud?

     I print my own images. I can’t print in CC. So, do I then revert to Classic to print? If so, are any edits made in CC in the cloud automatically synced to Classic so that I can then print?

     I notice that you have put a provision in CC to edit in Photoshop, but as you don’t have full Photoshop on, say, iPad, I assume that I have to wait until I get home to my desktop to then edit in Photoshop – thus defeating your claim that CC is great for people on the move who want to be able to access and edit their images on any device, anywhere!

     Your storage prices are preposterous! You are “giving” me 20gb to “experiment” within my Photography plan but, you will the first to admit, 20gb is next to useless when you are shooting raw. I would only need to migrate just 600 raw images to completely use up 20gb. Then what happens? Does Adobe automatically upgrade me to the 1tb plan? Thus doubling my monthly subscription! What if I don’t want to incur that extra expense? What do I do then?

     In summary, I think that the direction Adobe is taking is totally aimed at the phone photographer – not the professional or (like me) the photography enthusiast. You tell us that, probably, the Classic solution would suit us best, but, as can be seen by several of the comments above and elsewhere, customers just don’t believe your assurances about the future of LR Classic. There is this enormous dichotomy; Adobe is famed for it’s superb, professional products like Photoshop, Illustrator and the like, but this Lightroom development is, as some have commented, “dumbing down”. But appearing to go after the mass market, smartphone customer is also a flawed strtegy as a) someone using their phone for Photography is probably more than happy to use one of the many free products out there for their editing and b) will probably be very unwilling to pay large monthly sums for a service that provides far more features than they will ever want to use.

     I m sorry, Adobe, but I think that this new strategy will lose you a major chunk of your previously loyal customer base – me amongst them.

     1. Why is my comment still awaiting moderation?

137. Adobe want your photos in their cloud so they can lock you in to an ever increasing subscription fee. How difficult will it be for you to get those raw photos files back? Do they belong to you or Adobe? What happens to your photos if you stop the subscription? Do Adobe delete them? Before anyone signs up for this cloud service think very carefully about how you will feel in many years time with a lifetime of your memories held hostage. I don’t trust Adobe anymore.

138. Adobe has always gone where ever it can smell the most money, and now it has a hunch that’s in casuaö user markets, iPad users etc. That’s fine, everything comes to an end eventually, Lightroom has been practically dead for long as it’s been unusably slow.

     Luckily there are several great alternatives for pro users and people who still want local storage, raws, and other pro features!

     Goodbye Adobe.

139. And so it has come to pass… When the Lightroom subscription was first introduced, we were promised that the standalone version wouldn’t be abandoned (but that we’d have to wait for major upgrades to get new features). As I strongly suspected at the time, you are now abandoning the standalone version. The justification is laughable – as others have already pointed out, it was nearly impossible to find, buy and use the standalone version due to your deliberate use of “dark patterns” on your website. I personally had to show and explain how to buy standalone to several friends who would otherwise have had to use the subscription version. I’m sure, as is no doubt your intention, many of your subscribers aren’t even aware there is a choice.

     I will never use a product that:
     – refuses to load because it hasn’t “checked in” periodically. Try spending a month or more in a remote location without internet access and see how much photo editing you can get done once that check kicks in.
     – prevents me from even viewing my photo edits once I stop paying subscription. It’s madness to have to be handcuffed to a subscription for life, or lose access to my edits.
     – stops working once the company goes bust, or discontinues the product.

     I don’t want cloud, don’t want subscription, and don’t trust Adobe in the slightest any more. It is going to be painful but I have no choice but to migrate elsewhere.

140. So I bought LR standalone. Then upgraded through the versions up to LR6 even so it was nearly impossible to find on your website in the end. Now you’re telling me, you not only want to force me into a subscription scheme but want to lay your hands on my data as well?
     Hello? In the EU I’m not even allow to upload Photos of people to US servers without their written consent! No-Go area, really…
     And CCC will be continued… Marketing blurb. When I spent my money in LR standalone upgrades, it was all the same wording. Feeling betrayed.

141. is there a way to have desktop lightroom actions supported on the cc version? would be great to edit photos on the go using the actions we normally use

142. I would like to use both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC and not Photoshop. Is there a plan for that?

     As far as I can see Lightroom CC does not have the import and naming tools lightroom classic has and they are essential for my workflow. Also 1tb is not enough for my entire workflow but I am ok with not uploading my old stuff to online. I have enough backups for my old stuff but I am starting trying to import my 2015 + stuff to Lightroom CC. If I am unable to use Lightroom Classic or if the Lightroom CC does not have Import dialog that would not be possible.

     Importing, renaming and filing functions of Lightroom are critical.

143. I am fortunate to be able to work on one of the largest festivals in the world.
     We have a timetable and upload points. A selection photos are edited in LR, in time slots of about 2 hours, before sending it to the editor and media. (almost real time)
     Wi-Fi & internet are always bad and overloaded. (no can go)
     Even at home after the festival (10 days under high pressure), the remaining photos are finished in LR and forwarded. (thousands )
     So, Lightroom classic (or pro) must be installed on a laptop and pc.
     Do you have the picture??
     Lightroom CC is for selfies I think

144. I’m very sad to see the end of Lightroom as a usable tool for professional photographers. Having the ability to review photos that i edited many years in the past is essential as a professional. I have no interest in uploading my raw files to the cloud. The main use of the cloud is to share finished work. Since classic Lightroom is the only viable option now, I will start researching the next set of tools I will use.

145. A few years ago Adobe said they would always offer a standalone version of Lightroom. Now they are saying they will always offer Lightroom classic and expect our trust. Sorry but you lost mine. I am also not prepared to pay a subscription price for full Photoshop when I only want Lightroom. It seems there are some good alternatives to Adobe out there now.

146. “No, we’re not phasing out Lightroom Classic and remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future.”
     – Then make significant improvements to it. Addressing performance issues is long overdue, it is not a “feature”.
     – Then offer classic licensing. For someone who ONLY uses LR, the CC subscription DOUBLES what I spent on LR and its upgrades in the past.
     “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.” (because we had hidden classic LR 6 version, did not advertise it and dealt with annoyed customers in the background).
     In 2012, Adobe significantly lowered the price for LR 4 (compared to the versions before). You attracted a broader audience and now you tell the same people to license software they don’t need (PS) for a higher price than just the software they need (LR).

147. To Tom Hogarty.

     Thank you for the opportunity to present my concerns and ask a single question.

     I think it is a big mistake to create the brand Lr Classic and I think it is deceitful of Adobe to call an incomplete product Lightroom CC.
     The new Lightroom CC should have been released as a beta product. It is not fit for prime time. In effect Adobe are asking the Lightroom community to beta test this application as it travels from version 0.5 to 1, but unfortunately, Adobe want to charge us for the storage required to do so.
     If Lr Classic is left to rot and the new Lightroom CC does not allow use of local digital assets then I will abandon Adobe and stop recommending Adobe products.
     I will not be uploading my digital assets to an Adobe ecosystem ever and will walk away from Adobe completely if Adobe push me into that model. I understand and have manged extremely large data assets for global enterprises and nothing Adobe have done or said so far gives me comfort Adobe are qualified to manage my data.
     Because of the failings of the Lr import module and because of the disaster to try and re-engineer it (how embarrassing is that) I decided some time ago to create my own PreProcessor for Lr. This does a lot of validation of raw v jpg of my source files and allows me to select by file type and date range with simple clicks of intelligently generated option boxes. I am glad I have that work complete as I can now point the output of my app to Capture One when it suits me to do so (or when Adobe drive me to that decision).
     My question. Will a future version of Lr CC allow me to use my digital assets from a local drive or data store of my choosing. ????????????
     I hope the Lightroom CC project works and that the final solution caters for local digital assets. If it fails I already have my contingency options well covered.

     I am happy to be contacted regarding this note.

148. Summary of Adobe’s move and implications:
     1. More and more people are on mobile, shooting photos with iPhones etc. We need to tap the market and make something lightweight as iPhoto = new Lightroom CC
     2. Lets tell our customers that have chosen us because of our competitive advantage (best in class advanced photo management; with focus on preserving your original photos, backing them up and giving you control over them) is “classic” workflow. It is too old approach. And in 3 years, maybe we will tell you that “we have signaled that over the last several years”

     consequence:
     new customer: choice between Lightroom CC (seems same name as Photoshop CC etc) let me choose that, rather than Lightroom “Classic” = less and less Lightroom “Classic” users. Later they will tell us that this is what the customer wants!
     existing customer: casual user’s will like the simplifications. Why not, if you shoot only with your phone. Professional user will be uncertain. His income, or hobby is threatened. = Distrust of Adobe, but switching costs are too high yet.

     conclusion:
     casual user = +
     professional/enthusiast = –
     adobe = change of strategy of lightroom to more casual user. Might be tough to compete there against iPhoto that is preinstalled on iOS, MacOS

149. Tom,

     What would it cost you to keep a perpetual license? Even a ‘dumbed-down’ one?
     What would it cost to have an acceptable exit-strategy (with apps that keep functioning after x years of paying)?
     — Not much me thinks.

     But who am I? Just a little ‘customer’ for 13 years that didn’t ‘signal’ this direction, like many others, who depends on this software for his livelihood, probably earning a tiny percentage of your salary.

     In fact — it’s not the price that appalls me, but the fact that you leave us NO choice than to commit to this cloud-thing… and the fact that you and your company just don’t care about us (and don’t try to convince me it’s otherwise).

     I’m still using my perceptual license for CS6, praying with each OS update that it doesn’t break — and, sadly, there’s been not a single new function or feature in CC since 2013 that makes all this recurring costs seem worthwhile. Au contraire — when I hear the stories of the colleagues who jumped ship it seems that it’s less stable & thrustworthy than ever before…

     All your promises with the introduction of CC in 2011 are slowly turning in to lies…

     Lightroom (which is/was a fantastic piece of software) surely is destined to go down the same road… some great bell & whistles now, but in a few years time?

     This whole story bitterly reminds me of an old saying: “Find the customer, #!% the customer, Forget the customer”.

     Not that all this wil change anything, but now, at least, you can’t ignore the fact that some ‘customers’ are really, very, very disappointed in you…

     Benjamin

150. Can I grant other Webservices access to selected folders in my Creative Cloud Photography Storage? Use cases would be:
     – Ordering Prints at an online-photo Service
     – Using Photos on Websites by importing them in the CMS (e.g. WordPress)
     – Using Photos on my Website by routing them through a CDN Provider like imgIX
     – A Browser-Extentions to Post images via Social Media
     – Using IFTTT to schedule Social Media Posts

151. As a hobby level user, who purchased version 3 and version 5, I feel it is the end of the road for me. According to your post everybody loves paying monthly. Well for me its more then twice as much to use CC and I dont need its additional cloud centric features. I know I am not the only hobby user who feels the same way. Lightroom is great software but I no longer want to be locked into an ecosystem holding my data hostage with a direction I no longer trust. I remember when we were told that perpetual licenses would always continue so I planned for this accordingly and trusted that my edits would exist for a long period of time. The blog post still exists from 2013.

     https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html?red=a&tduid=c50e2ac889a1c6acb759e006d4d4c5ae&url=https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html

     Now we are told Lightroom Classic will be invested in too. Well I am not believing this. A minimum investment will be made in the classic version. Its very sad that I have lost all my editing work but the day has come to take a chance and look elsewhere.

152. When Lightroom CC was launched it appeared in my Creative Cloud app alongside Lightroom Classic. I updated my Lightroom to Lightroom Classic and now Lightroom CC no longer appears as an option in the Creative Cloud app. Does this mean I can only install one of the products?

153. Having read your answers and further comments. I reluctantly as a LR user sincerely version 2 and standalone version 4+ currently a cc user who doesn’t use the Photoshop half of the package who has been waiting patiently for years for a 5 £$€ Lightroom only subscription to come out. This latest announcement has convinced me to jump ship and migrate everything to On1. My only regret is that I have an annual subscription which still has 8 months to run

154. My first impression when I heard the news of the update was disappoint of the the name “Classic”. As others have said, I think it is unfortunate and implies something old and antiquated. Someone else had suggested the term Lightroom Pro. I think that would have been a much more appropriate name since that tool has far more flexibility and functionality than the new web based version. I would highly suggest they change it.

     I have used the iPad version of LR in the past and have liked it for doing some editing of files on the go. I like it for editing, but found the utility of the tool very limited for naming files, organizing files, updating metadata, etc. When I updated the version of LR on my iPad, I found that it was not significantly updated from my old version . I still like it, but would never replace my photography workflow with it.

     Lastly, while I like the idea of backing up files in the cloud, I am concerned about it. I could not find any information online about pricing plans for the various levels of files. This blog addressed that, but that detail should be something that they are upfront about. Secondly, in the last year, my internet provider has imposed a cap for data usage. If you go over the cap, you are slapped with extra fees. I have a large photography library and previous attempts to back up files (at least doing the initial backup) have gotten me dangerously close to those limits.I often take a lot of pictures and then go through and delete the ones that I don’t use. I then do a cloud backup of only the files that I want to keep. This model would have me using my data usage limit to transfer files that I might ultimately delete. It would be nice if there was more control of how this is used. In addition, what happens to your pictures if you leave your subscription — do you still have access to them in the cloud? If I wanted to download them again, I would be faced the potential limits of my internet data usage fees again.

155. Is it a limit 10TB? I have more than 10TB whats the plan for that? $9.99 per TB per month is really to expensive.

156. I have updated to Lightroom CC on both my MacBook and my iPad. I have also subscribed to the 1tb package. Initially CC is showing those collections which were synced to Lightroom Mobile. When I tried to add a lot of extra images it said I didn’t have sufficient disk space. Why is this an issue? Thanks Alan

157. Please give us the option to choose what is synced. In most situations, I’d only want to sync those that I export after using Lightroom. I don’t need the thousands of shots that I took but never did anything with. I have other options for storing and saving those if I need them.

158. I live in an area with so-so internet connection. If using Lightroom CC and the internet goes down for a couplke days can I still edit my pictures?

159. I’m really disappointed by this, and it means that I will be leaving Adobe. Sure, the professional market may be moving to the Creative Cloud products, but no perpetual-license version of Lightroom leaves out amateurs, casual users, and students. I know we’re not a big market, but this still stings. Paying $9.99/month for one year, every year is much too expensive; it more than doubles the ownership cost for me, which is even more unaffordable since I’ve gone back to school. If there was an option to pay monthly with no annual contract, or if it was half the cost, the situation would be different and I would consider staying.

     I will be using Lightroom 6 for the time being until I find a replacement. I guess this is good for competitors, and I hope that they won’t alienate their users.

160. Tom,
     thanks for clarifying the direction Adobe will go with LR. If the subscription model is “ever so attractive” for customers what harm would it do to continue a perpetual licensing model in parallel? There are a lot of customers who would prefer that and who will not let themselves be forced into subscription.

     I have been a keen user of LR and still find it the best combination (so far) of a raw converter with digital asset management. It’s a shame and a major effort having to change to other software, but unless Adobe re-think quickly and keep up perpetual licensing I’m prepared to go. Fortunately there are alternatives.

     My decision is lead by the following reasons:

     #1 Cloud based LR CC seems to be the main focus and direction for Adobe in future. But – like for many others – storing my data in a cloud is a no-go.

     #2 Even if I bite the bullet and go on subscription for CC “Classic” – the risk that it will be discontinued or at least end up as a legacy product with marginal improvements only is too high for me. After all it looks pretty much like Cloud based LR CC it planned to take its place. I know you say CC classic will still be available in future and even be further improved. But frankly in the past Adobe has neglected those kind of promises. Like the perspective for continuing perpetual you gave us in May 2013:
     —%<—
     Q. Will Lightroom become a subscription only offering after Lightroom 5?
     A. Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely.
     —%<—
     [Tom Hogarty, Lightroom Journal, May 6, 2013]
     https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html

     I know you cannot promise such things for ever, but this promise has only lasted 1 version …

     #3 I don't like to be forced to subscription having to pay nearly 5x as much for LR as before:

     I upgraded to LR6 30 months ago for 75 Euro (= 2.5 Euro/m). With subscription it would have cost me (30* 12 Euro/m = 360 Euros) in the lifetime of the LR6 release.
     Additional cost is not my main point – and sure I get PS as well – but still I don't want to be bound .

     1. Well said, Uli.

        Your comments are pin point.

        And with all the fierce and professional competition on the market now, (MacPhun Luminar, ON1RAW, Topaz Studio, Pictorial, etc…), Greedy Adobe is going to be the big loser.

        Unless Adobe puts it right for all users satisfaction, I am definitely canceling my subscription.

        Cheers

     2. So true and so sac. I can not trust a oerson and a company which changes his mind so fast.
        This means: Even if they say LR Classic will stay, this will change very fast also:
        When someone breaks a promise he will do the same in the future.
        I enjoyed LR as Long as it was a standanlone product without subscription.
        Now I am forced to go to another Company, which is trustworthy and is Hearing all of the customers.
        Goodbay Adobe – you showed your true face to us. Now we know what to think about you for the future and your promises.

161. I am deeply disappointed and feel Adobe cheated on us. I had adopted (the true and only one) Lightroom, i.e. the standalone version 4 in 2012, as you – Adobe – had set an attractive price for a desktop licence, and the price for an upgrade from one Lightroom version to the next one had become very attractive, too : I upgraded to LR 5, then 6. I am not the least interested in paying a subscription, especially if I feel it is forced down in my throat. The standalone version was – and stil is – what I want & what I need. I do not believe one second that: ‘Customers are “overwhelmingly” choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom’. I do not need Photoshop, I do not need your cloud (thank you, I have already a lot of space available for me in the cloud, at a more attractive price. Anyway, I really prefer to have access my files locally). So, I’ll keep my Lightroom 6.12 desktop version until it becomes obsolete, and then I’ll have to switch to an other program. I shall regret the way Lightroom handles the catalogues, the virtual copies, etc. I am not going to get on my knees and beg for it, but I would really be glad if you, Adobe, could reconsider your position ; and I’m sure that a whole lot of people would be glad, too.

162. Hello Adobe,
     I had testet both versions of Lightroom.
     But I rather stay with the CC Classic Version. As soon as I can choose which Photos can be stored on my Hard-Drive and which is in the cloud (or better: That I can store the Fotos also on my own Cloud / Server – which works best inside the company with 10Gbit/sek+ LAN) then I would change to the Cloud version. At the moment my Connection to the Internet is not fast enough for a good and reliable workflow.

     The second point is: I have hoped with the update would bring the support for the MacBook Pro Touchbar like in Photoshop CC… But nothing..

163. Let me rephrase something I posted on the Adobe Lr CC forum earlier after realizing that the new Lr CC does not support the book/map/slideshow/print modules.

     Deciding to hand the strong brand of Lightroom from the old professional workflow tool over to the new mass market cloud viewer/editor app is a subtle move but of immense significance.

     I was fortunate to be an early user of Lr and was thrilled to see functionality that was discussed/requested by the photography community being incorporated in every update. What made this the tool of choice was the impression (and to a certain extent the fact) that it was being developed by photographers for photographers.

     Now the old product is standing on the side with its name taken and only left with a “legacy” labeI. This does not inspire any warranty for the longevity of the legacy product.

     I see the financial side effect of ceasing perpetual licensing as of secondary significance. The shift of focus from professional photography to mass market is of primary significance. This is a serial blow to the trust of professionals towards Lr.

164. Why for any reason my comment still waiting for moderation? It was just a question

165. To test drive Lightroom CC can you run both on the same desktop?

166. Please introduce a subscription with only Lightroom, because I really do not need Photoshop and cloud storage. By doing that you can lower the cost of a subscription and maybe I can also subscribe. More than €12 each month is too much!

167. A US car maker has a small local plant. They make low volume, high cost, high performance cars. They buy a Korean plant. Now they can make high volume, low cost, low performance cars. They hand over their brand to the Korean model. They also keep their US model as a legacy model.

     Which model dies first when the shareholders ask for cuts?

     Whoever keeps the brand during a fork, gets the mass. On a related/unrelated note, Ethereum trades 30x higher than Ethereum Classic.

168. Tom, could you address what kind of functionality is available in Lightroom classic after my subscription lapses? I’ve only seen generic terms like “most of the functionality” is available besides editing. I’d like to know exactly what functionality will go away.

169. As a user of Lightroom since version 1, discontinuing the stand alone version after Lightroom 6 is really frustrating. I will never do the subscription model. I guess this is a good opportunity to explore non Adobe options. Great way to NOT listen to your customer base.

     Also, cloud storage is a joke… I have 6 tb of raw images on my local NAS. Also, why the heck would I want to continue editing something on my non-color corrected, tiny phone,???

     You guys need to have some focus groups with real world users.

170. I call B.S!!!! I already have several hard drives and WILL NOT BE PAYING ADOBE FOR STORAGE when I don’t need it. I agree with others that calling it Lightroom Classic makes it sound like it’s soon to be phased out. It should have remained Lightroom CC and your new version, Lightroom Mobile or Lightroom Light.
     FAIL

171. Hi there,

     I tested the new cloud centered Lr CC – and I like the approach a lot. It’s clean and contemporary, the UX is just right. Nevertheless I’ll keep on using Lr Classic for the moment, because I think the Lr CC is still a technology preview. You promise to keep on developing the Classic version, but I have the strong feeling, that you just keep the double-app approach until the majority of Lr Classic users switched over and Lr CC got grown up.

     Here are some issues I found:

     #1 PSD files
     When I import PSD files (layers), Lr starts uploading and I get a TIF file (flattened) as the result. I use Lr for sorting my images of course, but also for Raw processing and in a few cases I open the image in Photoshop – but still want it to be managed (sorted) in Lr. When Lr flattens the PSD and makes a TIF of it, the whole app becomes useless for me.

     #2 Tethering
     Tethered shooting capabilities are missing completely.

     #3 Open as Smart Object
     The option for opening a processed Raw file as a smart object in Photoshop is missing.

     #4 Image sorting
     Lr CC sorts the images by date – and there are some great filters for finding images. That’s great yet simple, but I’d love the option for sorting the original files (not albums) by my own scheme (b.e. date-customer-job).

     #5 Backup
     Since the originals are stored in the cloud, I find it too complicated and too slow to backup my images locally. A couldbased backup would be consistent.

     #6 Grouping
     Great, that the scope of functions is now reduced to what people really need. But I think there’s something missing anyways. Im sure that you will add a bunch of jdi features in the future. What I would like is to get the color labels back – and the option to group pictures (do you call ist “stacks”? Sorry, I just know the German word for it, but you might know what I mean …)

     #7 CC subscription
     I totally fine with the plans, costs, storage, aso.. But could you answer the following: What happened with my pics if I would cancel my CC subscription – or something crashes in my account?

     Best,
     Phil

172. My biggest issues are that I keep getting errors now that I’ve updated to the Lightroom Classic CC. I messaged the LR facebook page as I couldn’t actually find a way to contact you through the website. I’m getting them both in the develop and library module. Now I’m stuck and can’t proceed with my client’s gallery. How do I share the issues I’m getting???

     Dan

173. About all the Cloud options pushing some benefits are available and sometimes Infind these quite nice.
     But the images in the cloud: which privacy does Adobe provide? Is it safe for German/European Users to store the images without breaking local law? The upcoming European privacy law next year will be important and so far reading nothing Fromm adobe about it feels uncomfortable if you you want to use it for your business.

174. I pay for the full Creative Cloud Subscription (£49.95 per month.) Why had Adobe not increased the free cloud storage from 100gb to 1TB – the amount available to someone paying £9.95 per month for a Lightroom CC subscription?

175. See also the following Article and Discussion on DPREVIEW
     https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/5431017013/rip-lightroom-6-death-by-subscription-model
     already over 1000 posts … mainly complaints regarding the direction adobe follows with LR
     Uli

176. I have logged on with my Adobe ID trying to find a price on the additional storage, I need at least 10TB, On this blog I see one person stating that the license with 10TB was $109 per month, where can I find the cost, I keep in the same loop on Adobe site trying to find it.

     I get unlimited storage at $95 for 2 years on a cloud site if the $109 is correct it would be way off base.
     Thank you for your help!

177. Capture One.

178. Thank you for PS CS6, LR6 and all previous standalone versions, a sad good bye x

179. Sorry i dont want my works uploaded by force in a cloud under any cirumcstances… does Adobe think Photographers are like cows which give unlimited milk ??

180. I am wondering about Adobe business model: How is it possible Photoshop only subscription to be $20 / month and Lightroom Classic + Photoshop to be $10 / month. Sooner or later, this subscription should balloon to maybe $30 or the Photoshop will be dropped out. Am I missing something?

181. I already pay for cloud backup service, primarily for more than 1TB of photos, but also documents, financial records and other program data that would need to be recovered if my computer crashes. I am reluctant to pay Adobe for photo storage and someone else for the other data, plus that split backup system seems to invite confusion and catastrophe. I hate having data limits and having to pay more every time I go over them, even as other services offer unlimited backup. While I could cull my library of photos, that is a cumbersome and time-consuming process. I have learned that I want those old photos as tools evolve to allow me to process and improve them. So, while I like the access offered by cloud-based LR, I guess it’s LR Classic for me.

182. I am really disappointed that a perpetual licence is no longer available. Also I fear that you will break your promise to continue the “Classic” line as you did with the promise to continue the standalone version. Sorry, I don’t trust you anymore.
     Wish the perpetual licence without any cloud would be available.

183. >>Some users have about 8TB worth of photos. How do they fit that into 1TB of space?
     TH: We have plans available for 1TB, 2TB, 5TB and 10TB right now at $9.99 per TB per month. <<

     You realize that means the answer to the question is that someone will have to spend $1200/year to use Lightroom CC. Can you name one photographer who will do that?

     1. Yeah – Lightroom CC … the crippled little brother of the once great Lightroom from a once great company. No one with it’s mind together will do this.

        All this remaindes me of Apples Aparture. Death with a note to use the disgusting Photos-App as an replacement. Lightroom Classic CC will die. But hey, Lightroom CC is there for all you smartphone photographers with some GB of photos. Great.

        All hope is lost. And all trust I have once given to Adobe. Sad. So sad.

     2. I totally agree. I’m “all in” on LR CC, but the pricing way out of line. As of two days ago I had 2.5TB of photos. I will not pay $30 per month for LR CC. I am currently deleting photos and moving photos to get my data under 1TB

        Monty

184. I’m an early adopter of the photography plan despite I own the perpetual version. So I effectively paid twice but this was a conscious decision knowing the two would drift apart in innovation terms. now we have a fork in the road again with cc v cc classic. That is unnecessary. It is a use case / workflow, not technology question. This can be achieved with a single code line with long term viability. What ever use case: desktop v Cloud centric will prevail, the other (and its associated software) will be left behind. And die eventually such as the ‘perpetual’ version. I’m not prepared to take that risk as being biased towards classic but cognisant Cloud-centric may win very long term. Unless Adobe reverses the ill-advised fork or commits to re-converge this is a fork in the road with hard choices.

     This is written from the perspective of an employee of a global leader in business software addressing both cloud and ‘classic’ without the fork. And with a choice between subscription and perpetual. It CAN be done!

     1. Roland Meier says:
        “This is written from the perspective of an employee of a global leader in business software addressing both cloud and ‘classic’ without the fork. And with a choice between subscription and perpetual. It CAN be done!”

        I appreciate your perspective on this aspect. I wish Adobe would listen to its most dedicated Lightroom customers, but yet again it seems our input is too insignificant to matter. What will Adobe do when suddenly a viable competitor to Lightroom appears? They really ought to take a lesson from the makers of color correction software for digital filmmakers: They GIVE AWAY THEIR SOFTWARE FOR FREE. With a few tweaks, a certain popular color grading software would make for a very powerful stills editor as well. I’ve said for many years that Adobe seemed like they were trying to reinvent the wheel with Lightroom, as its workflow seemed very much like the mature workflow of color correction for digital filmmaking. I’m not saying that Adobe should give away Lightoom for free, but they ought to pay attention to the convergence of Still and Motion Images because they could find themselves suddenly irrelevant to photographers if another established company that listens to its filmmaker user base suddenly announces that they will listen to photographers as well.

185. As much as I acknowledge that both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are the industry defacto standard, I don’t want to be on the hook for $10.00 – $20.00 per month. As my library is still relatively small, I will explore other photo editing options.

186. “But please hold us accountable as we make updates in the following months and years to let us know if we’re meeting your expectations.”
     OK – When LR5 was released you (Adobe) said that “Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely.” (http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html). You released LR6 with a perpetual licence that was incredibly difficult to find, and after that ONE version the perpetual licence has gone. That is absolutely not meeting my expectations. I know ‘indefinitely’ doesn’t technically mean forever, but ONE extra version, really?

     “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.”
     IMO, your customers barely had a choice, because the alternative was hidden away and difficult to find. I’d love to know the absolute numbers behind this.

     “we’re not phasing out Lightroom Classic and remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future.”
     I don’t believe you (Adobe) any more.

     As an aside, LR6 cost me £60, 30 months ago – £2 per month. Assuming LR7 lasts me a similar length of time, that’s a *400%* increase in cost per month on the Cloud plan. Who at Adobe sat down and decided customers could tolerate that kind of increase? At least offer us a cheaper plan without cloud storage and without Photoshop.

     Finally, it might encourage us to believe that Adobe is listening if some of the comments here received any kind of official response. I understand that it’s not possible to reply to every comment on hundreds of different websites, but this is a LR-specific article on adobe.com

187. While I do own both the Perpetual and the CC plan I am dismayed at the stance Adobe is taking.
     I am one of those for whom cloud storage is non-starter. First on the issue of space, just one collection of images I am cataloging will take over 3TB when completed. Others are much more. I’ve done a quick back of the envelope estimate of the total space I will need eventually and it’s looking like around 30TB. Most of what I do is for a small non-profit that does not have the budget to keep their images in a subscription based cloud system.

     Upload and download speeds are way too slow where I live. My best guess is that if I started now I could upload my existing images in about 6 months of continuous time. High speed Internet is not the norm for much of the world. Once the final collections are digitized and cataloged there is no way to effectively download them within a year if Adobe decides to stop supporting or I want them out of the cloud.

     I require that I maintain all originals in my own dedicated computer. The issues with access, backups, being able to revert how will you handle multiple copies and security are all reasons that cloud based solutions are not a viable option.

     The naming is totally bogus, Classic implies that you will kill it off as soon as you are able and there are critical features missing. For example, I use a lot of smart collections for sorting. Ideally I’d see a LR Mobile connected to Classic (which should be renamed to be LR Pro) where I can sync smart collections, edit all the metadata including keywords, captions, EXIF information etc. and then sync back to the desktop. The final master copy of all images and the metadata in the catalog must be my local desktop computer.

188. With the amount of exposure and web space “Lightroom Classic” gets compared to it’s not-yet-fully-functional-but-so-sexy cousin “Lightroom CC” gets, Adobe could just as well have gone ahead and called it “Lightroom Legacy” for those of us who are not interested in having our entire 8TB (and growing) photo libraries in the cloud.

     The fact that I almost installed the wrong version and had to hunt and look for information on Lightroom Classic hidden underneath all the fanfare about the CC version, tells me all I need to know about its future.

189. I’m disappointed that you are dropping perpetual licensing and will not be releasing a standalone versions of Lightroom 7. I have been an amateur user of Lightroom since version 1.

     The licensing change means that I will be looking elsewhere. If the subscription model would work something like the one used for Intellij, where you can keep any software you have subscribed to for a year, my concerns would be abated.

190. Really disappointed that Tone Curve is not available on the new Lightroom CC. I use this feature in all of my editing processes, as do many industry professionals, and do not see the benefit of removing this feature. I like the new updated version and it’s seamless use with mobile devices, however, the removal of this feature has forced me to stick with the “Classic” version. Hopefully the next update (soon??) will include the tone curve feature!

191. The new Lightroom CC is the future. It is much quicker and much easier to use. Thanks very much team for making it! I’ve been desperately wanting you to add full storage for all my photos. I think it will be very successful as it has what most amateur photographers need.

     Any idea on when Lightroom CC will get the following features, which I think are the only ones I need not in it now:
     – Syncing of presets across all devices
     – Colour profiles
     – Photo merge and panorama
     – Smart collections
     – More advanced searching – e.g. finding all photos not in an album (I’d love it if I could just type “All photos not in an album” into the search bar!)

     cheers!

192. Question: Is it (or will it) be possible to keep using LR Classic as my main app and then sync full resolution RAWs to LR CC to be able to access/edit/export on another computer? Or do I have to go all in on CC to take advantage of RAW backup? I see that all my current collections synced to LR mobile are available in the new LR CC, albeit compressed in a lower resolution like usual but I would consider upgrading if I could sync my RAWS instead.

193. I heard months ago LR6 would be the last stand alone version. I’ll stick with it until the end of time. I’m a retiree and it’s the last version I’ll get. I still run PS CS6 and my workflow still is viable. I have purchased Affinity Photo for LESS THAN $50 and it rocks as a backup to PS. Who needs PS CC?

194. “Why did you abandon the Lightroom standalone version?
     TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”

     Stop lying to us.

     First the customer didn’t ASK for this. You by the way you handled LR6 standalone herded and prodded people into signing up for the greed driven subscription system.

     Also, This is what you said just a couple years ago.

     Q. Will there be a different version of Lightroom called Lightroom CC?
     TH: A. No.

     Q. Will Lightroom become a subscription only offering after Lightroom 5?
     TH: A. Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely.

     I suspect there is as much truth in the things you are saying now as there is in the things you said then.

195. Here’s what a commenter recently wrote in another forum:

     “To me this is a strong hint that their strategic plan is to move forward with the new CC version and abandon what they now call Classic. If that were not the case, why not call the pre-existing version “LR Pro”, or :”LR Desktop” and the new one “LR Lite” or “Lightroom Elements” or “LR Web” or “LR Mobile”? There were so many name alternatives that would have made more sense if their intention was to keep both products. So, I suspect that keeping both products for the long term is not their intent.” http://tinyurl.com/yazjjazh

     Do you folks at Adobe realize how hurtful and unsettling this naming decision is to your loyal CC subscribers?

196. This is ridiculous !!! I have updated (not upgraded) my Lightroom as I often did and now I cannot use the software I paid for! Stop lying that “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan” and provide an option to revert back to the LR6!!! I spent 60 minutes on apple help line and could not get through.
     S H A M E !!!

197. If I sync the photos on my hard drive to the cloud and then delete them from the cloud will they be deleted on my hard drive the next time I sync?

198. I really dislike the term ‘Classic’ when that software is still supposed to be the original desktop version. I hope they give it a different name in the near future to avoid confusion. I saw another comment suggest to call it ‘Lightroom Pro’. That was brilliant! Not Classic!

     “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.”

     Myself and many others i’ve known felt we are forced into the CC plans. You’ve made it so difficult/complicated to buy the standalone lightroom. Wherever we navigate on the website, it keeps leading us to the CC plans instead.

199. I have the full “Creative Cloud for Teams” along with the rest of my office. For me, (I am out of town and haven’t checked with any others on my team), my download of Lightroom Classic says UPDATE, but my download of Lightroom CC says TRIAL and that it is a 7-day trial.I have downloaded it, and true to what it says, I now appear to only have 5 days left. I was at AdobeMAX this week and assured by every instructor I asked that it SHOULD be included, not a trial. Is that the case?

200. I remember Coke Classic and New Coke. Loyal customers rebelled. New Coke disappeared. Coke Classic returned to being Coke. I just looked up New Coke. The Wikipedia entry includes these wise words: “New Coke was discontinued in July 2002. It remains influential as a cautionary tale against tampering too extensively with a well-established and successful brand.”

201. “TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.”

     Customers are not choosing this option, Adobe is forcing it. The feedback is overwhelming. I will stick with my standalone version of Lightroom until it is no longer a functional option. That end may be coming soon and I have regrettably begun the process of looking for new RAW processing options. I understand the move to CC from a financial perspective but in the end you are boxing and alienating a pile of users. I have spent a good deal of my life in the photographic and software industries and in my opinion you are making some huge mistakes. Classic? Does anybody in your marketing department remember Coke Classic? I have no interest in paying a monthly ransom for my software. Listen to the voice of your customers. While Lightroom has been a pretty dependable tool for me over the years, you do have competition. I realize that all of the cool kids are doing the SAAS thing. It’s the flavor of the week. When the fad is over and the damage is done, there’s no turning back.

202. The average adobe employee has surely foreseen this shit storm. But as usual: It is the management who decides, and leaves the company after the disaster. Just to take over and destroy the next old fashioned company.

203. Having read all of these comments I do think that some are a little unfair and some perspective is needed:

     As anyone who has studied marketing will tell you (and it is a cliche now admittedly) – companies that survive over the long term, base everything they do around what the customer wants. Yes – Adobe have now basically forced its customers onto a subscription only model but guess what – nobody forces you to sign up to it. There are alternative non-subscription based options. However, as Adobe’s share price will tell you – many many many customers have chosen to sign up to it.

     Now lets look at the huge positive of that scenario – we all want companies like Adobe to innovate and provide us with great new features both now and into the future – better noise reduction/sharpening etc etc. In order to do that, companies need to invest in the very best talent to carry out the Research and Development needed to come up with, what I still think, is an astonishing level of “develop” tools. Do any of you sometimes do what I do and watch LR or Photoshop stitch a Pano together and just marvel at how it is done? All this, as we know, doesn’t come cheap: Adobe now have a lot of cash to invest heavily in R&D. And I bet they do and I bet we reap the benefits in the long term. I can’t wait to see what noise reduction will be like in say 5 years time….

     And let us be totally honest here, go back a few years – how many people actually purchased a genuine copy of photoshop/lightroom versus a pirated copy? IP theft was extremely common. Was I ever going to spend hundreds of pounds on a piece of software? I just couldn’t afford it. Now, I just pay circa £10 per month and I get LR and Photoshop, as well as automatic updates as and when they are released. I 100% understand that a lot of us are not flushed with cash but come on – £10 or $10 per month? people spend that amount on 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks in an hour, let alone a month!

     So, Adobe now get the money they deserve (rather than people out there stealing their IP) which enables them to innovate now and into the future. Are they perfect? No. Do they always get it right? No. I still haven’t forgotten when they created that awful import feature for Adobe “Classic”. But to be fair, they did listen to their customers and changed it back. The appallingly slowness of LR has driven me nuts over the last few months but I had faith that Adobe was listening and with this new release they have improved it, But “no” – they don’t always get it right. But they do learn from their mistakes.

     So all I’m asking for here is perhaps a little perspective. People vote with their feet. Adobe do not operate as a monopoly. There are other companies out there who offer alternative perpetual license software. If you are not happy then by all means voice your opinion (which you have absolutely every right to do) but I just thought I’d give voice to what could be considered the silent majority, who are just really happy that for £10 a month we now have access to these amazing products which I for one could never have afforded previously.

     So thanks Adobe (Tom) – on balance you guys get far more right than wrong and please please keep innovating to bring us these great products. But please don’t get rid of LR “Classic” as you have now mis-named it (I agree with other comments around this) !!!

     And no – for transparency sake, I don’t work for Adobe and other than indirectly through pension funds, I am not an Adobe shareholder!!

     1. Simon

        Although I agree with you that some perspective is needed I will challenge you on one of your comments – “ However, as Adobe’s share price will tell you – many, many, many customers have signed up to it.”
        As someone with a long time association with share trading I know that there are a number of factors that cause share value to rise/fall. I would suggest that the very good financial results posted by Adobe on Wednesday will have had a significant impact on the share price and that analysts, in general terms, like the way Adobe is moving. They do not always look at the detail and, to be fair, very few will have any real understanding of the finer points of Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic. Analysts will see this as Adobe adding new products and not, as many,many, many of its customers think, as betraying their loyalty.

     2. And I am sure you are a fanboy who was paid by Adobe to say all this crap!

     3. “nobody forces you to sign up to it. There are alternative non-subscription based options.”
        Therein lies the problem – there are no alternatives any more!

     4. You cannot be serious, I only use LR for one maybe two projects per year (my vacations), and why should I spend money monthly to be using LR 5-6 days a year … you must be mad. It’s fine that your (and other pro’s) what to spend monthly money on LR, but there are 1000’s of amateurs who can’t or will not afford that, updating LR once a year or maybe every second version is what we do, and are quiet happy to do so.

        Now Adobe will loose our business as there will be replacement products which will eventually replace LR as Affinity Photo is doing with PS… You can only have your head in the clouds for so long, one day you’ll discover that it was too long.

        1. (Assuming we are talking about LR Classic here)
           If anything Casper you are in a winning situation no? If you only use it on two occasions (so let’s call it two months) you get to do all the latest gubbins on your photos for the grand total of $20. When you are not using the software (10 months of the year) you aren’t paying a penny and still have access to view, catalogue and export your work for free (everything baring develop and map continue to work after your subscription expires).

           Are you telling me you would prefer to spend $100’s of dollars on software you use twice a year?

           1. Are you asserting that Adobe will allow subscribers to stop paying the subscription fee and then restart it at some later date with no penalty?

        2. So I assume you “edit” your photos in LR. The key differentiator for LR is the catalog. If you only use LR twice a year for a few days then I doubt you really don’t need the catalog… only some basic editing tools. One alternative is Adobe Elements, which is probably the product for you. About $100 and perpetual license. Another option is LR Mobile which is free. Works on iOS and Android. LR Mobile is very similar to LR CC and you can’t beat the price $0.

           BTW – I teach photography classes, and there are several options. The one I encourage my students to use is LR mobile. Since it is free my approach is if they choose something else they are on their own.

        3. Casper.

           Absolutely see where you are coming from, but I was thinking exactly the same as Patrick – why on earth use Lightroom if you only do edits for 5-6 days per year? To my mind it is pretty pointless using Lightroom and certainly pointless paying a monthly subscription (I certainly wouldn’t pay it). However, the simple solution has to be to purchase Adobe Elements (perpetual licence) and problem pretty much solved. OK – you could argue that Elements may not have all the features that Lightroom has, but I would have thought that it still has enough for someone who only needs processing for 2 vacations’s worth of images per year.

           To the other comment – any organisation that only listened to their shareholders wouldn’t last very long in any industry. Shareholders only of course want profit. I think we all agree on that: Customers want value for money. If the company fail to provide value for money then customers stop buying the product, and there is no profit for shareholders. Adobe employ people considerably more intelligent than I am. So if I understand that, I’m pretty certain Adobe do!

           50 other people can post here saying how unhappy they are and that they are leaving Adobe, but other than perhaps making them feel better for a short period for having written it, what is the point in posting it? Adobe isn’t going to change their business model: Subscriptions are here to stay. However, free speech at all that – keep posting I guess; I’m just not sure what is being achieved.

     5. I think you have not understood the concept of (nearly) monpoly. This is what Adobe is playing here and a lot of people are supporting this. Look at Intel – how Long have they rested on their success until AMD came back again.
        Monopoly is never, ever good for customers.

     6. I actually did buy Photoshop 5.5, Upgrade to 6, 7 and CS through CS4 And all versions of Lightroom from 1.0 to 5. Now I am a high school photography and video teacher who just convinced my admin to drop $2500 per year to let me have Adobe for 30 computers. There are plenty of is buying it legally. Next yeary budget committee will be hearing a pitch from me for Corel or ACDSee.

204. Dear Adobe, what you are doing is a *SHAME*!
     I was(!) an enthusiast and I purchased a Lightroom standalone license since version 1.0!
     We want our perpetual license back! We don’t want to pay every month to use Lightroom…
     LISTEN to your customers or most of them will choose another software (as I will):
     https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/5431017013/rip-lightroom-6-death-by-subscription-model

205. Wish it was possible to use LR Classic on a few computers and online LR CC on something like a surface or wacom hybrid

206. I’ve been using Lightroom since version 1 and I bought all upgrades. I use Lightroom as image manager and I do only some basic adjustments in it. Then I use Affinity Photo and/or Nik Collection and finally export photos from Lightroom. Many times I use Silkypix for raw processing because of better camera profiles and color rendering.

     The discussion is about Lightroom not a bundle Lightroom + Photoshop and about buying vs. renting software. And if I cannot buy Lightroom why do I have to pay 13 € for the bundle? Why can’t I just subscribe Lightroom Classic for 2..3€? Price of Photoshop CS6 was around 700€ and Lightroom like 150€. It’s like you want to buy car for everyday use but you will have to pay for additional Formula One car doesn’t matter if you will use it or not!

     But today it’s obvious that Lightroom Classic CC is just a temporary solution. Take a look at the plans names: Photography plan (20GB) 10$, Photography plan (1TB) 20$, Lightroom CC plan (1TB) 10$. And in a few years Photography plan (20GB) would be discontinued and the cost of new simplified for smartphone and tablet users Lightroom will be 10$ and Lightroom + Photoshop 20$ unless Adobe would find brilliant idea how to raise the prices even more.

     I didn’t have to subscribe Premier thanks to Davinci Resolve and after so many years with Lightroom I will find alternative. It even makes me a little bit excited because new software tool can be as refreshing as switching from dslrs to mirrorless cameras!

207. Dear Adobe,
     When you call Lightroom “Classic” I have no faith that you won’t eventually kill the software and move to cloud only.
     As a professional photographer I DO NOT WANT TO BE FORCED TO STORE IMAGES IN THE CLOUD.
     General cloud storage is too expensive.
     Adobe cloud storage is outrageously expensive.
     Cloud storage is far too slow.
     Cloud storage connections have had serious problems at times, particularly for those of us that shoot in remote locations with poor internet.
     Cloud storage isn’t secure enough.
     Convince us otherwise or you will lose customers. It’s that simple.
     Thank you.
     Kevin Gilligan
     http://www.photosbykag.com

208. Here’s what a commenter recently wrote in another forum:

     “To me this is a strong hint that their strategic plan is to move forward with the new CC version and abandon what they now call Classic. If that were not the case, why not call the pre-existing version “LR Pro”, or :”LR Desktop” and the new one “LR Lite” or “Lightroom Elements” or “LR Web” or “LR Mobile”? There were so many name alternatives that would have made more sense if their intention was to keep both products. So, I suspect that keeping both products for the long term is not their intent.” http://tinyurl.com/yazjjazh

     Do you folks at Adobe realize how hurtful and unsettling this naming decision is to your loyal CC subscribers?

209. “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.”

     Sorry Adobe, but this is a false narrative of what happened and why you are doing this. Your customers always wanted a stand alone product instead of being controlled by you with having to rent software or loose functionality. You intentionally created the environment to phase out stand alone products like Lightroom 6, forcing customers to change to rental software. And now you falsely claim it was your customers that did this. Sad.

210. In my opinion, Adobe have given up the amateur enthusiast photographer customer segment. The amount of marketing doublespeak required to “justify” Adobe’s decisions points to its major flaws:

     Adobe promised (https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html) to keep offering a perpetual license in future versions, thereby influencing buyer decision for Lightroom 6. Then they made it very hard to actually buy the perpetual license version of LR 6, and now they argue that buyers were deliberately choosing the CC version. I believe a significant number of LR users are in the same segment as me: Amateur enthusiast photographers who need a photo management and RAW developer tool, but do not use it on more than one or two devices. For those users, the choice of the perpetual license made the most sense. I am unwilling to pay a monthly amount which will add up the normal upgrade price in under a year, unless it provides me with significant advantages.

     So, about those advantages…
     Adobe argued that the 2015 CC version would regularly get new features, which would have been an incentive to choose it over the standalone LR 6 version. Looking at the list of features that have been added to LR 2015 CC, I must say that it’s neither long nor that impressive. It certainly does not point to continuous development of the CC version. It would certainly haven’t justified the higher cost for LR 2015 CC for me. Nevertheless, Adobe might argue that the new Classic CC version is the right choice for me, as it offers new features and performance improvements.

     Let’s see…
     The Classic CC version offers some badly needed performance improvements – finally, one might say. However, those are limited to a few specific functions. If Adobe were really serious about LR’s performance, they should have really worked on that in LR 5 and 6. Adobe also promise that they will continue to support and develop LR Classic CC. Just as they promised to offer a perpetual version? Honestly: As the development effort seems to have gone mostly towards the new cloud version, visible in the fact that the new LR Classic CC does not really offer that many new or improved features, how likely is it that LR Classic CC is a good choice for the next few years?

     Well, Adobe might say, if you want the latest and greatest, get the new CC version!
     Apart from the very unfortunate and confusing choice of product name, the cloud version is not even feature-complete when compared to the classic version, as I understand it. It offers cloud support, though – but I really don’t need that as an amateur. Even some professionals seem to balk at the cloud-centric design. So why would I choose a less powerful, but more expensive version?

     To summarize: Adobe’s past behaviour indicates that they can neither be trusted to support the classic CC version long enough nor that choosing the new, much more expensive cloud version will offer true benefits for amateur enthusiast photographers. The most rational choice for me seems to keep using LR 6 with the perpetual license for as long as it is viable, while researching other options for me next toolset.

211. As long as I can get the functionality of lightroom cc with lightroom cc clasic for $10 a month, I will be happy. I have too much volume away from an internet connection to fool around with the new cloud based lightroom cc. If Adobe pulls the plug on the current cost/benefit combination of lightroom cc classic, I will be very actively looking at alternatives.

212. As a LR6 standalone user: Ciao and goodbye adobe

213. I’m not evaluating DxO OP as a replacement for LR 6 when the time comes it doesn’t work any longer. I will never dedicate a portion of my retirement income to monthly payments to any product. I don’t mind paying periodic upgrades if warranted.

     1. I AM evaluating DxO!

214. Dear Adobe,
     I’m really shocked that you will abandon the Lightroom standalone version and force us to use a Cloud based solution. I’m a simple hobby photographer and want my pictures and workflow only on my PC. There is absolute no need for me for a cloud.
     If this become true I’ll look for another standalone solution.

215. Hi, you write:
     Why did you abandon the Lightroom standalone version?
     TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom. We’re aligning our investment with the direction our customers have signaled over the last several years.

     I think there are thousands of customer who will never choose your cloud services and one of these customers am I. Did you ask your share hoders if they support your decission, I wouldn’t.

     Here why I never will use your cloud:
     – My pictures are privat and I have seen too many cases where clouds where hacked
     – US Goverment can request to open my account and I get not notified
     – When I stop my abo I can not longer develop my files, maybe they get even deleted

     Seems when I would start with an abo I’m on a hook and can’t never stop again. Sounds like this is similar to a drug and the customers are the junkies.

     I thought drugs are forbidden in the US

     I can only hope you change your decission otherwise you have lost another customer

     Regards
     Dieter

216. We switched to the cloud plan about half a year ago and I don’t feel that it is such a big disadvantage. In fact I really enjoy being able to use the latest software without even thinking about wether I should upgrade or not. The day I saw that there is a new version of Lightroom I just hit the “update” button in CC and thats it. nice.

     Most wanted improvement so far: faster preview speed for RAW Files. Thank you! 😉

217. What’s happening for those with a “Creative Cloud All Apps” subscription?
     I pay £59 pcm per team seat, and it’s listed as a ‘7 day trial’ app?? Can’t find any information for full CC subscribers other than “start a separate subscription.” Pretty galling…

218. How open and trustworthy is this initiative?
     Will Adobe provide a choice of Cloud providers with easy migration to Azure, AWS, Flickr, or others?
     Is the new Adobe cloud GDPR compliant?
     What is the privacy policy, given that you’ll get access to everybody’s pictures? Are you planning to do data mining on the images and their EXIF data?

219. Okay, thats the end of my use of Lightroom. Very stupid idea, your are going to lose a lot customers. No serious Photographer will send private Raw to your cloud. And no one will pay for such bad support.

220. For a person who have a “real” license to LR, and does not use the product enough to wanting to shell out money for rent-a-software, I do think that Adobe talk with split tongues …

     You did not kill the normal license by listning to anyone but your major stock holders, anyone who tells you that the normal license is no longer lying is mad as biscuits.

     1. So true! Split – toungue.

        Mr. Hogarty: Can you tell us about the Thing you said here:
        https://www.dpreview.com/ar…
        https://blogs.adobe.com/lig…

        So if you are truly customer oriented, please answer why said this and, which was a lie?

        1. Sorry, second link here again:
           https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html?red=a&tduid=c50e2ac889a1c6acb759e006d4d4c5ae&url=https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/05/lightroom-and-the-creative-cloud.html

           1. and the other link here:
              https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0476255060/adobe-lightroom-5-beta-google-hangout

221. I was very excited to move to CC even though there has been a lot of bad comments on it. I uploaded everything to the cloud and lost my file structure so now I have a great big folder in the cloud with files seemingly in random order. To spend hours and hours organizing the cloud when I had my hard disk so organized is very disappointing and will make me go back to classic.

222. What happens if I work with Lightroom CC while travelling, will the chosen settings for photos be synced with lightroom classic on my home desktop as well?

223. I use Lightroom6 once a month for personal photos. I do not now need Photoshop nor will I ever need it. I am not happy. I hope the shareholders are happy because I am not sure the customers are.

224. Is it or will it be possible to back up RAWs into CC the way we sync smart previews of collections into to LR Mobile now?

225. I don’t see “classic” in the Adobe Creative Cloud installer app. I chose “Get the update” from your announcement web page and got the message “This computer does not meet the minimum system requirements for Lightroom Classic CC. Please refer to the system requirements in the Help documentation for a full list of hardware and software requirements for Lightroom Classic CC.”

     Exactly what help documentation would that be if I can’t even download it? When will it appear in the Creative Cloud toolbar app?

226. Hi, it’s very disappointing coming to know of the decision to renegade on your own promise to keep LR standalone available for LR7 and beyond simply for the purpose of maximizing profits. For starters , Not everyone is able to have a constant web connection to run CC and also, the standalone presents another available option for users who made the conscious choice to pay for an original instead of simply pirating the software.

227. I would rather keep the standalone version, and if you don’t keep the standalone updated I will give my money to another company.

228. Hi do you have to use lightroom cc if you want to upload to the cloud? I use lightroom classic but I want to up load the catalogue automatically so I can carry on doing some edits on my tablet then when I get back to my computer carry on again.

229. I want the Classic version with the CC UI ja responsiveness. CC versions lack of Develope / LIbrary is also excellent. Bummer that there will be two versions in the future as well. Not sure if this is really the right choise.

230. Adobe listens…to its stockholders.

231. I have been a LR user since V2.0. I welcome LR CC. I have wanted all my photos everywhere for a long time. I am currently preparing to convert my LR Classic to LR CC. Sadly putting all of my photos into LR CC is cost prohibitive. I will pay $10 per month, but no more!

     I think LR CC V1.0 is a solid program. I’ve had a couple of issues with it, but I’m sure (I hope) updates will come fast and frequent.

     The one feature I missed most is customizable Publishing Services. I’m hoping this will be addressed in future updates

     Monty

232. I made my decision: In the next years I will migrate to Capture One Pro. It has better IQ already and Performance is better also.

     Adobe is Hearing only one voice: Money. So we have to tell them our opinion the only way they are looking and Hearing…

     1. Why are all my comments “awaiting Moderation” sind October 22? Hello moderator… don’t be afraid of my comments….

233. I don’t know any photographers that requested or prefer to have Lightroom as a subscription based software. Those that did subscribe did so reluctantly, feeling they had no alternative to the features that LR provided. If given the chance for a perpetual stand alone product that worked with no restrictions, they would ALL go back to that version.
     I guess we now know that indefinitely is about 3 years.

     To TOM:If you are a user of LR Classic, what happens to the software and editing features if you stop paying the monthly fee?

234. Fully supporting cloud based features is a good thing, and I have no issue with the product naming (who really cares, anyway). I like the idea that my entire library can be made available in the cloud. The indefensible part, however, it the wall of separation between Lr Classic and Lr CC. Edits made to photos in Lr CC do not appear in Lr Classic and vice versa. I’d like to know the reason for this.

     I like the Lr CC interface, however. So far, I see the following features from Lr Classic missing:
     – Tone Curve (the presets feature has a list of “Curves”, yet there doesn’t appear to be a curve editor
     – Split Toning
     – Camera calibration (how can I use ColorChecker Passport to make custom profiles without this?)
     – Map mode (this is really useful for Travel Photography)
     – Books, Slideshows, Web mode (meh)
     – Print mode (really?)

     The lack of printing — there’s not even a menu item for printing — is surprising. Printing is apparently a “Classic” feature that nobody uses. Yes, you can print from Ps, but the Lr Classic print mode is much more powerful than anything in Photoshop. Niggling frustrations is that Lr CC doesn’t remember the state of your preferred interface layout, _ie_ if you like seeing all the options expanded in the “detail” settings, you must re-expand all of them every time you want to use those controls.

     All in all, I think the Lr CC is a very good 1.0 release. Hoping they add back the pro features like the print mode, camera calibrations, etc. Letting users jump back and forth would definitely help the transition, though, and there is currently no way to do that.

235. Do not trust Adobe. Lightroom Classic will be dropped as soon as Adobe thinks they can lock in users from moving to another platform.

236. Adobe, I am now unable to work on my photos because of this mess you created!!! I have been a loyal paying customer but shame on your for forcing upgrades, monthly payments etc.. w/o freedom to purchase the software. All you do is confuse customers and interrupt workflow.

237. Here’s what a commenter recently wrote in another forum:

     “To me this is a strong hint that their strategic plan is to move forward with the new CC version and abandon what they now call Classic. If that were not the case, why not call the pre-existing version “LR Pro”, or :”LR Desktop” and the new one “LR Lite” or “Lightroom Elements” or “LR Web” or “LR Mobile”? There were so many name alternatives that would have made more sense if their intention was to keep both products. So, I suspect that keeping both products for the long term is not their intent.”

     Do you folks at Adobe realize how hurtful and unsettling this naming decision is to your loyal CC subscribers?

238. No matter which tool you use , performance is still terrible.
     Expected much more after all this time.

239. Right or wrong, choosing to rename the desktop app to Lightroom Classic to me infers it is being depreciated in favor of the new mobile-centric version. As others have said, why didn’t Adobe rename it Lightroom Pro to better signify its place within the suite as a viable, long-term product that photographers can get behind. The rebranded name does not instill confidence in Adobes intent for the app, I’m afraid. Sorry, Adobe, but as soon as the gold master version of ON1 2018 — a standalone app — is released with features that significantly closes the gap between it and LR/PS, this long-time LR/PS user is going to jump ship.

240. Hello – I’ve been reading above to try to find an answer but cannot get LR working again! I logged in and updated (without knowing about all the changes) to LR CC…when opened NONE of my photos (besides about 12 on previous import) showed up…only gray boxes for all 7000+ photos. Uninstalled and reinstalled..then uninstalled and reinstalled the LR Classic CC – still have same problem… how do I get my images back so I can edit ? I work on desktop PC.
     Thank you!!

241. Creating a new product and giving it the name as an old product is confusing to your customers, and not what anyone would regard as an intelligent thing to do. Call Lightroom – the one that’s been called Lightroom for years, Lightroom; call the new cloud-based lightroom-like-thing something else. “Illuminated Space”. “Adobe Cloud Picture Thing”. Anything, just not Lightroom, that name’s taken, thank you very much. Remember New Coke?

242. If the perpetual licence model is dead why are Affinity doing so well with PHOTO? They sell the desktop version for £49.99 and the iPad version for £19.99. I use it and it is a perfect alternative to Photoshop. The iPad version is a REAL piece of software not, as is often the case, a “lite’ version.

     I can open Affinity Photo from Lightroom Classic, do my serious editing and then return back to LR just like you can do with PS. I even open RAW images directly from Lightroom on my iPad and edit in Affinity. It does everything I want and so don’t need all the bells and whistles I’m getting as part of my Photography PLAN WITH Adobe. I won’t be switching to the all-new Lightroom CC as I can see no reason to pay a fortune for cloud storage. In fact, who really wants to have access to all their images from any device? Surely, just the best or those needing to be edited. Sensei might be clever but when I ask it to search for”dogs” do I really want it to find over 300 of them – good and bad?

     I have been in touch with the Affinity team and sadly they are not currently considering a Lightroom alternative but may do in the future.

243. As an amateur I use LR for a lot of years now; it’s a great product. But now I certainly will be looking for alternatives.
     Besides not believing the ‘promise’ of keeping LR Classic alive (Adobe has already proven they can’t be believed), the subscription model is just way too expensive.
     In the Netherlands I paid around €80 – €100 for the LR standalone versions. When going to the subscripption model I would be paying €145 per year, at least 3 times as much!!! (€12,09 per month). OK, apart from LR I also get PS, but I don’t need that (I still use PS Elements v14 and that serves me well).
     Why o why is there no subscription package with just LR (Classic) WITHOUT PS?!?!?!

     Working in the cloud may be fine for people who just shoot some pictures with their phones,, but when you shoot large numbers of RAW pictures it’s just not a feasible alternative. Uploading takes forever (and Adobe wants way too much money for every GB of extra storage …).

     Adobe, please listen to your customers; not only to your stockholders! Give us the products we need, with a choice (standalone subscription) and don’t be so GREEDY!

     My days using LR will be numbered. I’ll be looking for altenatives. Anyone any good advice?

244. Well, if there will be no standalone version to which I can upgrade my LR6, then I will move to other vendor. I do not want to store whatever of my photos raw somewhere in the cloud and pay monthly $60 for this. I want to have full control of my photos, who can access them, how they are stored, how they are backed up, etc. In case of Adobe, I have no control about anything and paying $60 a month for this… sorry, NO.

245. Finally! Improved preview speed for RAWs … we were waiting for that since a long time.
     I was just about to buy PhotoMechanic because of the bad preview performance. Im really glad that I don’t need to now.

246. After installation of LR-Classic and upgrading my entire existing LR6 cat, can additional specific images from LR6 be upgraded to the LR-Classic cat at a later time? Example, say my original LR6 cat has1000 images at the time I upgraded to LR-Classic, so those 1000 were updated to the new cat. Now, a week later if I have added 100 more images to the LR6 catalog , is there a way to select just those 100 images and have them updated and add to the LR-Classic cat? Yes, I know I should just add them directly to LR-Classic, but I have a specific reason for putting them in LR6 first. Why? Because my wife has standalone LR6 on her computer and only uses it for cataloging her photos (keywords, flags etc). She flags the ones she wants me to work on. Since we share the same catalog/source on our local NAS, I can easily find them to work on in LR6. However, if I move to LR-Classic, I’d like to use her flagged images and update those images to the LR-Classic cat and work on them there.
     Is this possible?

247. Useful updates for LR are few and far between. Performance was, and still is…well, let’s not begin that discussion again. At the end of the day, LR is convenient, but certainly neither the best DAM (catalog manager) or raw developer.
     But worst of all: Adobe lied to us about perpetual licenses – it’s a simple as that. And I don’t believe a word of “everyone wanted to switch to subscriptions”. Yes, we did switch, but only because we had no alternative.
     Bottom line: I’ll switch ASAP to Capture One for raw and Imatch for DAM. Whatever the quality of the products, I just hate being lied to.

248. I have updated to Lightroom Classic CC and Installed new Lightroom CC. At present, my Lightroom Mobile is synced with Lightroom Classic CC. I am unable to start new Lightroom CC. I have tried logging out of Creative Cloud and logging in again, uninstalling Lightroom CC and re-installing from Local Admin account. Problem still persists.

249. I was running Lr thru the Creative Cloud. (@ 9.99$ per month)
     Just downloaded the Lr CC yesterday & was charged USD 21.24 for the download
     Is the new Lr chargeable again???? I thot it was included in my subscription??
     Can anybody clarify.. from Adobe..or the Community!!
     Regards

250. Now I am more than confident that switching to Capture one pro was a good decision. Now to test out Affinity!

251. I don’t have a problem with the price in first place.
     My problem is, that i don’t like to be in need of a connection to Adobes Servers. Classic CC is told to be running 99 Days without connection – I know at least one photographer for whom this didn’t work (ship cruise, LR stops working)

     Call it a bug, maybe it’s fixed, it doesn’t matter. Sooner or later it will happen. No Internet, no Server, another bug – something Server-Related. You have to work but at some point you find yourself figuring out what’s going wrong and how to fix that (good luck if you don’t have internet when that happens)

     It’s a new level of complexity that i don’t want to have. Period.
     I told Adobe more than once: Make it more expensive, LR has a big value. It was getting to cheap after Apple came out with Aperture (where is it now?) – in my eyes that was a mistake.

     So: No standalone license? No LR for the future for me i think… I already started to look at competitors. (and yes: There is not a single one out there that could replace LR 100% – sad but true. So it would be a multiple-App Workflow then… will see)

252. I’m part of a team that has the whole license suite, but for some reason Lightroom CC comes up as “Try/Buy”. Doesn’t my subscription come with this app? And if not, why?

253. I downloaded lightroom CC to try it out. This causes all my photos to be synced & resulted in running out of storage space. When I switched back to lightroom classic, I cannot sync anything else because of the cloud storage being full. I had a few small collections in lightroom classic which I had on sync so they did not hit take up a lot of cloud space.
     Unfortunately, not I’m stuck with a whole lot of photos in the cloud that I do not want there. I contacted Adobe help and they said it will be “a manual process to delete images from lightroom cc which are not in classic and they will be deleted permanantly”. This is a bit confusing. I want my lightroom synced collections to stay as they are & remove all the other photos that CC uploaded.
     I’d consider updating to 1TB but customer support said the only way to do that is to cancel my prepaid membership & buy a new one. I read on dpreview that existing customers had an upgrade option for 14.99 instead of 19.99, but I could not do that either.
     While I don’t mind change, I’m disappointed in Adobe’s handling of this transition – it should have been seamless.

254. I love the new Artificial intelligence keywording with the new LR CC but I would only use that very limitedly whilst I’m adding keywords to items. It is possible to sync (easily) keywords add in the new CC to the classic version?

255. I wouldn’t mind upgrading to CC if it had the ability to sync only files I select which it seems it does not.
     Forcing syncing of all imported photos would suggest making customers buy cloud storage is the business plan.

256. I posted this technical question to the Luminous Landscape forum, but none of their experts answered. So let me try here:
     When syncing an image to both Classic and CC (or Mobile) and making develop adjustments (not simultaneously) in both, it is not clear how the additional capabilities in Classic (Camera Calibration, curves,…) are handled by CC.

     For example, suppose I change Camera Calibration from Adobe Standard to Camera Landscape in Classic, is this maintained as the base when I later work in CC or on an iPad? What is the unstated Camera Calibration in CC? Is it Adobe Standard?

     In other words, if I move a Camera Landscape file from Classic to CC, work on it there, then move back to Classic, will I still find Camera Landscape or will it have changed to Adobe Standard or???

     The question gets even more complicated if you change to an earlier process version of Camera Calibration in Classic and then move to CC.

     Similarly, if one changes the curves in Classic, what happens in CC?

     Does anyone have a definitive answer to these knowable unknown?

257. My previous comment was not published so trying again.
     Why does CC not allow me to select which photos get uploaded to the cloud? This is an absurd omission.
     Is it so I’m forced to buy more cloud storage?

     1. Of course 🙂 By forcing people to upload all of their photos, and pay for additional cloud storage usage, Adobe effectively is increasing the price of Lightroom many-fold. As noted earlier, if you have 8TB of files, your monthly cost to use lLgthroom (using the new CC version) jumps from $10/month to $90/month (over $1,000/year) – a 9-fold increase. Giving you control over what images you want in the cloud will deny Adobe that massive increase in revenue.

258. According to SLR Lounge, LR Classic is actually LOOSING capabilities:
     •There is no printing in Lightroom CC
     •No HDR or Panorama merge at this point
     •Abandonment of the Catalogue ability. You will have a single library connected to your ID. You will have no option to separate into separate catalogues.
     These are integral to many photographers’ workflow. Why have they been stripped from the desktop version?

     1. That’s incorrect. Classic has all the features it always had. The new cloud-native app is only at version 1.0, so it doesn’t (yet) have all of the features we’ve come to expect, but that’s just because it’s so new and looks at photo organization/editing from a different angle.

259. Do the math, people:
     I bought LR6 about 2 years ago as an update and I can easily go a year ahead with it. That’s €75 for 36 months. For LR classic (as you call it) I will pay €432 for the same period.

     Furthermore:
     When subscribing, I will be left to Adobe’s wishes what (not) to invent or update. We’ve all seen these last couple of years how they failed to address the no 1 complaint: speed. So how will this shareholder (instead of customer) driven company act once we’re all aboard the merry go round (see my next point). When actually buying new software, a company has got to offer something substantially new/better.

     Then there’s the merry go round. With the subscription model you can’t stop anymore, otherwise you’ll never be able to access your libraries, do developing changes afterwards or re-export etc. Clever business trick. Not one I want to be stuck on.

     So there you have it, Adobe. You’ve lost another customer. Alien Skin, Affinity, Corel, Macphun or ACDSee, one of you can look forward to a new customer somewhere in 2018! Bye bye Adobe.

260. It’s been fun but I have to say I will be saying bye bye to Adobe LR after this. No perpetual licence means I don’t work with you. Period! I don’t lease/rent my software from anyone. I don’t care how good you are. I would have paid more for the “upgrade” than you used to charge…. but your marketing team thinks monthly rental is only way to go. Sorry to say but you will be laying off a large portion in your marketing team in a few years when the revenue starts to shrink. I’ve started looking and your competitors are pretty good.

261. Quick question on sync’ing between lightroom CC and lightroom classic.
     I have just migrated my catalog to CC, and made some changes ( i rejected some images I’ll probably want to delete for good. Do these changes sync back to lightroom classic?
     Do any changes (edits to photos, keywording) sync back to lightroom classic?
     Also, I noticed that the new lightroom cc catalog file is about 350gb, so i assume it has stored all the originals in this file on my mac. Whats the best way to reduce this file size, as I don’t need it on my mac twice. (in my lightroom classic folder and lightroom cc data file)

262. The naming is definitely wrong and misleading.

     I just went over the long list of crucial features that have been omitted from LR CC. You ought to change the name to “Lightroom Lite” and rename LR Classic to “Lightroom Professional”.

263. It seems to me two issues are confused here, to wit, subscription model versus cloud model. I don’t mind the CC subscription model at the present price if the present support and peripheral benefits remain. But I have no need for the cloud model, because 1) I have no intent of ever trying to edit a photo on a tiny mobile screen, and 2) I’d have to store my RAW files locally, in any case, as the Adobe cloud apparently will not do so, and 3) for sharing my photos on a tiny mobile screen, Apple’s cloud service at $0.99/month does that perfectly well.

264. I uploaded some photos to LR CC from Classic. Not all of them show up in CC but when I check in Classic it says they are already copied. What am I doing wrong?

265. Shame on you Adobe. I do not want any CC version and be stuck with the monthly fee. You cut you business as many new photographers will just does not start with your product anymore … same me. I did buy each LR since ver. 1, and after all those years you kick to me?
     Now I need to select one of alternative products and will turn back to you

     Thanks
     Tomas

266. Adobe, you lose. . .your “updates” proves you can not keep up with working photographers i.e. traveling photographers. Since I’m on assignment for a couple months on end your “need to connect to adobe servers to activate usage” kills my productivity. if I can’t use LR6 I am done with you today! I’ve already have a workflow ported with Capture One and i” teach my APNews brothers how to do it. Forget you Adobe!

     “TH: Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.”

     I call BS on you Tom & Adobe!

267. I have been a CC user since Adobe started to offer the Photoshop and Lightroom Plan for $9.99/month. Now, I’m all confused about upgrading to the new version. Somewhere in the Adobe website I think I saw something that said that if you subscribed to the $9.99/month plan prior to 10/18/17, you can download the new version for the same $9.99/month. Is this true?

268. “Customers are overwhelmingly choosing the Creative Cloud Photography plan as the preferred way to get access to Lightroom.”

     You made sure of this by hiding the stand alone version as good as possible on your website and by deliberately crippling its functionality (dehaze, advanced panoramic stitching options…). I am perfectly fine to pay upgrades, however you never gave me the option to do so.

     Ultimately: for a tool which is used to organize a long term archive I do not accept a rental model. Hence I will have to stick with 6 for now while evaluating the market for alternatives. I did the unpleasant move from Aperture to Lightroom a few years ago and I am ready to do this a second time now – thanks for nothing, you seriously pissed off a customer.

269. I have what you now call Lightroom Classic. But I have not changed or Upgraded to Classic.
     Q1. What will happen if I do not change?
     q2. Do I have to update and change to Classic
     q3 How will this change my existing work and workflow? Information is not quite clear

270. I miss 1/1 preview from classic to CC. That’s usable feature If use primary classic on desctop (having all files on hardcore drive)and CC on laptop with selected content. I like that’s idea of CO use this platforms. But that’s reguire 1:1 preview and good management of shared content.
     Also RAW import flow from CC to classic including RAW transfer to hardrive can Be usable.

271. Having trouble when I’m in the lightroom in develop mode, the images get fuzzy and granular when I edit images, but when going to library it disappears,
     that’s what it’s not in the previous version, very uncomfortable what’s wrong

272. Well Adobe, I have not chosen your cloud products and will find some other product to serve my needs.

273. As an amateur photographer I was about to buy LR 6 Standalone as I can’t commit to a very expensive monthly plan when my actual work and life doesn’t really make me have time to use the product whenever I want. Why paying for a subscription when you know you won’t be able to use that for as much as you would? It’s like having Spotify premium and only streaming a couple of tunes per month…
     On the contrary, I’m ok with making a one off payment and expect a few improvements every now and then and an option to upgrade.
     Subscriptions are not always a business model that works, clearly not for a photo editing tool and it’d be silly to think cloud space is even a use case for people who snaps pictures with a DSLR. Offer it if you want, to those who adamantly want such cloud space, not many considering the enormous amount of comments here proving how you’re possibly being not very transparent when stating that there’s a huge customer demand for your cloud products. Who would ever believe that’s so huge to let you dismiss the standalone version? Wouldn’t be more mature saying you’re going for profitability and that’s your business decision? It’s obviously quite a bad one considering how users have invested time and money into your products, if you want to hook them, do it by providing better options that they would possibly be happy to upgrade to rather than removing options and only keeping rip-off ones.
     In fact, any Adobe subscription for any Adobe product is far too expensive for the average amateur who doesn’t make a penny out of the products. No wonder you’re unfortunately, unjustifiably, possibly one of the most hacked software around.
     Bye bye Adobe.

274. I have updated to new Lightroom Classic. All of my previous photos and videos were imported. Regarding my videos; the video thumbnails are there, but I can not play them . When I place the cursor over the video thumbnail the sequence moves but Lightroom Classic won’t play them. Also, Lightroom Classic will not import any new videos from my camera. Is the team adressing video problems in Classic?
     Thanks

275. My intellectual property is my photos and my creative edit decisions. I expect to be able to access these and reuse them ‘forever’ and regularly go back to revisit these at any time. I expect to have to take steps myself with both storage and software platforms to do this. I can do this now by regarding anything in the cloud as ‘working’ and not the master copy, and by using software with a perpetual licence. I’m happy, and expect to, pay more for an upgrade if I want new facilities or support for a new camera.

     I spend many years working on open standards and interfaces so that companies compete on quality, useful features and price, rather than locking customers into their infrastructure, but have observed many times that such companies policy statements on openness and long term support are frankly worthless. Any business or individual that risks their own intellectual property on such guarantees is naive.

     It seems to me that is whole debate is brought about, not by Adobe innovating new workflows licences and access methods which is to be commended, but by withdrawing the old methods in a way that forces people’s intellectual property to be controlled by Adobe using subscription. I could not recommend any individual or business to risk losing their content in the long term by accepting such a proposition.

276. Sorry to say to my Adobe and LR “friends”, but I’ve started testing On1 Raw and have my initial assessment is I should have started this move long ago. Everything I need is there and it’s pretty clear to me that my LR6 perpetual license is my last purchase from you. You have copied the “Obama Lie – you can keep your plan and your doctor”…. with LR5 you promised perpetual licences forever…. you lied! I can never trust where you are going from here so all I want to do is leave…. and guess what… your competitors actually have stuff that can really compete…. Bye Bye!

     1. How’s On1 working for you? Is there any threat/suggestion that they too will pull a “trust us” move?

277. I just stumbled about the “Update” from LR6 to LR Classic CC … which removed the software I paid for and replaced it with a demo … good thing I saw it before that crap could touch my catalog!

     I think this is unacceptable behaviour from a major company.

     Also I’m not willing to pay a monthly fee for software … I want to own it and update (at a price) when I want to. The math has been done above!!! Also I won’t pay just to be able to access my images, i.e. enslave myself to a company.

     Therefore I’m also going to snoop around for another solution, but rest assured after this “experience” with Adobe I won’t come back! Even though I’ve been a very happy user of LR6, which was great.

278. I’m a pro photographer. I use 6T of storage per year, that I edit in lightroom. What am I missing here?

279. Tom,
     I am not a rocket scientist , however…
     I think that the naming of Lightroom to classic is a mistake. To most people they can think it’s old and on it’s way out. True it does mean the older version as in original, however I believe there would be more acceptance if the name change would’ve been more like this for both versions.
     Lightroom CC Professional , since it is what most pro’s use for the type of workflow and folder structure.
     Lightroom CC Mobile , since it’s pretty much the desktop version of Lightroom Mobile
     There would be less confusion as to which update to apply and by naming it to Professional it also lets everyone know it’s not going away in the future.
     I’m sure Adobe can address the name changes in the next update and that would clear much up.
     I love the new masking with local adjustments, been asking for something like that which feathers auto mask since LR3, finally we have something that works even better than I imagined.
     Now IF we could have the use of luminance masks in HDR , just 3 sliders that work on darks, middle and lights so we can pull the tones from our 3 brackets to have a better toned image to start with. The darks slider would use a mask that is the range of darks, middle being a mask of mid tones range and lights that would be bright tone ranges. this would give the ability to introduce different levels of darks mids and brights into the New HDR dng file. Autotone doesn’t always work and even though the sky is darker in the under exposed (for example) in the new dng it’s still too bright and vice versa the brights can get muddy.

280. Since upgrading to the new Lightroom Classic, i now find there is a distinct lag time when I perform even the simplest task. I never experienced any lag in the previous version of Lightroom. I have since cleared space on my C drive, and have 16gb on RAM, which should be enough. Can you advise why Lightroom is now considerably slower, instead of being faster as promised?

281. I don’t want the pack with Photoshop, or the cloud. Just a stand-alone Lightroom. And at a $79 upgrade cost every year or two the current $10 a month plans (actually over 12€ a month here) are far more expensive.
     If there must be a subscription model why isn’t there a $5/month option just for Lightroom Classic with nothing else?

282. I use the stand alone and right now I am not planning to move to the subscription alternative. I could think about it, if you would offer a LR Classic only plan, as I do not need the new LR CC, neither Photoshop. However; now my question: Imagine I give LR Classic a try. I subscribe, I convert my catalog and work with it for some time. Now; after a year or so I decide that I do not want to pay monthly any more….what then? I would like to have an option to roll back to my stand alone LR6 version. However, as I understand I will not be able to use the new catalog, as it is not compatible with LR6. So; all my work from the point of time of my moving to LR Classic will be lost. Are there plans to offer a tool that would let you convert the LR Classic cataolog to LR6 again? I understand that due to some new features in the develop module not everything could be stored, but at least the basic stuff like metadata, keywords, basic development etc.? Knowing that there would be such an option would give me a safety net and would make me think about giving LR Classic a try. Or would there be a way to achieve that by using the xmp-files?

     Also; I would pay lot more for a standalone than I did for the last one. Let’s say you bring out one every second year. So; this is 24 months times 10 Euros = 240 Euros.
     I would even pay up to 300 Euros, if I had a chance….just to know that I can use my software as long as my operating systems and hardware allows it.

283. i don’t remember asking to discontinue the standalone version. i’m quite angry in changing all my workflow but.. “you’re the boss”.

284. Hi,

     I have the latest Lightroom Classic CC (recently updated) installed on my PC as part of the original Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan (including 20GB of storage) which I have had since it was first launched.

     The ‘Creative Cloud’ updater now keeps telling me that the ‘New’ Lightroom CC program is ready to download, so I have a few questions???

     Do I ‘have’ to download Lightroom CC?

     It is unlikely that I will ever want to upload all my files to use in the ‘New’ cloud environment, and consequently will not need any vast amounts of storage space. My original 20GB’s is more than enough for what I do with my files.

     However, if I did download the ‘New’ Lightroom CC program to look at it’s functionality/capability, will that affect my monthly/subscription?

     Thanks for any feedback.

     Mike

285. Looks like …SKYLUM will be the next DAM to replace LR……….that’s the new name for MacPhun that will be adding that feature to Luminar…….I would hope LR would respond with a NON subscription software upgrade….or I believe you will be the NFL of photo software.

286. I noticed LR created a new catalog with the same name just added -2 at the end of the original catalog name.
     Now I have 2 catalogs, my original 5 GB and now a new one that is 2 GB this seems to be a big waste of space on my drive.
     Why create another catalog?
     What do I do with my original catalog?

     1. It seems that Lightroom Classic CC uses a new “version” of Database. So, when you first start Lightroom Classic CC the “old” catalog-file of LR 6 has to be updated. The updated version is the file with the added “-2”.

        In Theory you can delete the “old” catalog-file. But be aware that LR 6 CAN NOT OPEN the new catalog file. So, when you try LR Classic CC and decide that you won’t upgrade and want to keep LR 6, you can’t open the “-2”-Catalog-file.

287. adobe just lost me as customer, never again adobe!

288. I am an avid now-known-as-Classic user. I can see the need to become more cloud based (that’s where the world is headed), but this is about the worst job of product management I’ve ever seen from a reputable software company. While the new-CC might be good for a beginning LR user, there is no way an experienced LR user would go backwards on features and functionality. Additionally, based on my home location, I don’t think I’ll ever have enough internet bandwidth to upload and use a full library, so I’m truly hoping Adobe is sincere in saying that “Classic” has a continuing and viable product roadmap.

289. If you make it hard to find and sign up for the stand-alone desktop Lightroom 6 version and then tell me that everyone prefers the CC version, I think you are making your numbers lie to yourself and us. I also believe you will lose your customer base over the next couple of years as they flee to a different software because they don’t trust Adobe.

290. How do You sync your edited photos to rest in new Lightroom CC? Is sync funcion missing or i just cant find it?

291. Running windows 7 wanted to try lrcc ,but it only runs on windows 10 . I had trouble upgrading to windows 10 (1 year ago),so i decide to stay with windows 7 is there a way to run on windows 7.

292. I want to buy a license for Lightroom Classic. I am not interested in subscriptions of any kind, as I keep my photos on local storage, so the additional benefit of “cloud storage” is none for me.

     How/where can I buy a perpetual license?

     1. Simple task: you can’t.

        You can only by a perpetual license for Lightroom 6 (if you are quick enough) but not for Lightroom Classic CC. That’s it.

293. Rumors are that MacPhun (now Skylum…I guess) is planning a Digital Asset Management product. I sure hope so, based on Adobe’s direction and Skylum’s track record with Luminar, it sounds like an opportunity for a slam dunk. I sure hope so.

294. This is a classic case of succumbing to the pressures of (sustained) performance. The CEO has to show profits, the Marketing have show increases in revenue and more importantly, they have to insure themselves against the competition. The Wall street Pundits like predictability and companies with predictable and sustainable income will score. The CEO too optimises his earnings based on this model.
     Ergo: They come up with a subscription plan. Predictable income streams, hooking the customer, targeting small businesses where expense deductions matter. What they have lost sight or doesn’t matter to them is people who are casual photographers and who use LR for fun. Why should we be tied with a life long subscription?
     I knew it when they started to give (supposedly) value additions in the CC version rather than the standalone. The writing was on the wall. It was a question of when, rather than if.
     Cut to the future: People like us would start exploring other software, where we don’t have to depend upon the vagaries of the Management or be wedded to them 24×7. Other companies would scramble to fill the hole. Adobe would realise that it has been had. By the Management!

295. I will begin shopping for and learning to use alternatives today. It’s only a matter of time before support for what’s now known as Lightroom Classic is eliminated. If we’re very, very, lucky it may be a year or two, but I’d wager that within the next year we’ll discover Classic features lag far behind and that shortly thereafter Adobe will eliminate support for Classic,

     There are NO circumstances in which I will allow Adobe, Apple, Google, or others to possess my photos. Not because of monetary or copyright issues but because they can at any time hold my files for ransom; “Pay the new/improved much higher monthly fee and retain access to your files”. I certainly hope there is at least one honest provider of editing software out there somewhere (though profit supersedes product quality or customer service in EVERY industry in America, so if there is such a product it will be purchased and dissolve or follow the untrustworth “industry leaders”.

     Very saddened by this threat to my ability to do the work that sustains my spirit.

296. I live in a very rural part of Ireland with abysmal wifi. Lovely view, but there are no infrastructure plans to change the options in my locale. I have had enormous problems uploading and downloading from the cloud in the last year and had to move away from cloud storage to local hard drive storage – and lost images in the process. Under no circumstances do I ever want to use a cloud based storage system. But I still want to use Lightroom and Photoshop. Please give me a step by step answer for my solution as I’m a student and still pretty new to Lightroom and don’t necessarily know where “change it in preferences” actually refers. I’d appreciate a “Lightroom Options for Dummies” with these new changes please to answer extremely simple questions such as “Can I update Lightroom Classic and ignore updates to Lightroom CC?” “Where can I opt out of cloud upload and storage?” I’m happy to continue paying my monthly fee for Lightroom and Photoshop and hope that small *coughs* terminal investment will be enough for you to respond to this request. Thank you.

297. I just want auto import on lightroom / ftp import to desktop and then the smart previews or a similar file to go to the cloud and then edit it from anywhere (which is what Lr cc can now do). This would open up other people editing my images in real time without the huge file transfer. Surely this is what millions of people around the world want? Why oh why will adobe not do this. To me it’s a no brainer.
     Currently we all have to send our files to someone and the send a catalogue back. I know you can’t be as precise as working on raw files but I am sure with continuing research and iterations we can get damn close enough. And do any final tweaking on our own computers with everything super close to perfection, cropped, organised and tagged by someone remotely.

     1. And I would happily upload smart previews of my 40 000 images to the cloud, but no way would I upload 40 000 raw files. What a waste of energy and resources. We are trying to save the planet, well some of us are. Lol……

298. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED! For a bunch of smart people, you have managed to take a relatively straight-forward product name and turn it into THE MOST COMPLICATED SET OF NAMES–EVER!

     Why you couldn’t call the old version of both Photoshop & LR something like “PS Desktop” & “LR Desktop” and the new versions something on the order of “PS Cloud” and “LR Cloud” is beyond me.

     You need to seriously reconsider those names and MAKE THIS A NO-BRAINER, instead of making it one of the most uselessly complex naming conventions in the industry.

     I would also recommend that you make it easy to opt out of the new version in the CC Update tool, so I never have to worry about downloading the wrong product.

299. I would like to use Lightroom CC on my tablet, to which my camera is connected during a shooting. So the use case is simple: I would like to use it to sort out the pictures and maybe also make some reworks. And that is it, what Lightroom mobile was designed for, right?
     But why should it be then a use case, that just all the pictures are automatically uploaded to the cloud? Sorry, but this makes no sense. I want to have simply the choice, which picture is uploaded and which not. And I think, I am not the only user with this request.

300. I’ve been using Lr for many years, and I still think it is a decent piece of software with many subtle features that make life easier. But Adobes move to cease the perpetual license is a very very sad decision because it means that many people will simply cease to stop working with LR in the lon run. I don’t believe that so many peoplae WANT to use the CC version, but simply had no other choice. And truely, it is a big change to move away from a tool you’ve been using for years. But I won’t be forced into more dependency of Adobe through subscription which even means, that if I don’t watn to pay forever or Adobe would decide to cease Lr, all the work I have invested over the years would be gone simply because I could not run the software any more.
     This is a no-go, and I’ve read from many persons that share a similar opinion. So I cannot understand and believe that the overwhelming majority of customers do like the subscription.
     BTW, the difference between subscription and perpetual does not really produce more effort in terms of software development (apart from banning the subscription features from the perpetual license, which is ok). Adobe could have simply continued with an option for a perpetual Lr Classic license.
     Forthe above reasons, I will never go into subscription, but will have to look for alternatives to Lr in the long run.
     I’m very sad, Adobe, that you’ve not listened to many many loyal customers.

301. Under no circumstance is putting / storing my photos in the cloud acceptable. This must be made to be an optional “feature”. I have terabytes and terabytes of images. I am NOT going to pay YOU an outlandish fee to store them for me; I have local storage as well as my own cloud storage, which is far less expensive than your fees. Plus I want to control what I put in the cloud. Period. As it stands this will result in termination of my subscription should it not be rendered optional.

302. Subscription plans are the ultimate lock-in. One could previously purchase a perpetual license for Lightroom for $100-150. The license allowed you to use the product basically forever, or until it became no longer compatible with the then current operating environment. The user could make the upgrade/investment decision separate from the access decision. Now one must continue to pay Adobe a monthly fee simply to have access to their photos. Unless Adobe decides to continue to offer a perpetual license/use option, I have bought my last Lightroom license (a user since version 1) and will also start looking for alternatives. I will not be held hostage by Adobe.

303. I took the decision to NOT migrate my catalogue to Lightroom CC because I have a lot of images and prefer to store them locally and control my own backup. As many photographers will also do, I shoot hundreds of shots on continuous so that I can get the shot I want. So, from a session where I might take 200-300 shots I might get 2 or 3 keepers. Add in bracketed exposures etc and the number of shots potentially going to the cloud becomes enormous when, in fact I would only want my best to be available across all my devices. So, after careful consideration and watching and reading copious material from Adobe and others I took their advice and stayed with the appallingly named Lightroom Classic CC. So far, so good.

     However, I ocassionally use my iPhone to take casual shots . Before October 18th any shots taken on my iPhone and automatically put into one of my synced collections would not be any prt of my CC storage allowance and were essentially free storage. HOWEVER, I have now discovered (and have had it confirmed in a transcript of a chat with Adobe support) that this is no longer the case. Lightroom mobile has been changed and it means that EVERY photo I take using the Lightroom camera is automatically uploaded to the cloud AND comes out of your storage allowance!! Like everyone I was given a 20gb storage allowance. As I always shoot raw and just shooting a few hundred shots has almost used up my 20gb. I don’t have the chance to cull as the sync to the cloud is automatic and so it is inevitable that I will exceed the20gb allowance very, very quickly. Therefore almost forcing a doubling of my subscription to get me a 1tb allowance.

     My point is that everyone has said that if you want to pretty much stay as you were, just remain with Lightroom Classic and nothing will change. What has not been said is that the way Lightroom mobile works HAS been changed and now works as part of the new CC cloud eco-system. As very few photographers would ever be able to work with the minimal 20gb allowance this is essentially a forced doubling of subscription.

     I would contend that this is a material change to the subscription agreement that I signed up to. At no time was I contacted by Adobe to explain in detail the full ramifications of their new strategy and, importantly, how it would feet those using the original Lightroom mobile.

     If anything I have said above is factually incorrect I would be pleased to hear.

304. I too am one that objects to the ‘subscription’ based purchasing system. It’s probably not so much the subscription method itself, but that it entraps the user into a perpetual payment system that leaves them with poor future options should they wish to change how they manage their collection, or circumstances change, and they can’t afford the payments. I also find the purchase options very poor value to me. I don’t really want the cloud option, or any extra apps, I just want Lightroom, as I manage quite well with that for 99% of my editing and organising needs, and only ever edit and organise on a single desktop machine. I prefer to use other apps/plugins for any creative editing I want to do.

     For me, the CC subscription just to use Lightroom alone is considerably more costly than paying the upgrade price every couple of years.

     However, all said, if Lightroom Classic was available on its own, at a fair subscription fee (based on not having any of the others extras), then I would consider it. I would also consider the $10 (or rather £10 in the UK) per month for Lightroom Classic and 1TB of Cloud storage (I could use it as an offsite backup for my collection), without Photoshop CC, and the other stuff. That would be good value to me, being a user that prefers local storage and managing my own image sharing, but would consider the Cloud as backup storage.

     As it is right now, I am looking very hard at alternative systems, and even to the point that I’ll accept having to re-edit my entire collection of needed (organising is already sorted in a folder structure).

305. Storage Strategy doesn’t work, I have it in 0% in preferences but the “Lightroom Library.lrlibrary” is up to 53gb I already delete the previews into the library but when I open lightroom CC again it download (or create) all previews again. Although I have in 0% of my local free space it’s using more than 50% of it. What can I Do?

     1. This exact same problem is happening to me. No matter what I set the Lightroom Strategy to (15% or 5%) it fills up my system drive completely.

306. I am on a 2015 5k iMac. I have about 35k photos stored on my external drive and also backed up via crashPlan.

     When I try to migrate my lightroom classic library, It errors out telling me I need 70GB of space to store previews on my main SSD drive. Unfortunately, that would leave me 500MB on that drive.

307. I am getting a “not responding” error when attempting to open up my LR6 program. I haven’t used it in several months, so this is the first I’m knowing of it. Looks like many others have had the same problem in the past. I’m not an IT kind of person. Can someone help with an easy, non technical solution for me?

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