Thanks for having me!

[lynnbspencer01]

Hi, I'm Lynn. I live in Wilmington, NC, and have been using LR for about 5 years almost exclusively to process the images for my blog. I was told by Adobe that my version is no longer covered by their support , so I was very happy when someone referred me to your group.

 

[lynnbspencer01]

I actually have a question right off the block that I'm a little embarrassed to ask. But here goes... I thought I had the cloud-based Lightroom because when I click 'about' for my program it says ' Lightroom CC,', which I thought was Creative Cloud, so I thought it was the cloud-based. But I was told by folks in Adobe that from the screenshots I've shared I have Classic, which I thought wasn't cloud-based. How do I know for sure?

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Hi Lynn, No question should be embarrassing- we all had to learn.
With your Lightroom running- go to the MENU and select- Help > System info
This report will give lots of information- and you can do a screen-clip and post it here in a reply by clicking on the landscape icon above the message window. That will help our replies.

And a welcome from another (me) that has learnt a lot from this great forum site.

 

[lynnbspencer01]

Hi Rob! Thanks for the quick reply. OK, here is my screenshot...

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Lynn, your Version is 2015.14 and you have a subscription. v2015.14 was also called v6.14 (for those without a subscription)
Your 'Lightroom' has now been upgraded many times since 2015 and is now at v11.1 and now uses the name LIGHTROOM-CLASSIC. So you are 'way behind' with your upgrades
If your system allows it you should open the Creative Cloud Desktop App and update Lightroom-Classic (NOT "Lightroom" ). You may even need to upgrade the Desktop App first!

Upgrading to v11.1 will also ask you (when you start Lr-Classic 11.1) to upgrade your Catalog- Answer "yes" and in the catalog upgrade dialog that opens- give your Catalog a new name to indicate it is v11 by overtyping the offered name.)

 

[Jim Wilde]

According to that System Info report, your system would appear to exceed the minimum System Requirements for the latest version of LrClassic, so I would suggest you proceed with the update. Be aware, however, that while superficially the upgraded version will look familiar to you, there have been a tremendous number of changes since LR6. See this blog post from Victoria for a list of the changes: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-lightroom-classic-since-version-6/

That list only goes up to the beginning of 2021, since then there have been more changes, including a major revamp of the Masking tools (see Victoria's separate blog post https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-11-0/).

Once you have updated to Classic and upgraded your catalog (BTW, the upgrade will actually offer to include -V11 in the new catalog name, so no need to add that yourself), you should look at your settings for the Creative Cloud app to see why you have not been updating your Lightroom Classic (updates are every 2 to 3 months!). If you can't figure it out, report back and we can compare various settings.

 

[lynnbspencer01]

OK...wish me luck! I'm going in!

 

[lynnbspencer01]

According to that System Info report, your system would appear to exceed the minimum System Requirements for the latest version of LrClassic, so I would suggest you proceed with the update. Be aware, however, that while superficially the upgraded version will look familiar to you, there have been a tremendous number of changes since LR6. See this blog post from Victoria for a list of the changes: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-lightroom-classic-since-version-6/

That list only goes up to the beginning of 2021, since then there have been more changes, including a major revamp of the Masking tools (see Victoria's separate blog post https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-11-0/).

Once you have updated to Classic and upgraded your catalog (BTW, the upgrade will actually offer to include -V11 in the new catalog name, so no need to add that yourself), you should look at your settings for the Creative Cloud app to see why you have not been updating your Lightroom Classic (updates are every 2 to 3 months!). If you can't figure it out, report back and we can compare various settings.

Lynn, your Version is 2015.14 and you have a subscription. v2015.14 was also called v6.14 (for those without a subscription)
Your 'Lightroom' has now been upgraded many times since 2015 and is now at v11.1 and now uses the name LIGHTROOM-CLASSIC. So you are 'way behind' with your upgrades
If your system allows it you should open the Creative Cloud Desktop App and update Lightroom-Classic (NOT "Lightroom" ). You may even need to upgrade the Desktop App first!

Upgrading to v11.1 will also ask you (when you start Lr-Classic 11.1) to upgrade your Catalog- Answer "yes" and in the catalog upgrade dialog that opens- give your Catalog a new name to indicate it is v11 by overtyping the offered name.)

Hi Rob...OK, popped in the CC Desktop App and it appears to say my LR is up to date. What to do?

 

[Jim Wilde]

That's definitely NOT the up-to-date version of Lr Classic, it has the old icon and not the "LrC" icon in use today. Can you post a couple more screenshots:

1. Open the Creative Cloud app again and do Help>About Creative Cloud and post a screenshot of the result.

2. Then, with All apps selected, click on the tri-dot icon at the right-hand side of the Lightroom Classic entry, then click on Other Versions, then post a screenshot of the resulting display.

 

[lynnbspencer01]

That's definitely NOT the up-to-date version of Lr Classic, it has the old icon and not the "LrC" icon in use today. Can you post a couple more screenshots:

1. Open the Creative Cloud app again and do Help>About Creative Cloud and post a screenshot of the result.

2. Then, with All apps selected, click on the tri-dot icon at the right-hand side of the Lightroom Classic entry, then click on Other Versions, then post a screenshot of the resulting display.

Oh Jim, I fear you are going to regret going down this hole with me. Here are the requested screenshots. I didn't see the 'other versions' option.

 

[Hal P Anderson]

It could be that you're starting LRC with an icon on your desktop that still refers to an ancient version. What happens when you double-click directly on your LR catalogue?

 

[Jim Wilde]

OK, the CC app is completely up-to-date....and from that we can see that there are only a few apps available in your plan. So the next question is what kind of subscription do you have? Or perhaps the better question is: do you actually have a subscription plan? I'm wondering if you are actually an LR6 perpetual license version which has somehow been converted to the subscription version of LR6.

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Click the little blue circle in the top-right of the CC App (just the right of it telling you there's 12 messages), then Adobe Account. This will take you to your Adobe Account page and there you will see if you're subscribed, etc.

Welcome btw!

 

[lynnbspencer01]

So, I took a class at a local community college 4-5 years ago and bought the software through the school. I do wonder if it was a 'one-off' version. Here's the screenshot, Lightroom doesn't even show up. So, that being said...what's the best way for me to go forward?

 

[Jim Wilde]

If you are not paying a regular subscription fee (either monthly or annually) then it would seem that you only have the perpetual license version which has somehow been converted to a Creative Cloud license. With that license, you cannot upgrade to Lr Classic, you would have to take out a subscription plan in order to do that.

Can't answer you last question, as we don't know what specific problem you are having with your current version, which prompted your approach to Adobe for support (that you can no longer get with your particular version). So, if you could let us know the specifics of the issue, we'll see what we can do to help.

 

[Paul McFarlane]

So, if you could let us know the specifics of the issue, we'll see what we can do to help.

Excellent suggestion by Jim, can I suggest post in a main Forum (Lightroom 1-6 would be the appropriate one), then all can benefit.

 

[lynnbspencer01]

If you are not paying a regular subscription fee (either monthly or annually) then it would seem that you only have the perpetual license version which has somehow been converted to a Creative Cloud license. With that license, you cannot upgrade to Lr Classic, you would have to take out a subscription plan in order to do that.

Can't answer you last question, as we don't know what specific problem you are having with your current version, which prompted your approach to Adobe for support (that you can no longer get with your particular version). So, if you could let us know the specifics of the issue, we'll see what we can do to help.

So, at the end of the day, I just need to get to a Lightroom Classic subscription? I just want to be sure I go for the best option.

 

[Jim Wilde]

It depends on what problems you are having, if any, with your LR6. There are many users still using LR6 (and older) versions with some success (albeit with some issues as well, which cannot be circumvented due to the obsolete nature of the product). You haven't yet said if you are having problems, and if you are I'd suggest doing what Paul suggested and start a new thread in the Lightroom 1-6 sub-forum, explaining the issue(s) and we'll see if we can help.

If you're not having problems and just want to upgrade to the current version, then purchasing a subscription to the Adobe Photography Plan is the way to do it (not carefully there are several different subscription plans, you would need the Photography Plan which includes Classic, Photoshop, and the cloud-centric Lightroom desktop app.

 

[lynnbspencer01]

Thanks, I'll do that.