For more than 10 years, Lightroom has been the industry standard for photo editing. Years of development and numerous new features, however, creates an ever-growing level of complexity. Many photographers have found Lightroom increasingly difficult to learn and understand.
At Adobe Max last year, Bryan O’Neil Hughes previewed a new cloud-native photography app, code-named Project Nimbus. Today, October 18 2017, that app has finally been made available to the public as Lightroom CC for Windows/Mac.
Because everything’s synced to the cloud, your photos and edits are available on all of your devices, wherever you are. Since Lightroom manages your photos for you, it’s really simple to use, but still has the non-destructive editing power we’ve come to expect from Adobe. It also adds cutting-edge image-analysis artificial intelligence, allowing you to find your photos by subject, even if you haven’t manually added that information. Better still, it’s been rewritten from the ground up, so it’s relatively bug-free (hooray!).
The previous version of Lightroom desktop, now rebranded as Lightroom Classic, isn’t going away anytime soon. It continues to be supported and developed by a separate engineering team, for those who prefer a local folder-based digital asset manager. (If you’re wondering about the name, see today’s other announcements here.)
It’s early days, so Lightroom CC doesn’t have all of the features of the Classic version, but it already has the essentials and will continue to develop rapidly. If you’re a current Lightroom user considering moving to the cloud-native app, check here to see whether it already has the features you need for your workflow. For now though, let’s take a look at the highlights:
Cloud-Native Family of Apps
Lightroom CC is a family of apps. With a cloud-native ecosystem, everything revolves around “the cloud.” The cloud is simply an Adobe server which acts as a central storage location for all of your photos and edits. The Lightroom apps on your computer or mobile devices connect to the cloud to access your existing photos and edits, and send new photos and edits up to the cloud.
Imagine you shoot some photos using your mobile phone, and during your coffee break, you edit them on your work laptop. Later, you’re out with your tablet, and you stop to show someone the photos, complete with the edits you did earlier. Back home in the evening, you load the day’s shoot from your DSLR onto your desktop, have dinner and view them on your Apple TV. It’s your choice.
All of your photos are available wherever you are, and fully editable, without being tied to a specific operating system or type of device.
To take advantage of this, you will need a fast unmetered internet connection. Exactly how fast depends on how many photos are in your archive, and how many photos you shoot each week.
Easy to Add Photos
The Import dialog is really simple to use, with very few decisions to make.
Easy to Manage Photos
Lightroom handles all of the file management so there’s no fear of missing photos! You can group your photos into albums (previously known as collections) and stacks, and add some simple metadata to help you find the photos again later.
Powerful Editing Tools
Lightroom CC uses the same camera raw engine as Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, so you have access to world-class editing tools. The Edit mode uses the same sliders as previous Lightroom versions but in a user-friendly modern interface and your edits are synced to all of your other devices. Presets designed for Lightroom 4 or later are fully compatible.
Search Your Photos
Since your photos are synced to the cloud, Adobe’s artificial intelligence machine learning tool, called Adobe Sensei, can search your photos and take a guess at their content. This image-analysis allows you to find your photos, even if you never got around to adding keyword tags manually.
Easy Sharing
Photos can easily be shared to Facebook and entire albums of photos can be shared through Lightroom Web, as a grid or with additional text.
System Requirements
Windows
- Intel® or AMD processor with 64-bit support
- Windows 10 (64-bit) Version 1511 or later
- 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)
- 1 GB of Video RAM (VRAM). 2 GB of dedicated VRAM is suggested for large, high-resolution monitors, such as 4K- and 5K-resolution monitors
- 10 GB of available hard-disk space
- OpenGL 3.3 and DirectX 10-capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality
- Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, validation of subscriptions, and access to online services.
macOS
- Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
macOS v10.12 (Sierra), Mac OS X v10.11 (El Capitan) - 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)
- 1 GB of Video RAM (VRAM). 2 GB of dedicated VRAM is suggested for large, high-resolution monitors, such as 4K- and 5K-resolution monitors.
- 10 GB of available hard-disk space (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices)
- OpenGL 3.3–capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality
- Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, validation of subscriptions, and access to online services.
Learn More!
There are 5 more posts related to this series of announcements:
- The Future of Lightroom
- What’s New in Lightroom Classic October 2017 (7.0)?
- The End of Perpetual/Standalone Lightroom Licenses
- Lightroom CC vs. Lightroom Classic – Which Do I Need?
- What’s New in Lightroom iOS/Android October 2017 Releases?
I know you’ll have loads of questions, so I’ve written free Quick Start eBooks, available for download later today.
More extensive books for both Lightroom Classic 7.0 and Lightroom CC will be available soon in eBook and paperback formats, and I’ll let you know as soon as they’re released.
Download Lightroom CC
Want to play? Lightroom CC is available in the Photography Plan subscription or its own Lightroom CC plan.
If you already have a subscription, open the CC system tray / menubar app. If Lightroom CC is not already showing, click the cog icon and choose Check for App Updates.
Hi Victoria,
Thanks for all your input and all the hard work you are doing behind the scenes. I know Adobe performance issues are not anyone’s problem other than Adobe, however I just wanted to sound off about the poor customer experience so far with the new CC. The app repeatedly hangs and freezes while synchronising to the cloud. I still have 16,000 or so images to synch, but the app only uploads 5 or 6 images before hanging up with the ‘busy’ icon (not the beachball, but the spinning arrow). While this is ongoing, the app is unusable, i.e. frozen. Enough said …
Regards … Alastair
I’ve never managed to reproduce it – and I’ve been testing sync for a LONG time – but I’ve seen a few reports of others with the same issue over the last few days. Make sure you report it at https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_lightroom_cc if you haven’t already.
Thanks for the continued interest, Victoria. I did report my issue to Adobe and supplied the requested diagnostic logs. these were acknowledged and the requested further information supplied. Sorry to report but no fix so far. To recap, I still have 16K of images to synch, but my Mac Pro is in danger of catching fire as AdobeLightroom CC helper consumes all my CPU time while building some 30 GB file (with physical memory of close to 15 GB and a further 30 GB in virtual (flash) memory. No amount of reboots or LR restarts have worked, although for a minute or so after a restart the network traffic starts to flow again. Then hangs ….
So, in short, I cannot use LR cloud as what I see most of the time is a spinning arrow and a frozen screen. Anyone else seeing this behaviour or got any thoughts on what is going on?
Regards …. Alastait
Hopefully there will be an update before too long with the fix.
Hi Victoria,
I jumped straight in with both feet and had problems with migrating my near 1TB of photos to the cloud. In essence, I needed an additional ITB of local free space for CC to copy my originals to before it would upload to the cloud. Prior to purchasing a new portable drive to give me that working space I experimented with migrating smaller chunks of my catalogue. Now I have duplicates of these files in my “originals” folder (the sync folder that CC installs), . When I tried to remove them from that location, they seem to be copied (not moved) to the recycle bin and thus not deleted from the sync folder. (I’m using a mac book pro with OS Sierra). Is this a ‘feature’? Or am I using the wrong method to tidy up my sync folder?
When you say the “originals” folder, is this the location you set in CC’s preferences? And when you say duplicates, are these duplicates in that same location (and duplicates within the CC app itself), or do you mean you have a copy in the originals folder and a copy in their previous location too?
I am referring to the folder set in CC preferences. I now have duplicates within that folder that I cannot delete. ( I also have the originals in their previous locations as well),
Regards Alastair
That makes me think you can also see the duplicates within the LRCC app too, right? So you’d need to delete them from there. Otherwise they’ll just get downloaded from the cloud again.
Hi Victoria,
Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify and update my post. I used a duplicate finder to remove the duplicates from the upload folder where I had copied all my originals, some multiple times. Initially, these were copied to the recycle bin, then deleted. However, on inspection, they were still in the upload folder. My thoughts were the delete via the recycle bin had failed, perhaps because of the size of the delete task (many GB of data). So I tried again with the immediate delete option (no chance to review before incineration) and that worked as expected.
The issue now is the speed of the upload to the cloud. I am still syncing my originals that I started over a week ago. The speed has been as slow as one photo every 5 minutes and fastest perhaps three per minute (these are 100 MB canon 5d3 raw images). I know the Adobe servers are probably being hammered at the moment by thousands of users globally uploading massive amounts of data, but cannot help wondering if Adobe were fully ready for the launch?
Ah good, I’m glad you’re sorted. I saw the stats today and I was shocked at the volume. I guess it’s difficult to estimate how many people will immediately start uploading.
Jumped the gun and migrated to Lightroom CC. Don’t like the editing environment. Do like accessing images from anywhere. Fortunately, I left the files on my computer. My new workflow – Import into Classic into my file structure on my primary computer. Edit and publish to Flickr in Classic. Then import into Lightroom CC from the folder where I did the prior import (I keep one folder for each download from my camera). At least I now have access to the raw (unedited) files from everywhere and I have a convenient cloud backup of the raw files. I appreciate your site, Victoria. Very helpful.
There might be a trick so you can have the best of both worlds Tim. Keep an eye on the blog over the next few weeks, as I’m currently researching a way to carry on using Classic but also have edited originals in the cloud.
2 things that seem work quite well- I have managed to import Presets from LR Classic to LR CC. (I think I needed to do a system restart before they appeared). Plus Develop changes in LR CC show up in LR Classic, once they have synced. This you would expect – but nice to see.
The bit in this that seems to be missing, for me, is that there is no History – not an option in LR CC, and nothing visible in LR Classic (other than @improted from LR mobile). So you can’t step back through the edits. I think this is an issue with all version of LR Mobile / LR CC, so not really a new problem.
Great news Jon. Presets – just a program restart would have done the trick.
History isn’t there and I don’t know whether that’s coming back. If you miss it, the Feature Request forum gives it a shot https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_lightroom_cc
After getting the new versions of Adobe Photography plan installed out in my studio today, I decided that I’d try loading images to Lightroom CC. I’m using a Windows 10 computer.
I captured some using Canon Utilities, so I pointed Canon Utilities at the lightroomcc.exe file. that cause a error message, and LR CC did not import my photo. Fair enough, I did not really expect that to work.
So, I tried to selectively add the files to CC, it turns out that you can pick and choose files to upload to the cloud by clicking browse and highlighting files.
When I tried, it opened the standard windows 10 browser, and all I saw were a bunch of RAW CR2 logos and file numbers, there was no way to tell which file I wanted to use by viewing the thumbnail. The same issue exists with Photoshop, but I can use Bridge to browse files and open them in Photoshop CC.
So, I gave up and opened the files in Photoshop using Bridge. Then Photoshop asked me if I wanted to upload my files to Lightroom CC and the cloud. Its the same issue, it opens the windows browser so you can select the files, but I just see a icon for raw files. jpeg’s display the thumbnail just fine.
I know that I could purchase software that will display the jpg thumb contained in the raw files using the windows browser, but it seems that Lightroom CC does not make it easy to import a raw file when you have multiple ones to select from.
I don’t think its actually a bug, but rather something that they have not thought out very well. They allow you to pick and choose files to bring into the cloud, but selecting individual RAW files by viewing the thumbnails isn’t possible.
The trick is to select the folder in the first Windows dialog, and then in the second Lightroom one, it’ll show you the thumbnails and you can select or deselect them there.
I missed that “Choose Folder” button, I kept being drawn to the “Review Images for Import” One.
Thanks.
I’d love to try the new Lightroom CC but I just have no way of getting it. Not a sign of it in the CC desktop app. Signed in and out, uninstalled and re installed the App, done everything I can and still no sign of it. Windows 10 64 bit bang up to date and well within the min specs for this.
Classic works well though so I guess I’m stuck with that.
That’s very odd Dave. I’ve heard a couple of people say the same, so I’m looking into it. If you haven’t already, can I get you to report it at the bug report forum please?
Hi Victoria.
Sorry for their late reply, I didn’t get any notifications. I have posted on the Adobe forums about this.
Interestingly, i can copy the whole Lightroom CC directory from my work PC and put it on my home PC and it works perfectly. It still wont show up in the CC desktop app though, so ill have to make sure i update our work version each time a new version comes out.
We use a different account at work and i tried that on my home PC, with exactly the same result (or lack of it).
I think its an issue specific to my PC rather than an account issue, and I expect this came about when i first updated to Classic, which seemed to leave a non working version of LR on my PC, so i deleted it manually.
Cool, I like it and since I have 4 TB of photos so I will be sticking with the Classic.
But I will foo around with the new on line version. I uploaded 18 photos and all of a sudden I ha 2500 photos uploaded @ 9GB. What gives, where are they coming from and how do i stop it. Enough already
LOL They’ll likely be ones you’ve uploaded from your mobile devices, or perhaps synced from LRCC2015.
Thanks Victoria. One question about the new Lightroom CC–What if I am out camping someplace without internet access. Can I still view, sort and edit recently taken photos on a laptop using Lightroom CC? Or is internet access needed?
Yes, you can edit all of your new ones Kenneth, and they’ll just sync when you’re back online. In many cases, you’ll also be able to view and edit existing photos too.
I’ve been beta testing LR Classic for a few weeks, and already have 7.0. I have a few questions about the Creative Cloud update offering.
(1) Is there any difference between what I already have and the update available from the Creative Cloud app?
(2) will that beta version expire at some point?
(3) I’ve been using a separate catalog with the beta version. If I update from the CC app, will I be able to access that catalog?
The last prerelease build is the same as the shipping build, so you should be fine on all counts.
thanks for such a quick reply!
So what happened to the original photography plan conditions? When I started mine at the beginning it had 2Gb cloud plus unlimited lightroom web storage which took account of all my syncing, including Raw files. I think the cloud upgraded to 20Gb but I never really used it as all my images just synced to my desktop and into folders. All my synced collections just used the web storage. Now my apps are saying I’m using 56Gb of 1Tb. I’m still being charged the same apart from the small price increase this month. What is the real situation please?
Let me check into that for you Richard. In theory, it’s now a 20GB cap for originals, plus as many smart previews as you like. I wonder if they noted you were already using more and upped your limit.
Good news – it’s not a bug. Since you already had more up than 20GB up there, they quietly upgraded your quota to avoid throwing away your photos. It’s your lucky day! 😉
Thanks Victoria, but they are the smart previews and as I understand it you, as you say, had unlimited storage of those as they sync from mobile.
56GB sounds high to just be smart previews… perhaps you’d added originals on your mobile devices too? Either way, you’ve got 1TB space for originals on your account, plus unlimited smart previews, so I wouldn’t complain! 😉
I have been experimenting a little – using LR Classic on one machine and LR CC on another. It seems to me that the 56Gb example above *might* be Creative Cloud Files – those stored in that folder on your system and referred to as “Assets” by the CC app and in your account on assets.adobe.com
Ah yes, that would do it Jon. Creative Cloud files are shared with Lightroom space now.
Sorry my internet went down just at the wrong moment. (Another reason for not relying solely on the cloud!) I guess those are raw files that I’ve uploaded via the iPad on the odd occasion. I’ve gone back to only uploading via the desktop because of problems with file names, backups etc. Perhaps I’d better delete them before I get charged and just use the smart previews (still unlimited I guess?)
Thanks for all the work you’re putting into this, it saves a lot of time, and i’ll Stick with the classic and the cloud on the phone and iPad as you suggest. The little bit of testing I’ve done reinforces that approach
Richard
Crikey, you are fast, you’d replied before I had the chance to fix the Wi-fi and finish the post
Thanks
Perhaps you can help further Victoria if you don’t mind. I understood that the Raw files were deleted from the cloud after they are synced to the desktop and just the smart previews are then used for access across mobile devices. That’s why I’m confused about the size of the cloud storage.
This from Adobe Forum;
4. You iPad will also upload the original RAW files to the cloud, then down to you desktop (the RAWs will not stay in the cloud). Depending on the size, number of files, and you wifi connection this can take a good while, i.e. hours if there are a lot of them.
5. You will be able to find you RAW files on you desktop after all of this is completed. Be sure to check this before the last step;
Is there a misunderstanding here, the Raw files are definitely synced onto my hard drives in the original folder format. I know I have to delete them from the camera roll, but I’d assumed this was automatically carried out on adobe cloud as the above suggests. Am I missing a check box or something.
Thanks again in advance Richard
Hi Victoria, sorry to be a nuisance over this but I was under the impression that when you uploaded via the iPad that once the original Raws had synced to the desktop, they were then removed from the cloud storage. They are all saved in my original file structure on my hard drives, and have been removed from from my camera roll. This from Adobe site in 2016:
3. LR Mobile will sync smart previews and all edits to the Creative Cloud and they will be available on all of your devices (including iPhone if you have e LR Mobile installed there.
4. You iPad will also upload the original RAW files to the cloud, then down to you desktop (the RAWs will not stay in the cloud). Depending on the size, number of files, and you wifi connection this can take a good while, i.e. hours if there are a lot of them.
5. You will be able to find you RAW files on you desktop after all of this is completed. Be sure to check this before the last step;
6. Once all of this has taken place, you can deleted the original RAWs from you cameral roll on the iPad. The photos will remain in the sync’d collection. and can be edited from either device.
Have I neglected a check box or something for them to still be on the cloud? I’m a bit wary of trying to delete them manually from the cloud, if I do, will they be replaced by the smart previews?
Thanks again. Sorry if this turns out to be a duplicate post, I sent it last night, but I seem to be having trouble with my Wi-fi.
Richard
> You iPad will also upload the original RAW files to the cloud, then down to you desktop (the RAWs will not stay in the cloud).
That’s incorrect. They stay in the cloud until you choose to unsync them.
If you wanted to replace them with smart previews, you’d let them download to Classic, remove them from All Synced Photos or unsync the collection, let it finish syncing, and the sync their collection again.
But since you have bags of space, you might as well let them stay there as an extra backup.
Well that’s amazing news. I was using Lightroom mobile on the iPad Pro and imported my last shoot of high megapixel Raws from the 5dsr, so I had somewhat around 21 GB.
I also noticed that my account was quietly upgrade to 1TB and the plan is still at the original price (around 11 Euro in Germany).
As you can tell from my previous comment, I will be sticking with LR Classic, but I’m thinking more about the role CC could play in my workflow and I have a couple of questions:
-If I’m reading correctly, my “photography plan” will allow me to get both CC and Classic, correct?
– I do not wish to manage the same photos in both programs, but if I use Classic as my primary tool, have I lost the ability to incorporate LR Mobile with images in my Classic LRCAT? (It appears so.)
– Regardless of the answer to the above, I’m thinking about using CC strictly to manage and store images from my phone. I have not had a good solution for these images, which, for the most part, I would be happy being completely separate from my critical primary LRCAT images.
Thanks.
Any thoughts on these 2 questions? Is LR mobile gone from the new LR Classic? And what do you think about using CC strictly for phone images?
Thanks.
Oooops, sorry I missed them David! There’s a lot of traffic here right now!
LR Mobile works with Classic in exactly the same way it did before. It’s just got a new name and icon. If you want to play with the new LRCC app on your desktop, I’d suggest you treat it like you do LR mobile on your phone or tablet – just as another client. Any photos synced from Classic or the mobile apps will also show up in LRCC desktop, so you can play to your heart’s content. Any photos added to LRCC will on any of the devices will sync down to your Classic catalog. Just don’t run the migration tool until you’re ready to switch, unless you really really want all of your originals in the cloud.
I’ll be doing some blog posts along these lines with more detail over the next couple of weeks.
Sorry, I’m afraid I just got a little more confused. I was hoping to keep my Classic and CC catalogs completely separate.
Classic > previous catalog > local HD.
CC > new catalog for phone images only. I would really be using this as a separate program for this specific function.
From your reply, it sounds like this may not work. If LR CC recognizes me and starts combining things into a common catalog and putting my desktop TB+ into the cloud, I can’t go there.
Thanks for clarifying and I look forward to your future blog posts as well.
> I was hoping to keep my Classic and CC catalogs completely separate.
You can do that… but you’d have to disable Sync in your Classic catalog.
> If LR CC recognizes me and starts combining things into a common catalog and putting my desktop TB+ into the cloud, I can’t go there.
No, LRCC desktop can’t touch your desktop TB+ unless you specifically choose to migrate, and LRClassic can’t sync originals and only syncs smart previews of photos you specifically choose to sync up.
So I think you’d be ok. With sync enabled in Classic, Classic would remain your central photo repository, downloading mobile photos you add on LRCC and only uploaded specific smart previews that you want to see in LRCC. With sync disabled in Classic, Classic and LRCC don’t know anything about each other.
On the point about the storage pricing ($9.99 per TB) – where do you find that? I was mulling over taking up the $14.99 introductory offer, but when I looked for options, the only one shown was “Creative Cloud Photography plan with 10TB” at over £109 (yes, pounds) per month – which is a bit of a step up!
To be clear – I’m using a whole 4% of my 20 Gb today – but I suspect the new CC version will start gobbling that up.
UK, Germany and Canada seems to be having issues showing the upgrade plan. They’re working on it… In theory, you go to your Adobe account > Manage Account > Sign In > Manage Plan > Switch Plan and then it’ll show a page like this, but the discounted first year price isn’t working everywhere at the moment.
“UK, Germany and Canada seems to be having issues showing the upgrade plan…the discounted first year price isn’t working everywhere at the moment. ”
I don’t want to beat a dead horse but this is the kind of thing that will not happen in a professional organization that understands the web. It’s not difficult to do this testing, I do it myself with a VPN for several web sites. It doesn’t reassure anyone that having Adobe host their images is a good thing.
I’m not here to bash Adobe, I use Lightroom and Photoshop and think they’re great products, but they’ve had a lot of trouble getting things right that aren’t applications.
I have a little sympathy, since I had a nightmare getting mine updated in time, and mine is tiny by comparison, and in only in one language/region. Of course, they do have teams of programmers working for them!!
Thanks Victoria,
I guess it’s early days and things will settle down. I work for another large software company and I do have a little sympathy for the scale of what they are trying to do here.
Yeah, this big a change was always going to be chaos!
Hi – coming back to this cloud storage quota – maybe you can advise? I have 20GB of Adobe Creative Cloud storage. The Adobe CC tool and the Assets page say I have used 770Mb of my 20Gb.
But Lightroom CC says I have used 2Gb of my 20 Gb.
Do you know if these are 2 separate quotas?
Thanks for posting all this info, Victoria. I was worrying a bit about what to do with these new versions, and it’s helped me to navigate a way through. Having been a relatively recent convert from Apple Aperture, I was thinking “oh no, not again!” You comparison table was especially useful, as well.
I’m really pleased it helped Jon
When I import a video from my camera with Lightroom 2015, it doesn’t sync that video to the cloud.
Is it different with Lightroom CC Classic ?
For information, I can upload the same video with Lightroom web, and it syncs well to the cloud, and I get it into Lightroom 2015!
Precision : “When I import a video from my camera with Lightroom 2015 AND put it in a collection that is synced …”
Classic doesn’t sync videos up to the cloud, but does sync down videos uploaded through the LR CC ecosystem.
Thanks for the information.
Do you see any downside to use Lightroom CC web instead of Lightroom Classic to import my photos and videos?
I know it will take more time but I’m ready to it if it lets me sync ALL my stuff.
Yeah, that works. In fact, I’ve been using the CC desktop app as an “import module” for the last year to get originals to the cloud. Works fine for new photos, other than you have to wait for them to get to the cloud and back down again to Classic before you can start working in Classic (although I often start viewing/rating in the CC app while I’m waiting).
I think there’s a couple downsides. 1. Adobe gives no pricing (at least from my poking around the site) for additional storage beyond 1TB. They can charge whatever they want since there’s no commitment. 2. You are stuck with Adobe storage even if you have other cloud storage. 3. You are trusting Adobe with your personal images. Adobe has shown in the past that they can be lax with security. 4. Adobe has no history as a large cloud storage company. There are plenty of companies that have demonstrated their ability to function well as cloud storage companies.
Additional storage is $9.99 per TB, in 2TB, 5TB and 10TB bands. When I checked yesterday, that was comparable with Dropbox, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc.
But yes, you are limited to using their storage – although you can use the Creative Cloud sync to make use of spare cloud space for other kinds of documents, if you don’t need it all for photos.
Security, yes, I’ve put in a request for some kind of public announcement of how they’re handling that. They haven’t done large storage on this scale, but the CC app’s been doing file sync for some years now.
Where are those numbers? I couldn’t find that on the site.
Finding stuff on the website’s a nightmare, but in terms of an official location, here works: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2017/10/answering-your-questions-on-lightroom-cc-lightroom-classic-cc-and-more.html
Victoria, this is what makes me dubious about trusting Adobe. Either they are trying to hide the cost or they are incompetent at a simple task like providing critical pricing information. Whichever way you look at it, it’s not a pro-consumer approach. And, while their support has improved quite a bit, I couldn’t do without your book.
Also, as someone who shoots a lot of events, the cloud program is ridiculous. I’m at 4.8TB of storage right now. If I never shot again, I would be paying $600 a year. A 5TB drive costs me $130 and will last me another year or two. Two of them costs $260 and gives me backup. Google gives me 200GB of storage for free (through various promotions) and I put images likely to be sold again there.
Unlike some other people discouraged with Adobe, I like Lightroom and have built a workflow around it. However, if they move to a program that costs me $600/year or more, there’s no way I would think for even 10 seconds about switching. It’s obvious that, like Apple, they are less and less concerned with visual arts professionals.
Thanks, I’ll be spending more time with LRCC (Cloud) I can see a advantage when traveling and getting a copy of my images uploaded if only as a backup.
I have both Mac and Windows computer. Lightroom CC has certainly simplified going back and forth. However, a lot of missing simple features. No History is sorely missed. Also, no Flickr – that is how I post for friends and family, also makes a good backup of photos I care about most. Any thoughts on when or if those will be added? Is the History data lost when converting from Classic?
I’m able to send photos to Flickr from within Lightroom CC. I consider this one of Lightroom’s strong points
Cabin
From the new cloud based Lightroom CC? How do you do it?
Thanks,
Tim
From the mobile apps you can, because it just passes the image over to the social media app. You can’t on desktop yet.
Am I missing something here? Like most earnest LR users, I have worked hard to create a folder structure that works for me. I’ve taught LR for years and I usually have to start with how the user wants to organize their images. You (Victoria) offer similar advice in your book.
I don’t see anything about folder organization in the new CC other than some automatic organization by date. It sounds like a variation on something Apple would do, where the program “manages” your images and good luck knowing where they are. It may make sense for the casual user but it’s hard to imagine for a working photographer.
It looks like all the shortcuts are different. The sliders are all different.
I’m not feeling it. It seems like they are going for a completely new and different audience with the new CC. That’s fine. I’m more than happy to stick with the Classic; God help us if this is the start of a transition to CC only. (Memories of the Import module dust-up a couple of years ago.)
Yep, you’ve nailed it David. They’re not trying to poach their advanced Lightroom users. In a few years time, it might have developed enough to tempt a few more people over, but they’re plowing a mass of resources into Classic to continue to service their more advanced users.
I still have nightmares about the Import dialog debacle too. They did the right thing here though, setting up the new simpler workflow in a separate app, rather than trying to change the Lightroom we know and love.
I want to keep using Classic but would love to have access to Sensei if it is good. So I am wondering about where I take a batch of photos from classic into CC, get them keyworded, and then take them out of CC and put them back into Classic. Doable? Will I loose any existing keywords by going from Classic to CC?
No need to go through that rigmarole. Just put them in a sync collection and let Classic sync the smart previews to the cloud. You’ll be able to access Sensei search in your web browser or mobile devices. It’s still early days for Sensei. It mistakes hamsters for dogs and a few other funny variations, but it did a pretty good job with those boats at sunset.
Hi Victoria, just to be sure: would this solution mean that the results of the Sensei search will be synced back to Classic on the desktop? So, eventually adding info to the desk top Catalogue?
No, Sensei data would not get sent back to Classic, but you would be able to use it in the web interface.
If you’re looking for a similar type of AI in a Classic catalog, check out the Excire plug-in.
Clear, thank you! Suppose I use Classic: will the ranking which I give to pictures using iPhone CC be synced back to Classic?
Yes, stars/flags sync both ways, as do Develop edits, titles, captions, collection/album membership.
I’m still playing with LR CC (Cloud), I’m likely to keep using the Desktop version, but am still wondering if there is a way to say automatically upload images from my wi-fi enabled cameras and later download them to my desktop and remove them from the cloud without also deleting them from my Computers. I don’t see a obvious method. There were some images that synched to the cloud when I started the app that I want removed from the cloud, and only kept on my pc. Is there a way to do that?
I can’t think of a way right now Ed. Only if your Wi-Fi enabled cameras could run the Android or iOS app.
Images synced to the cloud when you first started the app? They’re probably ones that LRCC downloaded from the cloud… ones you’d synced to the cloud from Lightroom CC 2015 / Classic or one of the mobile apps. Yes, you can unsync them. They’d stay in your desktop Classic catalog.
Thank you for this posting. 🙂
I think it is a great improvement in the iPad to iMac Workflow and back again, because of Keywords and search. Even you do not have keywords, it checks your pictures and finding it. Not 100% correct, but amazing and funny. A photographer with a camera in front of the face was found as a dog. 🙂
But the sync of the entered keywords is not working or not working 100%. Ok, it is version 1 and all are jumping on the update.
Do you see this sync issue as well ?
Hmmm, sync of keywords is working fine here. What are you seeing? It would be worth reporting it at the bug report forum https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_lightroom_cc
Hi Victoria, looks like it is more complicated.
In Photoshop Family there is a posting from Ethan Isenberg with the title “Keywords not updated; syncing problematic” and he describes the issue very detailed. So I am not alone with the issue.
Will send a bug report, thank you for the link.
🙂
Peter
Great, thanks Peter. Yeah, keyword sync between CC and Classic is messy. I’m hoping enough feedback from users will cause the team to reconsider their decision not to sync keywords with Classic.
I’m not seeing any update available. Is this rolling out slowly across users?
Some people are having to sign out of the CC app and sign back in again to see the updates.
Here’s the biggest issue I have with the idea of Lightroom CC – online storage. For serious shooters, their 1 TB storage is going to be a point of contention. 1 TB may be fine for your average Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive users.
When you’re the type of photog who wants perpetual storage and archiving, I don’t see abandoning Lightroom Classic as an option. It might mean managing two separate libraries – one archive library in LRC and one active library for current and recent projects in LRCC (these acronyms are also going to be a pain in the butt ?).
If they make adding additional storage affordable, it might not be a huge problem, but when hard drives are cheaper than online storage monthly costs when amortized over, say, 3 years, the TCO (total cost of ownership) doesn’t make sense. Especially when you don’t even own that storage.
And as current trends have shown us, big companies like Adobe cannot be relied on to make cloud storage affordable. They’re in it to make money off us without adding value.
I’ve found that my TCOs have gone up since adopting cloud storage because I’m still running traditional backups to make sure I retain my own private copies. Cloud is great for its convenience, but not at the cost of losing control of your data both physically and financially.
Yep, that’s one of the main reasons Classic is still alive and kicking. It won’t be going away anytime soon.
I do agree with Yawhann on many of his points. TCO is important and so is UNLIMITED storage. As a professional (with only 7 ish years working) I do have 72 TB as of now. AFAIK adobe doesnt offer anything above 1TB. As much as I’d want to switch to a cloud based workflow.
Imagine: Transfering files after a shoot while on the road, sync via 4G / 5G and using auto edit 🙂 and I turn unemployed faster than a lighning strike. Reality check: At least some efforts are taken away like spending huge amounts on secure storage, offsite-backup, syncing etc.
So if you Victoria come up with a soluting for a work-environment with WAY more than 1 TB of storage needs AND that is cloud based I’ll send you flowers a whole year.
Awesome blogging – I do read most of your work since YEARS.
I cannot get it. Refreshed, no LR CC, just Classic. Am I missing something ? I even exited the app and started again and refreshed.
Click your avatar in the CC app, sign out and sign in again. That’s the “other nudge” that usually works.
I should have thought of that. It is there now. Odd everything else new showed up hours ago.
Yeah, I had the same problem here.
Do you think Adobe’s artificial intelligence machine learning tool can find numbers from locomotives in the photo?
If this is so I’m really excited to get my hands on this technology.
Not YET, as far as I know, but I’d expect text recognition to be a logical progression.
Please cover using LR Classic and LR CC together, if that’s possible.
I will over the next few weeks, but it’s a complete minefield. I wouldn’t recommending trying to have a foot in both camps, beyond using Lightroom CC as “Lightroom mobile for laptops” on a secondary computer.
Can I keep my photos on my HDD (SSD) as well as in the cloud – read that as instead of! I’m not cloud confident yet. Any crash, or internet failure and I can’t access anything. Maybe only hours while it’s sorted, but still downtime
Yes, there’s a “store a copy of all photos locally” checkbox in preferences that I’d STRONGLY recommend checking on at least one computer. You can even set it to use another hard drive, and if that hard drive is disconnected at some point, it’s smart enough to transfer any files when it’s reconnected.
What type of file will be stored locally?
It’ll keep smart previews locally, plus any originals (in their original format) that it’s recently needed to download, or you can tell it to keep some/all of the originals (in their original format) locally at all times. Personally, I’d recommend telling it to keep all originals locally on at least one computer, because it’s always sensible to have an offline copy.
Wow! There is a lot to absorb here. Thanks for all the information. I’m sort of disappointed that Adobe didn’t bother to share this information direct with it’s long time Creative Cloud users instead of letting us find out through third parties.
It is all on random Adobe pages, including their official blogs, but it’s far easier to find here. 😉
Hi Victoria, great post, thank you!! Will you be doing a post or ebook on how to transition from LR Classic to LR CC? I’m pretty sure I’m going to take the plunge and would love some handholding
I certainly will Rivki. It’s nearly finished!