Whether you’ve used Lightroom for years or you’re just getting started, you’ve likely come across the fact that there are two completely different programs, both called Lightroom. If you’re a little confused, you’re not alone. So what’s the difference? Which one is right for you? Which will suit your lifestyle and photography workflow? Or can you use them together? Let’s find out…
Which is which?
Let’s start by identifying the current Lightroom versions and their main differences (click image to enlarge).
Lightroom Classic is the traditional version of Lightroom that’s been around for years, hence the name Classic. It runs on Windows and macOS and stores your photos in folders on your local hard drives. You’re in charge of managing the files, the organization, the backups, etc. This is ideal for photographers with TBs of images but requires reasonable computer literacy.
Since Lightroom Classic has been available for years, it has lots of features. This can be a benefit or a disadvantage. If you’re an advanced user, the power and control it offers is huge, but if you’re new to Lightroom, the learning curve may be a bit overwhelming. We’ve covered Lightroom Classic in detail in Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
Some photographers were concerned that the launch of the cloud-based Lightroom might mean the end of the road for Lightroom Classic, but 7 years on, it’s still being developed and improved.
The Lightroom Ecosystem (formerly called Lightroom CC, also known as Lightroom Cloud) is a family of apps that started out as a simple mobile app and has grown into a full ecosystem that now includes:
- Lightroom Desktop – for Windows and macOS
- Lightroom Mobile – from iOS, iPadOS, and Android
- Lightroom Web – accessed using a web browser
The Lightroom Ecosystem apps are designed for modern living, so you can capture photos on your phone or load them from your camera, sort through them on your tablet when you have a few minutes to spare, edit them on your desktop, and then share them on the web.
It is primarily designed for your photos to be stored in the Lightroom Cloud, which means they’re available on all of your devices. This doesn’t mean you always need to be online, as you can also keep a local cached copy of some/all of the images for offline use. However, you do need reasonably fast internet access and plenty of bandwidth to get the photos to the cloud in the first place.
Most of the Lightroom Classic essential features are now available in the Lightroom Ecosystem apps in a simpler interface. While you can organize photos into albums, you don’t have to worry about file management, making it ideal for those with less computer experience. The Edit mode is powerful, but many of the sliders are hidden by default, so isn’t intimidating to newer photographers. The Adobe Sensei artificial intelligence search facilities make it easier to find photos, even without spending time manually adding keywords. Since much of its power is hidden, we’ve covered the Lightroom Ecosystem in detail in Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Since the October 2023 release, Lightroom Desktop (the desktop client of the Lightroom Ecosystem) has also offered a Local mode, which is a simple file browser with access to the same editing tools. Local mode is NOT designed to be a replacement for Lightroom Classic, but it may be a good option for some Classic users who want to use Lightroom’s editing tools without cataloging their photos. Note that some of Lightroom Desktop’s features are only available for photos uploaded to the cloud, so Cloud and Local mode have separate feature columns below.
Why two different desktop apps?
But why couldn’t Adobe make one Lightroom app to do it all? Quite simply, while there are similarities, the concepts and foundations are very different. A boat and a car are both used for transportation, but they’re not interchangeable!
Likewise, Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom Ecosystem are both used for organizing and editing photos, but they don’t think the same way. Classic is designed to catalog photos stored on the hard drive with lots of user control, whereas Lightroom Ecosystem is designed to primarily manage the photos in the cloud for you. It’s possible that someday they might merge, but there’s a long way to go before they can bridge that gap.
Can’t you just sync them both?
Lightroom Classic can sync with the cloud, so can you use them together to have the best of both worlds? Yes, with some limitations.
Lightroom Classic is not a full member of the Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem… it’s more like a distant cousin. It has a basic understanding of Lightroom’s Cloud Sync language from the mobile app’s early days, but it doesn’t understand how to sync newer Cloud additions like keywords, album folders/collection sets, or versions/snapshots, and sync gets itself in a tangle from time to time. Lightroom Classic also doesn’t upload originals to the cloud, only smaller smart previews. (We’ll follow up with a separate post on Lightroom Classic’s sync limitations, so watch this space.)
If you want to sync Lightroom Classic with the Cloud Ecosystem, you’ll need to decide which one you consider your primary archive of photos and videos. For most Classic users, Classic is the best choice for the primary archive. Smart previews can be synced up to the cloud for viewing and editing in the Lightroom Ecosystem apps, and photos added to the Lightroom Ecosystem apps (e.g. mobile) automatically download into your Classic archive.
How do I decide which to use?
So the next question is, how do you decide which Lightroom version should be used for your primary photo archive? Is Lightroom Ecosystem right for you, or would you be better with Lightroom Classic?
Some decisions are fairly straightforward, for example:
- If you’re a new photographer, your main camera is a mobile phone, and you have fast internet, Lightroom Ecosystem is a great choice.
- If you’re a wedding or portrait photographer shooting thousands of photos every week, it’s a pretty easy decision, as cloud storage is still more expensive than local storage. Classic is probably the way to go. Alternatively, if you just need to edit the photos organized by folder, you could use the Local browser of Lightroom Desktop.
- If you started with Lightroom 1 and you’re now an advanced user, you’re likely best sticking with Classic (at least for now), as you’ll probably find the more limited feature set frustrating.
- If you enjoy photography but your computer seems to break every time you so much as look at it, Lightroom Ecosystem is the safer bet.
- If you have slow internet or limited bandwidth, it’s a pretty easy decision to go with Classic, as syncing Lightroom Ecosystem would be painful.
- If you’re trying to fit photography into a busy lifestyle with a mix of phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, having your photos available on every device is a massive advantage, which makes Lightroom Ecosystem an obvious choice.
- If you frequently print to a local printer using Lightroom’s Print module, then Classic may be a better choice.
But what if your situation is a little less clear-cut? In that case, it’s time to weigh up priorities:
- Do you have fast unmetered internet, at least at home?
- Do you do most of your organizing and editing on a single desktop/laptop computer? Or are you trying to move between multiple devices, whether a desktop and a laptop or mobile devices too?
- How many photos do you have? Do you just need to be a bit more ruthless when deleting photos, or do you simply have too many photos to make cloud storage economically viable?
- Which features are most important to you? Classic has many organizational tools and traditional output tools (print, book, slideshow) that aren’t yet available in the Lightroom Ecosystem apps, but the Lightroom Ecosystem apps are far better at multi-device workflows and web sharing. There’s a chart below highlighting the main similarities and differences to help get you started.
One warning: when weighing up your priorities, don’t decide solely based on features. While it may be nice to have access to every tool in the toolshed, think about whether you actually need them. If easy multi-device access is important to you, you may be surprised how little you miss some tools.
And finally, a suggestion. The decision you make today may not be the same decision you’d make in a year’s time, but it’s ok to change your mind. The Lightroom Ecosystem is still relatively young, so it’s continuing to mature. These are the changes made since its release. So if you’re on the fence, it’s worth revisiting the decision from time to time.
| Classic | Desktop Cloud mode | Desktop Local mode | Mobile | |
| Edit stored in | Catalog (XMP optional) | Cloud | XMP in file metadata | Cloud |
| Storing Photos | ||||
| Originals stored locally | Yes | Optional | Yes | Optional |
| Split originals across multiple different hard drives | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Originals uploaded to cloud | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Originals downloaded on demand | N/A | Yes | No | Yes |
| Automatically manage hard drive space used | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Split into multiple catalogs | Yes | No | No | No |
| Import | ||||
| Import raw, JPEG, PSD, TIFF, DNG, HEIF, PNG, and some video formats | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Add to collection/album | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Change sort order / filter photos in Import dialog | Yes | No | No | No |
| Add metadata during import | Yes | Copyright only | Copyright only | Copyright only |
| Apply camera defaults during import | Yes, per-camera | Yes, single default | Yes, single default | Yes, single default |
| Rename photos during import | Yes | No | No | No |
| Import from iPhoto/Aperture/Photos | iPhoto/Aperture only | Yes, from Photos (and iPhoto/Aperture by upgrading libraries to Photos format) on macOS | No | Photos but not organization |
| Import from Photoshop Elements | Yes | No | No | No |
| Tethered Shooting & Watched Folders | Yes | No | No | No |
| Viewing Photos | ||||
| View Photos in Grid View | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| View Photos in Loupe/Detail View | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zoom in on photos | 6% – 1600% | 6% – 1600% | 6% – 1600% | Fit – 2:1 |
| View Photos in Survey View | Yes | No | No | No |
| View Photos in Compare View | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secondary Screen | Yes | No | No | No |
| Browse photos offline | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Organizing Photos | ||||
| Organize using Folders on the Hard Drive | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Organize using Collections / Albums | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Quick Collection / Target Collection | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Stack photos | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Rename photos | Yes | No | No | No |
| Delete photos | Yes, but no restore | Yes, with 60 days to undo | Yes, but no restore | Yes, with 60 days to undo |
| Viewing & Adding Metadata | ||||
| View EXIF/IPTC metadata | Yes | Yes, limited | Yes, limited | Yes, limited |
| Star Ratings | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Flags | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Color Labels | Yes | No | No | No |
| Title, Caption | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Copyright | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Edit Capture Time | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Add other IPTC metadata | Yes | No | No | No |
| Keywords | Yes, incl. hierarchical | Yes, flat only | Yes, flat only | Yes, flat only |
| View GPS | Yes (full Module) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Add GPS | Yes, using Map or co-ordinates | Yes, using co-ordinates or zipcode | Yes, using co-ordinates or zipcode | No |
| Face recognition | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Batch update metadata | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (Android only) |
| Write metadata to files | Yes | Only when saving a copy | Automatically | Only when saving a copy |
| Finding & Filtering Photos | ||||
| Change sort order | Yes (21 options) | Yes (6 options) | Yes (6 options) | Yes (6 options) |
| Set custom sort order | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI-based text search without tagging | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Filter on rating, flag, file type, people, locations, keywords, edit status | Yes | Yes | Single Folder only | Yes |
| Filter on likes/comments | No | Yes | No | No |
| Filter on other metadata | Yes, using Metadata columns | Yes, using faceted search | Single Folder only | Yes, using faceted search |
| Save frequently used filter combinations | Yes | No | No | No |
| Smart Collections / Albums | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Editing Photos & Videos | ||||
| Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tone Curves | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HDR Editing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (on supported devices) |
| Clarity, Dehaze & Texture | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Color Adjustments (WB, HSL, Vibrance, Saturation) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Point Color | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Color Grading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sharpening, Noise Reduction, Grain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lens Corrections | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, limited controls |
| Lens Blur | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, limited controls |
| Chromatic Aberration/Defringe | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Geometric Corrections (Upright) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Calibration Sliders (Legacy) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Local/Selective Editing Tools | ||||
| Cropping & Straightening | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Remove tools—Generative AI, Remove, Clone & Heal Tools | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Red Eye & Pet Eye Correction Tools | Yes | Yes (Red Eye only) | Yes (Red Eye only) | No |
| Masking – Gradients & Brushes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Masking – Range Mask | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Masking – Sky, Subject | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Masking – Background, Object, People | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Local Adjustment Brush Presets | Yes | No | No | No |
| Post-Crop Vignette | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Photo Merge | ||||
| Stitch a panorama | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Merge to HDR | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Editing Tools | ||||
| Copy/paste settings to multiple photos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apply Profiles | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Create & Apply Presets | Yes | Yes (no Brush Presets) | Yes (no Brush Presets) | Yes (no Brush Presets) |
| Install downloaded Presets | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI Recommended Presets | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sync Profiles & Presets to the cloud | No | Yes | Yes if Cloud sync enabled | Yes |
| History | Yes | Partial (Auto Versions) | No | Partial (Auto Versions) |
| Before /After Preview | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reference View | Yes | Yes, Compare View | Yes, Compare View | No |
| Snapshots | Yes | Yes, using Versions | No | Yes, using Versions |
| Create Real Copies | Yes, virtual | Yes, real | Yes, real | No |
| Histogram & RGB Values | Yes | Histogram only | Histogram only | Histogram only |
| Soft Proofing | Yes | No | No | No |
| Viewing/Editing Videos | ||||
| Play video clips | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Clip beginning/end | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Make color/tonal adjustments | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Extensibility | ||||
| Send to Photoshop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Send to Photoshop Elements | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Send to Other External Editors (e.g. Topaz) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Third-Party Plug-ins | Yes | No | No | No |
| SDK for Gadgets (like LoupeDeck) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Export | ||||
| Export as new file name | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export file formats | Original, JPG, AVIF, JXL, TIFF,DNG, PNG, PSD, DPX, H.264 | Original, JPG, AVIF, JXL, TIFF,DNG, MP4 | Original, JPG, AVIF, JXL, TIFF,DNG, MP4 | Original, JPG, AVIF, JXL, TIFF,DNG, MP4 |
| Export color space | Any RGB Color Profile | ProPhoto, Adobe RGB, sRGB , Display P3. (If HDR: sRGB, Display P3 & Rec.2020) | ProPhoto, Adobe RGB, sRGB , Display P3. (If HDR: sRGB, Display P3 & Rec.2020) | ProPhoto, Adobe RGB, sRGB , Display P3. (If HDR: sRGB, Display P3 & Rec.2020) |
| Export with resize | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export with output sharpening | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export with watermark | Yes, text or graphic | Yes, text or graphic | Yes, text or graphic | Yes, text or graphic |
| Export with specific metadata | Yes | Yes (limited) | Yes (limited) | Yes (limited) |
| Save Custom Export Presets | Yes | No | No | No |
| Email Photos direct from Lightroom | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Publish Services | Yes | Connections are similar | No | No |
| Send to Facebook | No (removed in August 2018 due to API change) | No | No | Yes |
| Send to Flickr | Yes, as Publish Services | No | No | No |
| Output Modules | ||||
| Book | Yes (full Module) | Sync photos to Blurb Bookwright | No | No |
| Slideshow | Yes (full Module) | Yes (limited) | Yes (limited) | Yes (limited) |
| Yes (full Module) | No | No | Yes | |
| Web | Yes (full Module) | No | No | No |
| Multiple Computers/Devices | ||||
| Use on secondary desktop | Using import/export catalogs | Yes, all Cloud photos | Yes if photos on separate external HDD | Yes, all Cloud photos |
| Use on mobile device | Sync smart previews to LR Cloud,not all metadata syncs (e.g. keywords, people) | Yes, full size original available | No | Yes, full size original available |
| Access photos in a web browser | Sync smart previews to LR Cloudy | Yes | No | Yes |
| Share Lightroom Web galleries | Sync smart previews to LR Ecosystem | Yes, with additional options | Only if copied to cloud | Yes, with additional options |
Which plan should you buy?
If you don’t already have a subscription, here’s the link you need. There’s two main plans:
- Lightroom 1TB includes access to the Lightroom Desktop apps on Windows & Mac (activated on 5 desktop/laptop computers at any one time), plus your various mobile devices, and 1TB of cloud space to store your photos.
- Photography Plan 20GB or 1TB includes access to Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and Lightroom Desktop (activated on 2 computers at any one time), plus Lightroom Mobile on your various mobile devices. It includes either 20GB or 1TB of cloud space, depending on which plan you choose.
But which plan will be best for you? Pick the combination of apps you want to use:
- Classic only = Photography Plan 20GB
- Lightroom Ecosystem only = Lightroom 1TB
- Classic + Photoshop = Photography Plan 20GB
- Lightroom Ecosystem + Photoshop = Photography Plan 1TB (or Lightroom 1TB plan plus Photography Plan 20GB for flexibility. It’s the same price and gives you 5 activated desktop/laptops for Cloud instead of 2.)
- Classic + Lightroom Ecosystem (e.g. syncing Classic with the mobile apps) = Photography Plan with 20GB if you’ll mainly be syncing photos up from Classic, or 1TB if you often add photos on your phone/tablet.
- Cloud Mobile only = Lightroom 1TB. (There’s also 100GB Premium in-app purchases available from the mobile app stores. They’re a bit cheaper but only have 100GB of Lightroom Cloud space and are limited to that specific operating system.)
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
If you have the Photography Plan, then as well as Classic you have access to the Lightroom cloud ecosystem including the mobile apps and web interface. For more information on these apps, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
For extensive information on Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of this book includes the first year’s cloud-based Premium Membership, giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the cloud-based Lightroom apps if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
Originally posted 18 October 2017, updated for all of the changes in October 2024. The features chart continues to be updated with new features as they’re released.
Hi Victoria, I’m currently running LR 6.14 perpetual on an old machine, and I need to transfer to a new machine. I was thinking of upgrading LR at this time as well. What are your thoughts regarding a solution that has 2 use-cases?:
1. Genealogy Documentation (I think I need LR Classic, or somehow install LR 6.14 on the new computer – I still have the downloaded installation file from 2018)
These are primarily scanned photos and downloaded/scanned document images. I need to assure these are well organized on a local drive for use by the interface/linkage to Family Tree Maker 2019. I currently have about 500 images, but expect the count to grow over time.
2. General Family Mobile Photography
These are a mix of primarily Android mobile photos and scanned paper photos (about 3000 and growing), which I would normally import into LR 6.14 for edits, then publish to SmugMug as full resolution backup only. I was thinking that LR the Ecosystem would be good for this use-case because it’d be better integrated, and I do need a cloud backup, HOWEVER everyone in my family shares photos/albums through Google Photos (blasphemy, I know:)). But LR doesn’t seem able to publish to Google.
Hi bencro, sorry for the delay replying. Based on the fact that you need locally organized files for Family Tree Maker, I think Classic is the way to go for you.
This is a super helpful tutorial!
I have about 4TB of photos, in part due to lack of discipline, but also we digitized all of these photos from my family that took a lot of space.
I’m intrigued by some of the “newer” features of the LR ecosystem (AI, cloud-based, etc.) but right now, all of my photos are in LrC.
Do you have any recommendations on whether/how I can take advantage of the LR ecosystem given the fact that I have so much data, much of which has already been placed in folders through LrC?
You’re probably best off keeping Classic as your primary archive and syncing up to the cloud from there. Classic only syncs up smart previews (smaller proxy files), which don’t take up your cloud space quota, so you can essentially get the best of both worlds that way.
Thanks! If I do that, do I have any ability to edit/manipulate/organize those photos in the cloud?
Yes. There’s some limitations on what syncs back to Classic, so don’t waste time keywording on the mobile apps, but all of the edits sync. The main limitation is they’re not full resolution files so you can’t export big files from mobile. Here’s the sync limitations: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/limitations-syncing-classic-with-cloud/
Hello Victoria. Still trying to figure out a good workflow between cloud and classic. I have the 1 TB photography plan and have used Cloud as my primary app. After lots of deletions I have about 12,000 shots organized into 81 albums. I use my Android phone, iPad, and iMac for editing. I am on the road a lot so I often upload shots from my DSLR to my iPad. I am doing more home printing so I am looking for a workflow to move select photos from cloud to classic. Generally I can do the editing in cloud, tu occasionally I do additional editing in classic. Since I started learning on cloud, I find classic a little clunkier. I have thought about just syncing everything since I still have plenty of storage space in cloud and on my desktop. But that seems like overkill since I probably only print or do additional Classic edits on about 10% of all photos. I was thinking about creating a new album in Cloud named “For Work in Classic” and then just setting up an automatic sync just for that album. I would add anything I want to print into that album, and do additional edits and printing in Classic as necessary. I assume any edits I do in Classic prior to printing will sync back to Cloud and will show up in whatever albums I have the photo included in. Does this make any sense? Would it be better to just sync everything all the time? Thanks.
If Print is the only thing you need Classic for, I might make it simpler: when you’ve finished editing in the cloud app, export as Original + Settings to a folder (perhaps called Print Me!) and just import those photos into Classic to print them. It saves the whole sync issue and duplication, and you could delete them from that temporary folder once they’re printed, as they’d still be safely in the cloud.
Thanks Victoria. This makes sense. There are times when I end up editing the photo in classic because I didn’t like the test print and I need to tweak it. How would I get that version back into the cloud version? I was hoping to just set up a single cloud album to sync, but now I think I understand that if I set up sync, all 81 albums will have to sync from cloud to classic. It is an all or nothing proposition in that direction.
I think I’d go back and do the tweaks in Cloud and then re-export for printing again.
VIctoria, you’re my hero! Thank you for clearing up Adobe’s LR word-salad.
I’m grudgingly moving from my old LR Classic 6.0 perpetual license to Photography Plan 20 GB.
I have LR installed on 2 Win 7 PCs, one of which has no Internet access. I have all of my images (nicely organized) and my one LRcat file on a peripheral HD that I carry from one place to the other.
I’m buying a new Win 11 PC for home and will install the new LrC and Photoshop there. Any booby traps that I should try to avoid as I install and migrate from the old platform to the new?
If I drag the Internet-less PC home and temporarily give it Internet access, will the new LrC and Photoshop install on a Win7 box or do I need to upgrade that PC to a Win 10 or 11 PC as well?
Thanks so much. I’d send you cookies, if I could.
Ron
Hi Ron
We’d suggest download our free Moving Computers eBook, it’s a step-by-step guide to moving Lightroom from one computer to another. When you open Lightroom on the new computer and point at your catalog, it’ll upgrade it to the current format.
Windows 7 hasn’t been supported for some time, the current spec:
Windows 10 (version 20H2 or later) or Windows 11 (version 21H1 or later).
Cookies would have been good!!!
I check back on a semi-regular basis to your excellent feature comparison table (which I now see has been adopted on the Adobe help site!) to see if it is time to think about jumping ship to LR Cloud. This time, it is getting so close that I did a deeper dive and I see that even small items which were annoying misses before are now getting filled in. It may be time.
One thing I notice is that reading the version update log, it appears that at least since July, 2 significant changes have been made to Video editing:
Clip beginning/end
and
Make color/tonal adjustments
are now both a “Yes”.
The Adobe table has been adjusted but yours has not yet, just as a FYI.
This tool has been enormously helpful to me!
Thanks, Dave, we updated that now. The two systems do now share the majority of features.
“Photograpgy” license should be called “Graphic Artist” license. Since most photographers don’t need photoshop.
They could then have 4 different LightRoom licenses (could just be options for lightroom license, that changes price based on options selected.)
1. Lightroom Pro: LightRoom Classic & CC,
w/ 100TB – $15.99
2. LightRoom Classic w/ 1TB – $9.99
3. LightRoom CC w/ 1TB – $9.99
4. LightRoom Classic no web storage – $4.99
If nothing else. They need to have at least option #2 for those that just want Lightroom Classic and web storage and #4 for those that just want Lightroom Classic and no web storage.
Hello, I had accumulated tens of thousands of photos on Lightroom Classic going back to V1. I am not a pro but this is my hobby. I am a software and cloud engineer for many years. After talking to Adobe support I decided to migrate my classic images to Lightroom CC and then start a brand new Classic catalog and only store Smart previews locally. So far the Classic to CC migration completed (after 3 days) and now with the fresh CC catalog I am syncing smart previews into the local computer Classic. So far it loaded 3,000 smart previews in 4 hours. My thoughts were I can still use Classic occasionally but I will be using CC primarily and I still have photoshop for series edits. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Thanks
So just double checking, you have realized that Lightroom Classic requires a local copy of originals, you can’t only sync smart previews to Classic?
Hello Victoria. I recently discovered the “Recommended presets” feature in Lightroom Cloud/Desktop and was quite impressed. I think this should be in your feature comparison chart, but I don’t think it’s there? Love this article, by the way 🙂
Great suggestion, we’ve added it to the list.
Thanks for this article, it really helps!
In my case, I’m running on classic in terms of catalog and “proper” edits. I also review and tweak on my phone so sync specific collections.
I understand I can drag folders to collections and then migrate them to Lightroom so I have a kind of virtual folder structure appearance.
My concern would be then having to pull it all back into folders if I left Lightroom for another app – or just view with windows explorer etc. Is there a bombproof, easy way to get back out of Lightroom’s flat format and into folders again?
Also, in classic, it uploads previews – if I went to Lightroom, would I then be pulling full size files into my phone when I edit?
I’m not in all honesty a Lightroom fan so don’t want to get too much in without a solid exit plan. (Maybe I need to read more on this site to help sway me ha ha!)
LOL you definitely need to hang around here more!!! Join us on the forum and we’ll help you figure out better solutions for the things you don’t like so much.
For photos synced to the cloud from Classic, they’re smart previews, so they’re only 2560px.
For your folders, no, there isn’t an easy way. Dragging the folders down to the Collections panel doesn’t remove them from the topic folders, but it’s just a bit of a pain to reproduce the organization in both folders and collections without missing odd files. It might be good enough for your purposes though.
Thanks for the reply. I should have been a bit clearer actually – for me the USP of Lightroom is the mobile workflow. At the moment I’m in the both camps approach. Kinda ok but not too clean as I’ve read above.
As I mentioned, my concern is migrating to Lightroom only to be trapped there as I’m now firmly in the Lightroom cloud ecosystem. If I want to have a go with On1, Capture 1, Luminar etc etc, I can’t because I no longer have the traditional folder system – I have the big, flat file system in Lightroom.
Or so I believe… I’m no expert 🙂
Yep I’m with you. I don’t know how complex a folder structure you like to have, but if at some point in the future, you decided to exit the cloud ecosystem, you could easily select an album at a time and export as “original+settings” to a matching folder structure. Or you could use keywords to accomplish something similar.
Not too complicated. Year, then month / events. Pretty shallow structure.
I’ll take a proper look at the exit strategy – starting to warm to the idea of both feet into Lightroom 😉 Thanks for the advice.
Hi, almost moving to Lr as LRC plus LR as mobile seems clunky – as discussed a long time ago 😂
One question -you said if I have photos in one album in LR and export it then I can get a folder structure back.
If I have photos in multiple albums then it’ll be chaos. Any thoughts?
Yes, although I guess you could continue to use albums like folders, only allowing each photo to be in one album.
I guess the question is what’s the likelihood of you leaving, other than going back to Classic? If you were going back to Classic, you’d just turn on sync and let everything sync down.
If you were leaving to go elsewhere, creating keywords for each of your collections (rather than exporting to folders) might be a way of being able to sort them back into topic folders in whatever software you decided to use next. Keywords are standardized metadata so most photo management software should read them.
I wouldn’t worry too much at this stage, because technology is changing all the time and there might be a better option but the time you got to that.
To Victoria Bampton: I took the for a subscription to Members from “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC Edit Like A Pro” from page 18 (https://www.Lrq.me/LRCC“) and it does not work (I am on Windows 10 PC). What is the right address?
– Don Blattner
Hi Don
We’re not seeing that link on page 18 of the Edit Like a Pro book. However, if you go to our Shop page you’ll see a link there for Adobe Photography Plans.
I have Lightroom 6 at the moment but will get the subscription of Lightroom CC . I looked at your latest e-book on how to install CC on the computer. The installation seems straightforward but how to get my catalog from LR6 to Lightroom CC is not clear from the book. It mentions how to go from LR6 to the creative cloud CC app and Lightroom on the web. If I buy the latest Lightroom Classic book, will there be a good write up of how to get my catalog from LR6 to Lightroom CC, or do I have to newly import all my files in the new Lightroom CC. Thanks for your answer.
To be clear (as there is no Lightroom CC, there’s Classic and the cloud-based Lightroom), Lightroom Classic will read and update your Lr6 catalog. You need to install the CC App to install Lightroom Classic, our Quick Start eBook talks about that. This is different to taking your photos to the cloud. Our Classic FAQ covers all aspects of the Classic Application.
Thank you for this post. I’d been using LR since V2 and was pretty good at it. But I stopped using it for a while because after a long day at work I didn’t want to sit at my desktop and play with photos. I moved to CC about 18 months ago because I wanted multiple access points. I’ve been frustrated with some of the things that CC lacks in comparison to Classic but reading through this in detail, I still think that CC is the right one for me as remote access is a bit more important. It’s tough to go without certain features that I liked in Classic and it’s hard when the desktop version has different features than the mobile or web but I think I can learn to be at peace with it knowing my photos are all in the cloud and accessible from everywhere. Thank you for the detailed walk through.
We’re pleased it was helpful. The cloud and mobile versions have caught up with a lot of the features that Classic has now, but will always offer a different set of advantages.
Thanks for reposting this, Victoria.
Following the introduction of iPadOS 13 with the enhanced Files app, I spent last year trying to integrate Lightroom (cloud-based) on an iPad Pro with LR Classic on my iMac. So I’d go on a trip, download images from my camera onto the iPad, do basic editing, and try to upload to the cloud. I’ve recently gone back to using a laptop when (if!) I’m travelling. This is for two reasons: a) I find the Classic version just easier to use; and b) some of the places I’ve been just haven’t had the sort of internet connection that made LR Cloud-based easy to use. In fact, even back home with a genuine 50 mbps connection, it seems to take ages to transfer a few hundred images from the iPad, to the cloud, and then down to the iMac. In contrast I’ve found that storing everything on a new catalogue on a laptop, exporting that as a Catalogue and importing that catalog into my main ione has always worked very well.
It’s a workflow that works well for some, Tom, but does of course depend on a reasonable internet connection.
I have posted this in the Adobe Support Community asking for feedback and suggestions, but I would appreciate very much your ideas about my approach.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom/splitting-my-catalog-between-lightroom-classic-and-lightroom-cc-the-cloud/m-p/11082490?page=1#M26678
Virginia, thanks for all this info. Was very helpful, and I have not found better comparative info anywhere, as I went thru a two-month period of evaluating LR Classic vs LR Cloud. It really helped to pull together all the info in one place, and to understand all the trade-offs of committing to either app as my long-term photo manager.
In the end, I just could not bear the outdated, SQLite based catalog approach in LR Classic. And all the compromises and limitations that go with that. The performance is terrible even on good hardware.
And it makes it hard to easily use your catalog as a single ‘source of truth’ and access it without clunky workarounds all your various PC’s and devices. I’m a software developer and most apps we develop these days in my company are cloud friendly, cross-platform (can use on any OS or device), and usable across multiple devices.
LR Cloud version has all those positive attributes of a modern app, has a nice UI to boot, and you can see the steady progress toward ‘feature parity’ with LR Classic. Just recently they added the feature to export DNG’s regardless of source file type. So at this point, LR Cloud has all major features I care about, though I’m hoping they add a few more of the nice-to-have things from LR Classic, such as the red eye tool, virtual copies, etc. I’m using LR Cloud in conjunction with Daminion Home Server edition. Daminion is a metadata and digital asset management system. You can use it to manage, view, tag with IPTC/XMp metadata, launch, and edit, all types of files (not just photos). It has a nice web-based interface and you run it as a web service, so you can access it from anywhere.
Virginia, now that I’ve committed my photo management and RAW processing tasks to LR Cloud, I’d love to hear your thinking on my two-pronged approach to managing the files. Here’s the basic version:
1. Keep all source photos and initial shots in LR Cloud. Use LR Cloud to cull, geocode, process the RAWs, tag with basic metadata (keyword, title, description), group into albums of related pics, and in some cases, publish to Adobe Portfolio or prints using Blurb. Once a photo has gone through this full process, export as a DNG file with edit settings. Once the file has been fully processed, published, and exported, remove it from LR Cloud.
2. With the exported DNG files, keep a “photo_sources” folder on home network. Use Daminion to index and add richer metadata to all these source files. Also use Daminion to export to various output formats, keeping the folder with exports associated with the original source files (Daminion has ‘stacking’ features and versioning, similar to LR Classic)
So this is probably a slightly different way to use LR Cloud than Adobe intends. They would love me and other photographers to keep ALL our photo source files in there forever, thus running up the monthly storage costs. But I decided I will use LR Cloud merely as a “photo processing service” to do the tasks outlined above, but when done with those files, remove from LR and store them on my home network with cheaper storage, and richer metadata capabilities.
Would love to hear your thought on that strategy.
If you’re happy with it, then go for it. It’s not a workflow I’d recommend to most people, but you’ve obviously thought it through.
Yep I get that. It’s more expensive for one thing, I get the Photography plan + 1 TB, normally $20/month. Fortunately I get their sale earlier summer, got a few months free trial, then locked in $14.95/month for another year to try it out.
So far I’m liking the approach I outlined above. Far from perfect–as I have to use 2 apps (LR cloud for the initial photo processing/management phase, and Daminion for the long-term storage/management on home network).
I think for those 2 reasons, the extra cost, and having to buy and run 2 separate apps to manage all your photos, almost nobody else will do what I’m doing. 🙂 Still, it does work great for me so far. I do miss a few of the LR classic tools when I use LR cloud, but it’s gotten REALLY good and I so strongly prefer the performance and UI, to me I’ve been happy to go full on LR cloud and not look back. I don’t even install LR classic any longer. Definitely don’t miss lugging around hard drives and thumb drives between different PC’s, getting the frequent sync and backup issues, etc. But for me a lot of it is also the user experience: the LR modern app design is slick and uses that progressive UI approach. They start simple, showing you only the limited stuff you need to see which keeps it clean and not overwhelming. Then they progressively reveal more layers of functionality as you drill down into the app. Not everyone likes this, admittedly, but big companies like Microsoft have gone to this type of UI as well, for example, the Office ribbon uses the same design principle.
Anyway, hoping that more folks eventually take the time to give LR cloud a serious try, compare it side-by-side with LR classic for a month or two, like I did, and see what you think.
Thanks for all this info. Incredibly helpful for anyone trying to make sense of Adobe’s confusing mess of product offerings.
Just to confirm, if I subscribe to the Photography Plan, it will automatically enable all the extra features on their iOS Lightroom mobile app for iPhone and iPad, correct?
Correct. With the Photography Plan, you get Classic, Photoshop, Lightroom Desktop (that’s the cloud one) and 20Gb Adobe cloud space. That cloud space is sued by the mobile apps to sync back to Classic (once you log the mobile apps in using your Adobe account)
Hi Victoria. I like the cloud storage of Lightroom CC and the current version works for many of my needs. But there are times I have a special photo that I want to work in Lightroom Classic. I am currently not storing copies locally but am considering this likely using a few different external drives. Two questions: Is it possible to download a specific photo from Lightroom CC Cloud to import into Lightroom Classic and store on my local hard drive? Is it possible to use the local storage feature of Lightroom CC but have multiple external drives due to size limitations? Appreciate your assistance.
Hi Liz
> Is it possible to download a specific photo from Lightroom CC Cloud to import into Lightroom Classic and store on my local hard drive?
Try using File menu > Save As > Original + Settings format, and import that photo into Classic. That’s a copy of the original plus the updated metadata.
> Is it possible to use the local storage feature of Lightroom CC but have multiple external drives due to size limitations?
Not at the moment, unless they were in some kind of RAID setup.
What really drives me nuts is that Adobe doesn’t allow subscribing one account to the Lightroom an the Photography plan at the same time. So I can‘t activate Cloudy on more than two Computers as long as I want to use Classic for some still missing features like GPS tagging.
It is so frustrating, that I have to chose one, even if I am willing to pay the extra money.
What happens when you try to purchase the Cloudy plan too? I’d understood from my contacts that it should work.
I get an error message that says that the “Lightroom plan with 1 TB” is already part of my “Photography plan with 1 TB (prepaid annual subscription)”
Original message:
You already have this product
You already have Lightroom plan with 1TB as part of your Creative Cloud Foto-Abo mit 1 TB (Jahres-Abo, Prepaid) subscription.
Ah, ok, I think that’s because you have the 1TB version. I think if you had the 20GB version, it should work, or so I understand from one of the managers at Adobe. You could talk to customer support and tell them you want to swap to LR+1TB and Photography Plan 20GB instead of Photography Plan 1TB, in order to use Cloudy on 5 computers. Same price, so hopefully they’ll be able to do that for you. It’s just because only a couple of SKU’s are enabled for 5 computers.
I just had a Chat-Conversation with Adobe support. The Agent told me there can only be one subscription per Account.
Not very helpful. Now I will have to work with web access on the other systems. We’ll see how that works.
Thx for your Help!
Do you have a chat number? I’d like to check that with a manager, as that directly contradicts what I’d been told (and wouldn’t make a lot of sense, since people may have multiple single-app subscriptions).
Mike, you are correct. I just went through this exact scenario recently, tried to subscript to 20GB Photography plan with classic, and 1 TB LR “cloudly”. The Adobe automated account system gave same error messages as you got. I worked with 3 different support agents over 2 days, all confirmed. You CANNOT subscribe to both the photography plan 20GB, AND the LR 1 TB ‘cloudy’ plan in same subscription. You will have to subscribe to them in 2 different accounts. I tried this, and it creates massive hassles trying to work with the files on one computer–clearly, they don’t want you to do this. They’re forcing you into a decision: you either run the LR 1 TB plan without Photoshop, Classic, etc., OR you run the Photography plan and add 1 TB storage. I also have not been able to confirm what Viriginia’s table has about the LR 1 TB plan–that if you get that, you can install the LR ‘cloudy’ windows client app on 5 PCs or Macs. I hope that is in fact true, because if it is, I’d probably eventually convert to that and just drop photoshop and all the rest. All i really need and use now is the LR cloud service, so the LR 1 TB plan on 5 PC’s would be perfect for me.
Thanks tlteebken-reg, they must have blocked that loophole then.
5 computers for the Lightroom + 1TB plan is confirmed. That plan was changed to match the Microsoft and Mac App Store subscriptions when it launched on those stores.
Staff confirmation (Rikk Flohr):
Plans containing Photoshop allow for two seats. Plans containing only Lightroom Ecosystem +1TB allow for five seats. A seat is a Mac/Windows computer. All plans provision from 10 devices (phone/tablet). https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-cc-allow-for-family-usage-i-e-from-more-than-two-computers
Thanks for the confirmation on the 5 computers with the LR 1 TB plan, Virginia! Then I will probably convert over to that when the remainder of my remainder of my free trial runs out. I know the $10/month folks feel is expensive. For me personally, it seems like a bargain with 1 TB storage and great software that they’re working hard to catch up to LR Classic. I figure MS Office 365 charges $10/month per TB of added storage, although you can get storage a bit cheaper at Google and Dropbox, depending on account. But $10 per TB is not totally unreasonable when they’re also giving you a software service like LR cloudy on top of the storage. I”m actually one of the few folks I know who’s a happy camper with LR cloudy, I love the design and performance of the software across all my devices. It’s so slick to be able to take and edit pictures on my Ipad, my Galaxy phone, and 2 PC’s (right now), and have access to all the same source files without messing around with the LR classic catalog system.
Hi there. I’m a Lightroom CC user and have 20k pictures synced across devices. I’ve now downloaded Lightroom Classic and its starting to Sync. Is it moving my pictures to my laptop under LR Classic – will I have multiple copies? I want to free up some of my Adobe cloud space so my approach was to move the older years of photos to Classic and keep all the current stuff in CC. I guess what I’m asking is, do you have an effective strategy to use both and a way to optimize where original pics are stored? Thanks
Classic is a hoarder, so the moment you turn on sync in Classic, it’ll download all of the cloud photos onto your local hard drive.
20k photos isn’t THAT many. How close are you to maxing out your storage?
I am working on documenting all of the “foot in both camp” workflows but I’d guess it’s a couple of months from release yet. In the meantime, Classic’s sync limitations are all detailed in the Cloud Sync chapter of the Classic Missing FAQ book.
Keep checking back hoping the big issues keeping me from CC will be added including: Rename photos on import and rename photos after, apply preset on import, compare view, view/add all exif data, hierarchical keywords, add full gps location, local adjustment presets, edit multiple photos at once, history of editing, export to any format/color space/file name. Last checked about 6 months ago and looks like none of those items have been resolved yet. Understand things take time, just wish their were a road map so we would know when missing items would be re-added and or if any of the items will never be added for some reason.
The best you can do Chris, is vote on the feature requests on the feedback forum. That helps the engineering team determine their priorities, and you’ll get an email update when it gets implemented too.
Hi, Victoria. Thank you! I think your flow chart for selection is good, yet I don’t know what I don’t know, so thought asking an expert would be best. The forums haven’t really answered my question, but your input seemed quite expert, so I tried to find the best place to reach you with this question.
I am an amateur ramping up my hobby slightly. I also have lots of of family photos. I want a cloud based service for back-up security and I like the idea of sharing with family and friends and accessing across platforms.
I purchased the Photography plan and quickly upgraded to the 1 TB level as, like most people I think, I take advantage of digital and shot way more than I plan to keep, hoping for that perfect shot. I thought I would be able to choose what to upload or to delete what I did not want, but that has proven to be difficult – not even sure how to do it.
So, if I want cloud storage, but want to determine what gets saved, what is the best option? It appears from the flowchart that I should use classic and somehow choose what to upload to CC (I suppose I will learn this when I begin to use the tool). Is that the best way? If so, is there a way to migrate the 3000+ photos already in the cloud to Classic so I can “start over”?
Hi Laura. I’m out of the office so I haven’t checked in on the forums. There isn’t currently a way of doing selective sync to the cloud in CC, but if we’re only talking 3000 photos, I wouldn’t let that stop you. I currently have around 105,000 photos in the cloud, and I’ve found it’s made me more selective about which photos are worth keeping. I’d just pause sync when initially importing, delete the duds and then resume sync. You could migrate to Classic by simply enabling sync in Classic, so it downloads from the cloud. I wouldn’t rush into that though, if CC suits you well in every other way.
Yay, didn’t know I could pause the synch. Will investigate how to do that – thanks!!
OK, don’t laugh at me, but I STILL have all my photos (3TB) in Aperture. I just purchased Adobe CC and considering Aperture is really giving me trouble AND I just filled up my 3TB external, I need to move my photos. Currently I am dead in the water as I cannot import anything so I need to move fast! Question is do I buy a larger external, and import into Lightroom Classic, or import into Lightroom cloud, removing the need fora larger external HD? I am currently paying for a cloud-based back up plan, so I could go either way. Now…on to learn Lightroom!
Hi Allison, I wouldn’t dream of laughing!
I would buy a bigger hard drive whichever way you go, because even if you store the photos in the cloud, I’d still strongly recommend a local backup. For sanity’s sake, you need more than one copy of the photos!
So with that out of the equation, I’d then think about which offers the best solution for you. For example, do you want to be able to access the photos from multiple devices easily, or do you need more advanced features that aren’t currently available in CC? CC is much simpler to learn, but requires a good internet connection. Make the decision based on those kind of factors rather than whether to buy a hard drive or not.
Thank you for providing this comparison and flowchart 🙂
I am currently on Lightroom 6, and am considering updating to the CC versions – held off mainly due to wanting more time subscription-free, and seeing people having issues with the earlier releases, but I’ve not seen as many complaints online with the more recent versions. I’ve been using LR for a few years now, but have only been learning post-processing beyond the basic/global slider adjustments, e.g. selective adjustment brushes and graduated filters etc., for the past half year or so (Note: Your starter eBook was very helpful!). So I have much learning ahead.
I’m debating whether to stick with LR Classic, due to familiarity with the interface, or to go down the LR CC route. Based on your flowchart and table, I do use features particular to Classic such as direct Flickr and SmugMug export, and exporting with custom profiles for print, using profiles provided by the photo lab. Also am attracted to the range masks on localized adjustments, LR6 doesn’t have them though.
A big drawback of my current workflow is that my catalog and photos are all at home on my desktop computer, and I have no means of editing photos while travelling, which is when I do the majority of my photography. Also I am using LR only with my dedicated cameras at the moment, while actually capturing a fair number of images with my phone as well.
Is shifting to Lightroom CC the best way to solve these workflow issues? If so, how would one get around the shortcomings in exporting?
Alternatively, I’ve read about sticking with Lightroom Classic, and making a temporary catalog on a portable computer, to be imported into the main catalog later – how well does this work in practice? And would it play well with using LR Mobile to do edits on a tablet, or importing photos taken using my phone? Would syncing between Classic and Mobile play up if multiple LR Classic catalogs are involved? Also, is syncing between Classic and CC still problematic in the latest releases?
Thank you for your time in reading this, and apologies if I’m repeating questions answered elsewhere!
Hi Ken, let me see if I can answer one at a time:
> Is shifting to Lightroom CC the best way to solve these workflow issues?
Yes, CC is by far the simplest way of making photos available on other devices, but it’s not the only option.
> If so, how would one get around the shortcomings in exporting?
I’d run a Photoshop action, but that limitation could be an issue for you for now. You might want to go with Classic for now and switch when that feature is added.
> I’ve read about sticking with Lightroom Classic, and making a temporary catalog on a portable computer
There’s a few different options. Sticking the catalog on a portable drive that you plug in to whichever computer you’re using works pretty well, and is the simplest of the Classic options. If you want to sync, I’d stick to one catalog. Having a Classic catalog on the desktop, and then CC on the travel computer can work nicely. There’s some pitfalls to avoid because Classic isn’t a true sync client (more of a distant cousin!) but they’re all detailed in the Cloud Sync chapter of my Classic book.
I use LR Classic almost exclusively, but I like a few options on LR CC. One is the search engine which seems to be superior, particularly with a sizeable catalog. (44K photos).
I’d like to use both applications but I am confused as to how to keep the two LR versions in sync. If I add a new folder in Classic, it does not appear in CC (for example). How do I get the catalogs for the 2 apps to stay in sync? Thanks.
No really easy solutions to that Paul, as they’re kind of distant cousins. Classic isn’t a “real” sync client, unlike all of the CC apps. One thing you can do is create a sync collection in Classic called something like “auto import” and in the Import dialog, set all new photos to be added to that collection, so they’ll automatically get synced. That won’t sync the folder organization though.
Thank you, Victoria, for patiently answering my questions!
I have an optional path other than that shown on your flow chart. I use LR 6 perpetual ( or could use CC without cloud storage) have an external HD with all photos, catalogs and libraries. The very portable Seagate Backup Plus is small enough to pack for travel or to just sit on my desk below my iMac. I can take it with me and use it with my Macbook also. Plug and play.
Nothing is uploaded to the cloud, everything is backed up daily or hourly to alternating backup drives. Works extremely well for me. I always know where my photos are and that they are safe.
Yeah, that’s a good option I describe in detail in my book.
I’m still confused.
I have been using Lightroom Classic for over 10 years now and have about 38,000 images stored locally. I like the features included in Classic so I have the 1TB Photography plan. However, I also want all my files in the cloud so that I can edit them on my iPad or iPhone whenever I need to, and to have peace of mind that my files are stored off site (they are also stored on Backblaze). I’d also like to stop using external hard drives if possible.
I have been syncing between Lightroom Classic and CC until I realized that only compressed dng. previews (?) were being stored in the cloud and not the original files. So I decided to migrate my whole catalog. But when I did so 5000 or so images seem to be missing from CC (they show up in the files archive online on my Adobe account page).
I don’t know whether to
1 – delete all the files in the cloud and try migrating again
2 – delete all the files and go back to syncing between Classic and CC
3 – keep the files in the cloud and start syncing again (will that create duplicates?)
4 – stop using Classic and just use CC.
I’m sure someone else has asked this question so apologies if it’s already been answered.
Sean.
Hi Sean. Don’t delete everything from the cloud, as catalog’s can only be migrated once without some significant hassle.
You can turn on Sync in your Classic catalog, that’s fine. I’d try to figure out which 5000 photos are missing from CC. Are they showing up in your Classic catalog?
Hi Victoria,
I’ve turned Sync on using Classic and will start uploading new photos with CC so that they go to both and I will no longer need to use an external hard drive. The 5000 photos are in Classic but they showed up in CC after I turned Sync back on.
Ah good, thanks for the update. Final thing to check in CC… open the Refine (Filter) bar and check the sync status is NOT set to synced from Lightroom Classic for any photos. If there are any, those are photos that only have smart previews in the cloud.
Thanks. It seems that all of my photos from this year are set to sync from Lightroom Classic. How do I change it?
I have local copies of those files obviously so I guess it’s no big deal. Just really confusing 🙁
If you “add” them to Lightroom CC as if you were importing new photos, it should be smart enough to figure out that they’re originals of files that are already in Lightroom. Really weird that migration didn’t transfer though…
Would like to be able to buy the desktop version as I already have an unlimited photo plan with smugmug
Seems all I can do is rent the software at $10 a month and not own it
Is this no longer possible ?
Apparently this is a duplicate comment, even though I have just signed up 🙁
This is correct, it’s subscription only now. The Photography Plan includes both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, which might be a good fit for you if you’re not interested in cloud space.
Would like to be able to buy the desktop version as I already have an unlimited photo plan with smugmug
Seems all I can do is rent the software at $10 a month and not own it
Is this no longer possible ?
Hi Victoria,
Thanks for your great article! I have read it (along with other sources) to try to figure out in which direction I should go. Relative to yourself and others here I am surely a beginner, having only begun using a DLSR (Canon EOS 6D II) for five months or so. Perhaps you could say I am striving to eventually be an “advanced amateur.” I have never used any version of Lightroom or Photoshop and now want to enter this world. From the wealth of detail in your article I must admit I’ve slid into “analysis paralysis” and would love some clarity to just make this decision and move forward.
I’ve seen that, although Lightroom CC presents improvements in stability and usability, it is still missing several features many consider necessary, and I worry that I will miss these as I venture up the learning curve. I just got my hands on a Rokinon/Samyang 14mm/2.8 that contains a built-in AE chip for my Canon. I have read and seen how this lens, although awesome in some aspects, has some distortion and vignetting issues that I hear can be corrected with lens profiles. This feature, as well as others — like HDR merge, image stacking for astrophotography, panorama stitching, etc. — makes me wonder whether the Classic version might fit better, as I see that the implementation of these might be limited or nonexistent in the CC version.
I also hear that Lightroom is a good solution for keeping photos organized. I will have nowhere near the volume of images as a pro would, but I have definitely struggled in the past trying to establish an organizational ecosystem for photos that works well. Storing all my photos on the cloud (and paying monthly for it into perpetuity) seems alien to me, but I willfully acknowledge that I have a lot to learn and am open to new ideas out of my comfort zone.
What could you recommend for those in my situation?
Hi Michael, don’t worry, I know the feeling.
Lens Profiles are in CC desktop as well as Classic, so no issue there. They’re only missing a UI in the mobile apps.
HDR and pano merge, I’d expect to make the cut sooner than later, probably within 12 months, so that just depends on heavily you think you’d use them right now (or whether they’re just a nice idea at this stage).
Astro image stacking isn’t in Classic either, so you’d need a third party app for that whichever way you went.
If you have fast enough internet, I’d suggest… since you’re just getting started, and you have loads of learning to do on the photography side of things, I’d keep Lightroom simple for now and start with CC. Classic has lots of features, but that also means it has a huge learning curve and quite a lot of bugs, so you could end up overcomplicating things. You can always switch to Classic later if you find there are specific features you really miss, and you’re not locked into Adobe’s cloud forevermore (you can download at any time, and I’d suggest keeping a copy locally anyway).
Thanks for the reply! I went ahead with Lightroom CC and am already feeling very comfortable with the program. It’s wicked easy, and actually feels a lot like the software I use for microscope imaging (I work for Zeiss). I have already figured out the distortion and vignetting correction for my Rokinon and it makes a huge improvement!
After organizing my various photos I’ve saved over the years — and realizing there are over 16,000 of them — I am even more happy I went with the CC option since you get 1TB of cloud space for only $10/month.
I have heard that fiber Internet service is coming soon to my neighborhood in Colorado. Now it can’t come soon enough!
Glad to hear it Michael!
Hi. Thank you for this very informative page. I am currently importing images to LR CC 1terabyte cloud but have a concern that I maybe losing some images since I rarely renamed my pictures; it has the same sequential numbering format and was separated by folders. I also have a lot of duplicate photos from iCloud…So during my import it originally detected ~63k, but now only importing ~47k…My question is did LR CC help me remove the TRUE duplicates (like same capture time with same device or something) or my fear of all those photos with the same file name?
It’s not only looking for matching filenames, but the hash of the file itself, so the ones it’s removed should be true duplicates.
Such a helpful thread, thank you!
I am still working out the kinks in my synced Classic CC CC system but just ran into a big issue today when deleting images via CC, from an album that was shared from Classic CC;
While the originals were deleted from the cloud (which is what I wanted), I do not believe they were deleted from the local disk where I am running Classic CC.
I can understand why one would NOT want to have their local files deleted, but I certainly did want them to be and now I am not sure how to find the 5000+ images that are removed from the collection (Album) but orphaned within my FLAT (Eeeek) file structure! Obviously I will need to re-think the file structure to be prepared for this, but for now, does anyone have a suggestion on how to track down these local originals?
Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of complexities because they’re not really designed to work together. I’ve documented all the known issues in the Sync chapter of my LR Classic book, and I’m updating it as I go along.
The trick for deleting is to mark as reject flag in CC and then delete in Classic. Tracking down the photos in Classic could be tricky. If all of your photos were synced, you could try selecting all the photos in the All Synced Photos collection, then click on All Photographs and Edit menu > Invert Selection. That should live you just with unsynced photos (and videos).
I will try that thank you! I certainly can see they were not meant to work together, and am coming up with a custom-workaround workflow of my own, since I really need them to talk to each other. The photos are no longer in Classic, since they were removed from CC, but the originals are still on my Hard Drive. Luckily the new catalog I am building is not huge yet, so what I think I will do is select and move all existing photos in my Classic to a new physical location, which will leave only the orphaned photos in the old directly. A brute force move, but I think only way possible.
I tried deleting in Classic (from rejected photos in CC) but I think they tried to sync back…. Am I wrong about this?
Deleting them from CC won’t have deleted them from the Classic catalog. It will have just removed them from sync and from any synced collections.
Hi,
If I import photos to Lightroom CC on desktop 1(or my iPad) but have elected to store a copy of all originals only on desktop 2, are originals of those imported photos also saved to desktop 1? Or does Lightroom purge originals from desktop 1 after upload to the cloud?
BTW I’m using Lightroom CC on PC at work, Mac at home and iPad Pro travelling and it allows simultaneous sign in on 3 devices. Very handy.
Regards
John
Hi John. The originals would download to desktop 2 when next online. Desktop 1 would purge them “at some point” after they’ve finished uploading. Exactly when depends on how much space you’ve allowed it to use in Preferences. If it’s still got designated space available on desktop 1, it’ll keep them cached locally until it needs that space for something else.
Hi Victoria. I am using Lightroom CC (cloud) across iPad Pro 10.5, Mac & Windows. I really like the flexibility it allows me. On my iPad I can view exif data in grid view by two finger tap on the screen. But on desktop I can’t see any way of viewing exif data in grid view. Is it possible?
Kind regards
John Beadle
Broome, Western Australia
Not at the moment, only in the Info panel on desktop.
Thanks. It would make a good addition on an update
You did the comparison work, that Adobe didn’t. Thank you for this. It’s clear now, that the cloud version is not for me (lack of features and limitation of disk space, since I already own 900GB of photos and I hope to shoot many more…). However, I can imagine, that people who travel a lot will love the cloud version.
I still haven’t upgraded my light room classic. The horror stories of the first users to switch scared me off. I also heard that they’re coming out with the 7.2 which is supposed to concentrate on performance improvements. Do you think I’ll be safe to upgrade to 7.2 when it comes out?
Yeah, it’s looking pretty good at this stage. Even 7.1’s showing fairly minimal issues. 7.2 does have some nice fixes in it. It’s not perfect, but another good step in the right direction. You can always install 7.2, let it upgrade your catalog and test it for a few hours before you commit to doing serious work in it.
Victoria – Super flow chart, pity Adobe don’t think to help customers in the same way.
It would be good if you could use your contacts in Adobe to press them to understand we don’t all live in a constantly connected high speed internet region, nor all use hyper expensive iPads, nor have bottomless money pits.
Also BTW, $9.99 that oh so often quoted how cheap it is, is actually $14.00 (converting GBP to USD) here in the UK – so why for the same service do we pay an additional $5/month ? The discriminatory pricing and constantly changing ground rules have ensured I’ll migrate away from CS6 by summer and LR once a good asset management package is available.
Hi Steve, yeah, don’t worry, they’re well aware that we don’t all have superfast internet, or want to store all our photos in the cloud. CC is a new option for those who do, but Classic continues to be developed too.
It’s currently £9.98 here in the UK. A large chunk of the difference is due to VAT. US prices are quoted excluding local sales taxes, whereas UK prices are including VAT. Some of it is also due to changing exchange rates. The UK prices have gone down as well as up over the course of the last few years, depending on how the GBP<>USD exchange rates go.
Hi,
I have some questions about the limitations of using LR classic CC together with LR CC.
I understood, that after importing the pictures in classic I can sync collections to CC. Is anything synced?
I read that key words are not synced, because there are handled in different way in CC and classic. What’s about all other metadata?
Are any modifications synced n both directions?
Does somebody found an overview about the limitations of using LR classic CC together with LR CC.
Something similar to the table on the page would be nice.
Thank you for your help.
Regards
Frank
Yep, there’s a bunch of potential pitfalls. I’ve covered them all in the Sync chapter of my LR Classic book that went on sale a few minutes ago: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/shop/adobe-lightroom-classic-missing-faq/
Thx. I just ordered and will read it…
Oh, my goodness! Thank you for this. I was trying to understand why all the videos describing batch edits didn’t match up to the interface I was using and it was driving me insane. I’m installing CC Classic as I type this because I have 192 pictures from Christmas still to edit and there are some really basic edits I want to sync across the whole series and there is no way I want to do them by hand or having to paste them image by image. It looks like Adobe are pushing CC as the way to go but until it has some basic features like batch editing it’s not good enough for me.
This feature comparison has also shown how much I’ve been missing by using the ‘wrong’ version too.
Thanks again.
Glad to help Andrew. Sync/batch editing is the one major missing feature of CC at the moment, IMHO. Once it gets that, it becomes a serious contender for a lot of people.
BTW – I keep seeing it mentioned that LR Classic CC doesn’t upload originals . . . only smart previews. I just want us to remember however that LR Mobile DOES upload originals and syncs back to the desktop.
So, when I’m on the road, I load my originals onto my iPad and into LR Mobile. These original images then sync to desktop and are there waiting for me to finish editing. I just it relevant to remind us that you can sync originals TO LR Classic CC just not FROM (without some workaround).
Oh, on more thing I am not clear on is if photos are added via the Classic Desktop app and synced up to CC, are the originals synced to the cloud?
Woops, got my answer to this already, no they do not upload originals!
In which case, in order to make the HOMEBASE Classic, but still have Originals online I would need to use a workaround as you discuss, E.g. using CC to upload then sync back. Bummer, that is a messy solution. I guess they will be developing this rapidly, hopefully a slicker solution soon!
You’re right, you can only sync one Classic catalog, so you’ll have to decide who is going to look after that catalog.
And as you’ve noted, Classic doesn’t sync originals to the cloud. If you need originals up there, you have 2 choices – either import into CC and wait for them to download into Classic, or import into Classic, sync smart previews to the cloud, let CC finish syncing those smart previews down, then add the originals to CC. It should be smart enough to recognize they’re originals of photos that are already in the cloud, although it’s undocumented. I’m working on more detail for CC/Classic workflows in my LRClassic book due out later this month.
And exporting XMP from CC can only be done by Save As original format – it outputs a copy of the original file plus XMP.
Thank you for the reply! Much appreciated…. I was actually thinking yesterday to try the second option you suggest, I think it will be smart enough to recognize the originals and that can certainly be a decent workflow, especially after editing down final pics, the uploaded originals would be a smaller and more manageable amount of files. Lets see! Look forward to next book…
What a great post!
There are a lot of comments, so I apologize id this is redundant, but this is the best source of info I have seen on CC / Classic interaction on the web!
I have opted to have both CC and Classic; There are a few functions I need that are only on classic:
+The ability to rename large batches of photos based on [metadata] their caption.
+Using XMP files to share adjustments (I am assuming this is not possible on CC).
My main goal now is to collaborate with someone to split tasks. It seems to do this we need to use the same account, that is fine.
For now I have my Classic and CC synced and the relevant collections are synced up as well. My colleague can access via her CC (logged in with same account) and make changes (flags and other metadata) which in turn sync back to my Classic. Great so far!
What would be great would be if her copy of Classic (of course logged in with same account) could also sync to CC. We have tried naming the catalog exactly the same but does not seem to want to sync. I guess this is not possible?
I am wondering what the best workflow that could allow either of us export the files with their names and or apply adjustments using XMP sidecar files rather than the CC interface. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks!
Evan
Hi Victoria,
Thank you for a very well written and clear article, and a massive thank you for then answering everybody’s questions!!
So my position is I am just getting back into photography after the shock of being able to take good/convenient photos with a smart phone! My girlfriend and I are setting off in a motorhome for 1 year traveling around Europe and I plan to take a lot of pictures and want to start editing them. I have never used LR or PS before and all my old pictures are Jpegs so I do not want to import anything into LR, so its a completely fresh start. My ability to connect to the internet will naturally be quite sporadic and generally quite slow. I have a MacBook which is what I intend to install LR on but would also like to be able to use my mobile in my workflow to sort and cull bad photos with the main editing then done on the MacBook. I already have Dropbox and I am aware that I can use this with LR Classic to give cloud back up and I can also use the Dropbox selective sync option to only have what I need on my hard drive. Is there any way to sync the editing/culling I do on my mobile with my laptop without an internet connection?
What LR/PS option/workflow would you recommend I go for? I am presuming the photography plan with LR classic but I am really interested to hear you opinion on the workflow for someone with limited internet connection, as I would really like to be able to sort through my pictures on my mobile as well without the possibility of replicating photos and doubling up on work.
I am going on a LR beginners course run by the London School of Photography on the 26th of Jan so need to decide before then and get it installed and set up! Thanks in advance for your help Victoria!
James Parker
Wow, what a trip James! Yes, for your situation, I’d suggest Lightroom Classic, for a few reasons:
1. There isn’t any offline sync between laptop and mobile, but Classic syncs much smaller smart previews up to the cloud and down to mobile, which is more viable than full resolution on slow/limited internet.
2. Your beginners course will almost certainly be on Classic, or perhaps an earlier version (which would also apply to Classic).
Have a great trip!
Fantastic, thank you Victoria!
This is great info. We are definitely going to stick to working primarily in LR Classic on my wife’s work computer, but if I need to help her with editing, can I edit on LR CC desktop application on a different Mac
Thanks!
Up above you stated “No, that will be limited to 20GB in future Jessica. Smart previews synced from Lightroom Classic don’t count toward that allowance though.”
How do I go about syncing just the smartpreviews ?
I just started messing around with Lightroom Classic as my primary for photo organization and editing and syncing collections to CC and editing them online and posting the albums in a gallery.
Anything synced up from Classic is a smart preview – it’s unable to upload originals.
Then what is eating up my space ? Something is using around half of my 20 gigs of free storage.
Is it pictures from mobile maybe ?
If I am using lightroom app as the camera, does that use space ?
If I am using the built in phone camera, then lightroom app mobile, pulls in the photo, does it then use space ?
Sorry for the questions, just trying to figure out what is using around 10 gigs of space now
Pictures added/captured on a mobile device would count for sure.
For a weeks, I’ve been wondering around without my desktop and iPad/iPhone syncing up in Lightroom. Your flow chart is exactly what I needed to see to help me figure it out. Thank you!
I’m really pleased it helped Carole!
Any details on plans to include the PhotoMerge functionality in the New Lightroom CC?
They don’t generally announce their plans in advance, but I think it’s likely.
This is super helpful! Thank you!
Currently I am using LR CC 2015 and have over 1TB of photos and want to be sure that my photos are backed up at home and not exclusively on the cloud (I could do cloud and at home, but don’t want to be cloud only). I don’t necessarily need all of the features of Lightroom. I’ve also very meticulously put photos into folders, which I’d like to preserve somehow. That said, I would like to find a way to access/edit/file my original photos when I’m on the road.
What’s your recommended solution? So far, I’ve only ever accessed/edited/filed my photos from the same desktop computer at home, so any improvement and ability to do this remotely will be great!
Would Lightroom CC (the new one) have all the features you need? If so, migrating to that app would allow you to have your photos in the cloud and also store a local copy, which you could back up to your heart’s content.
If you do need the features of LRCC2015/LR Classic, there aren’t any perfect solutions. Adobe are really trying to separate LR-as-we-know-it from the cloud, so there are some workarounds that I’ll be documenting in my upcoming Lightroom Classic book, but aren’t sanctioned by Adobe, so probably won’t get published on the blog.
Thanks! I don’t necessarily have intensive editing needs, but what I really want to do is keep my files in folders. Is there any option that allows me to edit/file/manipulate photos remotely, but also keep my photos in their folder?
Do they specifically have to be physical folders, or would virtual albums (aka collections) work? If albums would be ok, the trick is to drag the folders down to the collections panel (to automatically create a collection of each folder) and recreate your folder hierarchy as collections. Then when you migrate to Lightroom CC, that same collection hierarchy becomes CC albums. And in LRCC on your desktop, in preferences, check the ‘store a copy of all photos locally’ checkbox so it keeps a copy of every original on your desktop (albeit in dated folders on disk).
That’s an interesting thought, which I had never considered. What are the pros/cons to that option?
Pros are everything’s in the cloud and available on any device. Cons are LRCC’s still more limited in features right now. Beyond that, only other major con is there’s no kind of “trash” functionality in LRCC right now, so you have to be careful deleting files. Personally I’d want to back up that local copy with backup software that retains deleted files, at least until they add some kind of 30 day undo for deletion or suchlike.
Thanks, this is very helpful. And Classic retains a folder structure, whereas CC is more based on keywords without folders, correct?
Yes, CC’s more albums and intelligent AI search than keywords (although keywords are available).
I have decided to stick with Adobe Creative Cloud for now (PSCC and LR Classic CC) for $10/mo. I have about 3 TB of photos on a 5 TB external drive. 1 TB is not enough. Adobe CC is $10/mo and I use an unlimited backup at $10/mo. If the new subscription was say $25/mo, I could drop the backup and give it a try, but the $50/mo adobe quoted me was to pricy. For now I will lug my laptop with me when I travel. Thanks for all the research – Al
Good plan Albert. Hopefully the prices will come down over time, as they start to gauge how much people actually need.
Hi Victoria, thanks so much for this article, it’s been amazingly helpful.
I am also concerned with storage as I could easily eat through the 1TB in a single wedding season (and more) but I love the idea of culling on my iPad and editing in Classic on my Mac.
I have an idea though.
I’m actually in the middle of trying this out on a smaller group of photos (just under 100).
1. Import to LR CC on the Laptop (MBP). Either directly to the mac or realistically for me, am ext HDD. This will then keep originals on the drive (80% capacity set maybe) and upload the originals to the cloud.
2. Edit and Cull the wedding a few days/weeks later depending on workload now using Classic on the iMac. (Hopefully this will now sync to “CC”.)
3. Publish to Shootproof, design albums, usual stuff but in Classic as I can rename files etc.
4. This is my question really? Once client has photos and album etc. I always convert to Lossy DNG in “Classic” as they are fine for quality and archiving and I have full 100% quality jpegs now on shoot proof if I need them.
This would save 60-70 percent on file sizes but would the lossy DNG sync to the cloud too? Thus meaning we can have 3-4 times more images for our 1TB or more depending on plan?
If so this is perfect.
Import pics at the wedding, I’d still back them up to a back up drive when home but then just let them sync, edit, deliver, then shrink that wedding after culling from 20gb to 5gb using Convert to DNG with Lossy.
Now that could be the game changer we need? if it works like that.
Thanks again for the blog!
Ok, It works. Converting to ‘Lossy DNG” (Which is fine) on the iMac in Classic, rewrites the original file on the MBP therefor meaning less space in the cloud.
Also renaming the files in Classic as normal also means you’ll have the file names updated to.
Sorry if this is obvious but it means It’s 100% usable for me now. Love it!
Thanks for testing the theory and sharing the results Derek! That’s a good workaround for some people!
Hi Victoria,
Many thanks for going to all the trouble of explaining what Adobe is up to.
If I don’t want to play their game, can I just stick with Lr 6 and forget about their “offer”?
OR have Adobe decided to enforce the changes when Lr calls home to check if it is a genuine version.
If the the alternative is the case, then, I am going to have to make the hard decision to dump Lr completely and go use ON1’s RAW.
In some respects Adobe seems to be acting in their own interest forgetting about their global customer base, these actions usually happen when a company feels it is in a position of power to do what it likes.
I have been using RAW as a Lr plug-in and I must say I find it a lot easier for what I need rather than using PS for heavy editing and Lr for my workflow.
You can carry on using LR6 for as long as you have an OS to support it. Here’s all the blurb you need: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/end-of-perpetual-lightroom-licenses/
Thanks, Victoria, for this great info. I have been reading a lot about Lightroom CC and this is probably the clearest explanation I have found.
I signed up for the 1 TB Lightroom CC plan and have found a decent workflow to use both Lightroom CC and LR6, which I still have as a perpetual license. You touch on a similar workflow above but I wanted to point out a few specifics. This might appeal to anyone who owns LR6 and wants the benefits of having 1 TB of cloud storage while also the ability to use LR6 as their main editing station with everything synced between mobile / Lightroom CC and the LR6.
Note: I have not migrated my LR6 catalog into Lightroom CC (which doesn’t really use catalogs anyway).
I upload my RAW / originals to the cloud using Lightroom CC.
On LR6 I turn on Sync which brings them all back down to the desktop — all the photos appear in the All Synced Photos tab at their original resolution.
Important to note that LR6 automatically makes a local copy of these photos; you can change the location of this folder in preferences but you cannot turn off the option. I have limited space on my MacBook hard drive so I moved this local copy folder to an external drive. LR6 is smart enough to wait until the drive is plugged in to initiate the sync, and once the drive is plugged in the photos are synced quickly. I have created a Folder in my catalog for this “local copies” folder, and I leave the photos in there, which allows the photos to continue to sync (all edits and metadata as far as I can see) between LR6 and all mobile / Lightroom CC apps. Once you remove the originals from this folder, they no longer sync back to the cloud apps. This works for me as I use Metadata to sort photos, but would be a problem for someone who wants to move photos into other folders and continue to have them synced. (Though you could simply create sub-folders within your “local copy” folder and those would continue to sync).
The way LR6 handles Collections in this work flow is interesting. If you sync a collection of photos that you uploaded through LR6, only the smart previews will load up to the cloud app. This is how the LR6 and CC Classic have always operated.
However, if you create a Collection with photos that were uploaded through mobile / Lightroom CC and then brought back down from the cloud into LR6, those collections sync back to the cloud at full resolution. You can still turn the sync of individual Collections on and off through the icon in LR6, but the photos in those Collections are full resolution. This provides a slightly cumbersome but effective workaround to a problem that many people have expressed with Lightroom CC, which is that you can not opt OUT of having photos synced to the cloud once they are brought in through Lightroom CC.
With my workflow, you upload all of the photos through Lightroom CC, download them to Classic, sync the Collections you want (which are now full resolution, not smart previews) and then go back into Lightroom CC and remove the photos you don’t want in the cloud. (Similar to how you would manage an Apple iCloud Library). Note that even when LR6 Collections are synced to the cloud (and show the cloud icon), LR6 still needs to access the local copies to make edits. Those same Collections can be edited in Lightroom CC straight from the cloud. The edits sync back and forth perfectly.
Also, new Collections created in LR6 will show up and sync in Lightroom CC, but Collections created in Lightroom CC do not show up in LR6, so you need to initiate the collection process through LR6. (Which you would be doing if you are truly using LR6 as your work station. If not, just skip all this and switch to Lightroom CC and be done with it).
So, if you pay $9.99 and own a perpetual license of LR6, you can enjoy LR6 and all that cloud storage (vs paying for the Photography plan and only getting 20 gigs, or paying $20 a month for Photography plan with 1 TB).
–Upload originals to Lightroom CC
— LR6 – turn on sync; check preferences to make sure your local copies are stored somewhere where you have room for them
–see all your Originals in both Lightroom CC and LR6
–create Collections (with the synced originals) in LR6 and see / share them in full res in mobile apps
–or create Collections in LR6 with photos uploaded through LR6 and sync smart previews through Collections
Hope this helps someone out there!
But, how come you sync photos with LR6? Weren’t mobile features limited to the CC versions, classic or not? I thought we are not getting any “cloud” storage unless we’re on a monthly plan, are we? Sorry if I’m missing something.
Pete, LR6 Perpetual doesn’t sync. LR6/CC (so subscription, now replaced by Classic CC) does sync to the cloud, but the cloud is not the main repository for the images
(specifically 2015.12 on)
Hello Victoria, Thank you for posting information helping on sizing the best of LR.
I still wonder how I can use LR in an easy and optimized way considering time for the task, digital resources and money.
Can you help me to understand how can I configure a workflow to upload photos from different deceives like my smartphone, iPad and DSLR cameras and deciding what to sync from mobile and from my desktop? It seems that I should use LR CC to sync mobile photos and LR Classic to sync from other sources, then consolidate all photos in my external drive with LR Classic.
I tried to download mobile collections from LR MOBILE using LR classic with my photography plan but it fails. Then when I use LR CC everything from mobile is there! I am having a hard time trying to sync photos from my iPhone to my desktop. Seems that LR does not know how to sync different sources, it says there is a sync problem but don’t know what the problem is. Now I am updating LR on my desktop again since it crashed. Hope it works now…. (…)
Hi Art. Yes, you want LRCC on your phone and iPad, and they’ll sync the photos to the cloud. Then also turn on sync in Classic too (click the identity plate top left to see the start button) to get everything to download to Classic. If that’s not working for you, post it on the forum at https://www.lightroomforums.net
Hello. My interest is in using LRCC with the 1TB option as yet another backup option for my photos (largely personal). I would like to continue using Classic in combination with the new LRCC, but I do NOT want it to download everything to the cloud locally. I haven’t been able to find anything definitive on how to deal with this. What am I missing? Many thanks.
Adobe didn’t intend anyone to use both at once, so they haven’t made it easy. I’m working on documenting potential ways of using both together, but it’ll be messy.
Hello, I don’t think I’ve seen this one yet, I currently have LR Classic set up to only sync certain collections into LR CC, but the limitations of the smart previews in CC lead me to think about this other migration method to try:
What do you think about
1. Prepping and migrating your entire catalog to Lightroom CC’s cloud (Assuming you get the right storage package to accommodate all your files)
2. Create a new catalog in your Classic
3. Turn on sync with Lightroom Mobile in that new catalog in Classic and have your entire catalog in the LR CC cloud sync back down into Classic
Now you get originals in the cloud you can access anywhere, not just smart previews, while also retaining the powerful editing capabilities of Lightroom Classic to work on all your images. I’m assuming that new edits made in Classic for those photos in the LR CC cloud will sync nicely back up. There are definite perks with having all originals in the cloud, for when you wish to export or print on your non-desktop device or simply away from home. I’d hate to give all of those new features up but LR Classic is still too powerful to give up completely too.
There would certainly be things to watch out for as far as prepping your catalog file correctly with the collection sets and collections, managing your keywords..etc. Would also be wise to make sure you tick the option to store a copy of originals on your hard drive still, or simply just never delete those originals off your local drive.
Thoughts on this particular migration case? am I missing something big or could this potentially be a viable and relatively pain-free “foot-in-both-camps” use case?
Trying to get originals to the cloud and continue to use Classic is a bit of a minefield Jay, and I’m still trying to work out all of the ramifications as it’s not really designed to work that way. You might be missing some metadata in your Classic catalog if you do that, as well as losing any books, publish services, etc.
There are two main options that I’m exploring.
One is migration, and then enabling sync in the Classic catalog again (it’s turned off by default during migration). It kind of works, as long as you remember to add all new photos to LR via the CC app rather than Classic, and being aware the keywords added/changed later won’t sync. There may be other pitfalls I haven’t come across yet.
The other option is writing all the metadata to the files before first sync (to get existing keywords to the cloud – may require emptying your existing cloud stuff), then syncing everything to the cloud as smart previews, and then once it’s finished syncing, adding the same originals to Classic. In theory, it’s smart enough to recognize these are the originals of photos already stored in the cloud, and just upload the originals to the cloud and link them up with the existing images.
Both options are fraught with potential problems, so back up your Classic catalog and photos before attempting anything along these lines. If you try it, let me know how you get on.
I have already been using LRM to get originals in the cloud and still use classic on my desktop – I import my photos to my iPad and let them upload from there and then down,lad to my desktop. Of course, this only works if you have a mobile device with a lot of space and a fast internet connection. I also don’t do much keywording.
So I am brand new to lightroom. I have been shopping around for a photo organization and back up program to start tackling the issue of organizing my 100,000 personal photos. Then I realized I am already subscribed to the $10 adobe photographer package for photoshop and I already have lightroom. I am more than willing to upgrade to the terabyte storage option, but I am still really confused and don’t know what to do.
My first issue is that my photos are currently stored on two different computers, but there are duplicates between the two. So my thought was to use the cloud to combine them all. But then I also want all of my photos stored locally on my desktop, which currently most of them are (along with the ones stored on my laptop), but there is no organization of them. So if I upload them all to the cloud, and then select to store them locally, is it going to create a duplicate of all my photos? Or will it reorganize my current file structure to match the organization I am using in lightroom cc?
I also want to delete a lot of photos while I am organizing, but it seems like I would want to do that before I upload to the cloud, so I am thinking I would need to use lightroom classic for that?
What I really want is to use classic on my desktop to organize them and organize the local file structure, and then upload them all to the cloud using cc. Is there a way to do this? Can I use the two in tandem? When I followed the flow chart, that is the option it led me to. But how to I do it?
Hi Whitney. I think your first question to consider is whether the new Lightroom CC has ask the features you need. If it does, I’d skip worrying about the folder structures, get everything into Lightroom CC and organize them in there with albums, deleting stuff asking the way. you could always pause sync to delete stuff before it uploads.
But in answer to your question, yes, you can get them all into Classic, organize them, then either migrate to CC if it has all the features you need, or get the originals to the originals to the cloud. It’s a bit of a minefield, trying to continue to use both together, so I’m working on some detailed blog posts. Watch this space! You can get started in Classic in the meantime.
Since the 1TB limit should allow me to sync all my smart previews to the cloud (and continue using Classic similar to the way robertisrael does), is there a good guide on how to automatically generate smart previews and have them sync automatically to the cloud with this new Classic CC version of Lightroom?
Even better news Holly – smart previews don’t count towards your quota! So even 20GB would be enough if you’re not syncing originals. There’s details on how to sync from Classic in my LRCC/6 book (Sync chapter) but I’ll get blog posts done on a few of these workflows over the next few weeks.
I can see what Adobe is trying to do with LRCC, and it will be a great product in the future, maybe?? but until internet speeds are super fast and internet plans are cheap it’s dead in the water. Also, their own plans are out of reach 5Tb = $87pm!!!!!
Yeah, I’m sure prices will come down in time. It’s very early days for this cloud stuff.
I will definitely stick with LR6 on my computer. I don’t want any cloud.
How do I find out if I have a “perpetual license” for my LR6? I have a DVD for LR4, and then I upgraded to LR5, and then LR6 via the official website.
That’s absolutely fine Renata. If you don’t pay monthly, you almost certainly have a perpetual license.
Kudos for the effort you put in this comparison. The info is very thorough and not equaled on Adobe’s site.
Thank you Steve, it’s been quite a job!
Great workflow explanation. Using Classic primarily and only syncing certain collections (the ones I am working on at that moment) is certainly the best workflow for me.
One clarification question…if I am on the road and import with CC (on a laptop for example) is there a way to then move those files off the cloud and into local storage once I get home?
I know that currently I can take a photo on my phone with LR mobile and then use the desktop app to copy the original to a local folder. I am hoping it works the same.
Yep, you can do that. So you’d importing into CC on your laptop, then when you get home, let CC download everything and move the files into your local storage, if you don’t have the preference set to put them there automatically. Then select the photos in All Synced Photos and remove them just from that collection. That’ll keep them in your Classic catalog, but remove the originals from the cloud. If you then want the smart previews back up there, you can put them back in All Synced Photos.
Thanks so much for the quick reply. I am sure you are getting hammered with questions since yesterday. Discovered this page from hearing you on the improve photography podcast and have been a fan ever since.
You’re welcome. Yes, the emails are coming quicker than I can reply! LOL
Hi Victoria — thank you so much for all the effort you’ve put into this page (post and comments), it’s really helpful. The above is the workflow I’m looking into: add the pictures on CC on the road (either to iPad or MBPro), and consolidate once back at desktop on Classic. I’m however not sure how this would work: should I launch CC on my home desktop, download the originals (automatically or not), then manually import them to Classic?
You mention the All Synced, but those would only be smart previews, so removing them just avoids duplication in the catalog (and gaining space back on CC)?
Apologies if I’m repeating what you wrote, I’m not fully certain to have that workflow in my head yet. And thank you!
Hi Paul
In the scenario you mention , if they are added on your iPad then they will appear in whatever folder you told Classic to sync to when you get back to your desktop (CC isn’t needed at home in this scenario)
On your Desktop in Classic, if you select the folder you want them to appear in (before you add to the iPad etc) there’s the option to select that as the destination folder for sync – or you can open Preferences > Lightroom CC and specify the location in there (does the same)
I tested this myself as it’s my ‘travel’ workflow!!!
Paul
Hi Paul (what a nice first name you’ve got!) — I’ve tested your workflow with a few dummy pictures and it works just great.
I’m flying for a week tomorrow and I’ll be doing using just that. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer me here!
Cheers, Paul.
Excellent, Paul, enjoy the week!
Hi Victoria – I do a lot of travel: If I use the classic plan (20 GB) at home (Mac), can I import my Sony RAW-Files – on tour – with a SD-Card Adapter to my iPad Lightroom, then editing on iPad and upload the edited RAW-images to the Adobe cloud? When I am home again, there is (automatically) download from the cloud to the LR Classic (local)? my APSC-Camera shoots 24 MB RAW – means about 800 Photos – if cloud is empty…..
Great work at all, Victoria!!!
Yes. If you travel regularly, you might want to upgrade to 1TB of storage as you’ll fill up your 20GB pretty quickly, but the theory works. As long as cloud sync is enabled in your Classic catalog, they’ll automatically download into your local Classic catalog.
Victoria
Was trying to update LR6 so I could use a dehazing preset. Not trusting Adobe I usually watch like a hawk for problems. Got called away and to my dismay found I had been given a 7 day trial of 7cc and the cloud.
For one project I have 650 GB photos and 3 external Western Digital backups. $100 for 2 T external hard drive. Being old school don’t want to use the cloud. One day four before it reverts as I won’t buy it.
It did speed up an already blazing fast laptop that Win 10 has messed up with the Creator upgrade? HOW WAS THIS UPGRADE CALLED CREATOR, SHOULD BE DESTROYER!! Some programs are so buggy they hardly work, LR now crawls and freezes. Going to the cloud does not fix the MS nightmare on earth! Know most pros use Apple. Hope to the OS works better with this upgrade.
Experience so far….blah. Since I have had to recreate my catalog many times it will just be another day of using the last back up or at worse reinstalling LR6.
Sick of Micrsoft and Adobe trying to improve my digital life…..
Ugh, yes! Ok, you haven’t upgraded your catalog, right? or did you?
You’ll want to uninstall Classic, reinstall Lightroom 6.0 and the 6.12 patch from https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/lightroom/kb/lightroom-downloads.html, and if you let it upgrade your catalog, make sure you open the LR6 one.
Like a lot of people here, I’ve been on the photography plan, and use the mobile app. I copy my files from my Fuji to my phone or tablet, let it upload the photos, and later they are waiting for me on my desktop LT.
I just switched over to the Lightroom CC plan, but would like to keep my main desktop as a local backup of photos, and have my tiny MacBook use LR CC. Is it possible to use both classic and CC?
Can I even use Classic if I signed up for CC? And if I can, when I upload files to CC, will Classic download them and store them locally automatically, as it has been doing up to now?
Sorry, lots of questions
If you’ve switched to the Lightroom CC + 1TB plan, it doesn’t Lightroom Classic. But yes, you can keep a local copy of your photos on your main desktop. Just go to Preferences > Local Storage and check the “store a copy of all originals locally” checkbox. You can also set the location of the originals in that preferences dialog, so you might want to select another hard drive.
Question …. When the CC option for LR came out with syncing smart previews, there was a distinction that our 20GB cloud storage space was Creative Cloud drive space, and the smart previews were separate and did not count against that space.
Have they merged the 2 clouds to 1 20GB allotment per user (unless I upgrade to the 1TB)? Or are there 2-20GB clouds managed separately?
Yes, the Lightroom Sync cloud and Creative Clouds have merged into a single 20GB thundercloud. 😉 Smart previews still don’t count against the allowance though.
This is very helpful information here… so I only need to worry about cloud space if I wish to put my originals/RAW photos in the cloud? I don’t actually want to do that, mainly due to slow internet. I can use Classic, upload smart previews, and make edits on mobile on the 20 GB plan, regardless of my library size? That would be great as I’m running v.5.7 and it’s been really buggy under High Sierra.
Yep, you’ve got it Matt.
I’m like to use cloud in backup purpose but I can’t just figure it out.
Hear is what I like to have and maybe some smart cane hint me in right way.
I have a workflow in LR so I need classic but I like that classic cane copy a copy of my fullres pic to cloud as a “backup”. Then I cane use LR Mobile and this “backup” to edit on the go and changes will then sync back to my classic folder.
So basically I like to have my RAW in locak for editing in Classic and even send to cloud instead och smart preview.
Is that possible?
Classic can’t send originals to the cloud, just smart previews. You’d have to use CC to get the originals to the cloud, and that gets messy for existing photos. I will follow up with blog posts in coming weeks, but “a foot in both camps” is far from ideal right now.
Thanks Victoria for your informative blogs.
I am sticking with the ‘Classic’, and my catalog conversion took under 3 minutes (54000 photos). All presets are exactly as they were.
I thought that “Merge to HDR & Panorama” had stopped working, but a restart of Lightroom and they are faster than before.
I also updated Photoshop CC, and amazed- the program opened to desktop in a “blink of the eye”!
Now that I LOVE to hear Robert!
Hi Victoria. Great workflow. I have a couple of questions
1) when I import photos into CC how do I get them to sync with Classic?
2) for my historic catalog how do I get that in CC and keep the catalogs in sync?
3) I take photos of my son’s sports, and frequently come back with 1500+ photos which I triage down to 10% of that figure (so 1500 down to 150). Should I import them in Classic, triage them, and then try to sync so I can use them in CC? Or import into CC and triage them there and use Classic for some of the features not in CC if I need them?
Trying to get originals to the cloud using CC desktop and also using Classic is a bit of a minefield. I’ll do some posts on it over the next few weeks, but I’d suggest keeping Classic as your base, letting it upload smart previews to the cloud so you can access/edit them in CC mobile.
Great, thanks for that. How do I sync smart previews to the cloud? Do they have to be in a collection?
Either put them in a synced collection, or just drag them to the All Synced Photos collection in the Catalog panel.
Very nice article explaining the options and differences. The LR CC is it does not support two monitors, that is a problem for me. I have been happy with the CC Photographers Plan. I think I read that LR CC could be installed alongside classic so that’s the best of both worlds for me I can continue with the Photographers Plan and test the LR CC plan at the same time.
Yes, you can try both at once. For testing alongside, I’d suggest syncing smart previews to the cloud from Classic and then viewing/editing them in LRCC, as you would with a mobile device.
I upgraded to LR Classic. I made a backup copy of my catalog and imported it into LR Classic. The conversion didn’t take too long at all. I went from a catalog file that was 2.83 GB to 1.2 GB. So far, I like the speed and moreover the smoothness of this new version. So far, it seems like they did a good job.
That’s great to hear Robert! Thanks for the update!
Ever since had to fight the process to get some a perpetual licensed copy of LR6, I had the feeling thatsomething like this was coming. I chose to continue my use of LR5 and investigate other options.
My initial choice was ON1. Started using them in parallel aND found
ON1 to have potential. The past months have shown great improvements and since Adobe’s decision to drop perpetual licencing, I believe I will be switching to ON1
It’s with sorrow I chose to do so since I have been using LR since v1. I am now up to v6. I cannot support their subscription pricing model. I did for several releases of Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
Walter
B&Beck Photography
That’s understandable Walter. You have to make the best choice for you.
I’m going to stick with LR Classic, but I do have question about new LR CC regarding a friend I’m trying to get started in Lightroom. If she has 2 computers running the LR CC version, do they have to share a catalog & cloud file storage structure? Or can they have 2 separate catalogs & file storage structure? I’m guessing the former.
Also, with LR Classic, will all my develop presets, etc. transfer from current version OK?
Thanks
2 computers, both running the LR CC version, are connected via her cloud account. Just the one cloud account, so there’s no concept of multiple catalogs.
Yes, all of your presets etc. should transfer just fine.
That was what I suspected. Thanks, again. Your tips on Vice Versa (Windows) for cloning and mirroring drives was helpful; a few months ago I switched to Mac & your tip to use Chronosync for cloning and mirroring drives was dead-on again!
It looks like Lightroom CC for iOS still does not support custom presets or syncing of presets from Lightroom CC desktop. Any idea if that’s coming in the near future?
I don’t have a timeline to share, but I’d certainly expect that to be high on the list of priorities.
Thank you for your hard work on this helpful information. You are a treasure.
Happy to help Dale.
Cloud?! Ha, ha, ha!
In my home/stusio in southern Scotland, we have 2.5Mbps (bits not bytes!) download and 0.6 Mbps upload on ADSL and no mobile telephone signal at all, let alone 4G, so ussing any sort of cloud service is just a fantasy! A 20 Megapixel image takes me many minutes to upload and a day’s shooting is a week’s upload. If I bought a Nikon D850 then I could probably manage to upload one day’s images in a month!
Now, if Adobe also paid for a fibre (or even a decent copper) connection to my house, I might look upon their cloud service with favour.
Ah, but hang on… If I have images that a client considers to be private (I have a lot of them), EU data law does not permit me to send them to places like the US where data protection law is not compliant with EU requirements.
The server on my LAN is the place for my images! Also, since they already use more than a Terabyte, a 20G allowance is not all that attractive (and they would take more than a year to upload if they offered more space).
I am certainly now looking for an exit strategy after a decade with Lightroom!
Yeah, that’s fine Alistair, that’s why they’re still plowing a mass of resources into improving Classic too. The new CC app is a new tool for a different audience. No one’s under any illusions that it’s the right tool for everyone, and especially not for a lot of working pros. That may change in future as it continues to develop, but there’s no need to start looking for an exit strategy. Lightroom as we know it isn’t going anywhere.
In that case Victoria, it makes one wonder why Adobe did not keep the perpetual licence going for those of us that needed it as they would still be getting their money and more new users if they continued to support it. Working on the new version is going to take ages to perfect and as Alister pointed out we still have an outdated broadband system here in the UK especially in rural areas. Another factor that adobe should have taken into account is that many of us haven’t got the time for them to perfect it. I’m 73 and all I want to do is to enjoy my photography and LR as it was. Being loyal and accumulating a vast amount of images using LR 1 to 6 did not pay and its too late to start a new learning curve with new software. Adobe just cut it’s nose to spite it’s face. Shame.
Lightroom Classic continues to run on the local computer Vic, just like Lightroom 6, so it doesn’t require fast internet and there’s no new learning curve. It’s just like getting Lightroom 7, but paid monthly.
They did make a business decision to move to payment by subscription rather than perpetual licenses, and there are numerous pros and cons to that decision. I know not everyone likes the decision they made, but it’s a separate issue to the cloud vs. desktop issue.
not sure if I’m missing something if I click my account settings to upgrade to the 1tb photography bundle there is no option to upgrade it shows my current plan £10 but no option to upgrade to offer of £14. ? When I click the link on adobe site for the offer it does not show there either ? am I missing a special link some where on there site
I’ll have to come back to you on that one Paul. It’s all a bit new for all of us, and I’m sure they’re still updating the site too.
ok thank you for taking time to reply I’m sure you are going be busy for a few. months now lol really enjoy your site thanks
LOL I can always trust Adobe to create enough confusion to keep me in a job! 😉 I’ve dropped an Adobe staff member an email to find out the answer, but most of the ones “in the know” are at the Max conference right now. I have a note to reply to you when I get an answer though.
Progress! Rick’s posting instructions and screenshots (and helping another user with the same problem) here: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-cc-cloud-storage-size
Another option is Affinity Photo.Great for editing but has no DAM
I am unsure how this is going to work. I have 177,236 image files (most are RAW but does include some derivatives and, of course, the xmp files). This currently takes up 2,11 TB of hard drive space.
Two major questions:
I can’t imagine how long it would take to upload that to a Cloud… a week?
Could one take the smart course of action and shop around for Cloud space? Would the “new” Lightroom allow the user to choose the source location?
(Was Backup addressed somewhere?)
You might want to stick with Classic for now Ron. 2.11TB would take me about 2 weeks, but it’ll depend on your connection speed. If you go to http://www.speedtest.net it’ll tell you your best upload speed, and then we can google for a calculator to work out roughly how long to expect.
You can’t shop around for cloud space with this – a lot of technology is actually being run on Adobe’s cloud servers.
Backup is simple enough – it all goes to the cloud as a backup, and you can keep a copy locally, which you can back up yourself in additional locations if you wish.
I really hope Adobe is not finished with that concept yet. I cannot be alone with this scenario:
– ~3TB RAWs, stored on a NAS in my local Netzwork (or an external Drive)
– 500GB SSD in my Notebook
– Shooting on location = Importing a few hundred/thousend RAWs on my Notebook; No fast Internet in the Hotel/on Location, no such a big mobil data plan. So i sort/edit localy; maybe while riding home by plane or car.
– Back Home is where the trouble starts: How to get that shooting back into the main catalogue? There are solutions (import from cataloge; using Resilio sync; manually…) and i was hoping that Adobe would come up with smarter solutions…
seems Adobe things “the cloud” is the smart solution… well.. no!
– no Internet on Location
– no Internet on travel back home
– no 3TB storage on Notebook to have a local copy of ALL RAWs on it
– no idea why i should pay for 3TB Cloud-Storage when most RAWs are laying there for months/years until i need them again, maybe.
i really don’t get it
You’re definitely not the only one in that situation Boris, and I’m certain Adobe are well aware of it. Much of the world has limited upload speeds, so if they ever decide to sunset Lightroom Classic, they’d have to make sure that the new baby Lightroom CC has all the features needed for you to move over without uploading everything. That could come in a number of different guises, for example, local storage with local network sync for originals, and just smaller versions sent to the cloud, or…? For now, you’re best off sticking with Lightroom Classic.
I think I made a mistake choosing LRCC instead of Classic. How do I get back to Classic? I’ve already subscribed to CC?
That depends… how did you move to CC in the first place? Using the Classic>CC migration tool? Or perhaps you haven’t used Classic before?
If I use the new Lightroom CC (with 20GB of cloud space) can I choose what gets put in the cloud and what gets stored locally? What happens if I run out of their cloud space but I don’t want to pay extra? Can I just keep storing photos locally? Thanks.
It’s 100% cloud storage at the moment with the new LRCC. If you run out of space, you delete photos or pay for more. That may well change in future, but there’s no selective sync at this point. Classic is still the way to go if you don’t want everything in the cloud.
This is the thing that concerns me most about the new LRCC. I have around 6TB of photos and it is just not economical, practical or desirable for me to be able to have that amount of data in a cloud (even if it were possible to have that much cloud storage). So for me LR Classic is the only viable option (plus I simply don’t need to be able to edit my photos on a tablet or other device) but to quote this website ” Lightroom Classic, isn’t going away anytime soon” but then in the page on The End of Perpetual Licenses it says “Adobe will continue to sell Lightroom 6 as a perpetual license, but Lightroom 7 and future versions will only be available to Creative Cloud subscribers”.
Therefore I can only infer that in order to be able to continue to benefit from new features etc the only option will be to pay vast sums of money to store photos in a cloud that I only want to access from one location and which I could do for free on a hard drive. Yes I could ‘accept’ that the LR I have today does what I’m happy with and forsake any new features but this doesn’t factor in the fact that operating systems will get updated and how long before the current standalone version of LR won’t run on a new OS?
Lightroom Classic is the one you want. They’re not selling perpetual versions any more, but you can get it on a Creative Cloud subscription for $9.99 a month. It’s just a different licensing system – you don’t have to upload ANY of your photos to the cloud from Classic if you don’t want to. Ignore the new cloud-native Lightroom CC at the moment, as it just isn’t the right tool for you.
Hello,
many thanks for the comprehensive overview! I miss some information about camera profiles and the CC Version. Is it known, if Lightroom CC 1.0 already supports camera profiles?
Best regards,
Thyra
It supports them behind the scenes, but there’s no UI for them at the moment. If you’ve applied them in Lightroom Classic, they’ll still work though, and you can even create presets for them in Classic and then load those presets into CC if it helps.
Thank goodness for your effort. This is EXACTLY what many of us needed to ferret out which version would be the appropriate one to select. In my case, no question, it’s the Classic Version.
Thanks again!
Matt
Glad to help Matt!
Agreed. Thanks for the workflow! However, the choice seems easy for now. I have too many plugins, third party software and need too many features (HDR, Pano) to leave LR Classic.
Victoria, EXCELLENT write up! You really helped me figure this out!
It seems like the photography plan bundle is more consistent with the current LRCC/LR Mobile scenario. I current use LR Mobile and my iPad to get images to the cloud and then to my desktop while on the road. Then, my images are on my desktop when I get home. It is the primary method I use for LR Mobile. In this new announcement, I will clearly need LR Classic for it’s expanded feature set at least for now. What I don’t know is whether the feature to decide which images live in the cloud vs which do not will continue to exist. Also, will collections continue to be the way this is done in LR Classic or has that changed?
Overall, I’m happy to see Adobe focused on improving performance.
Robert, if you need Classic (and it sounds like you certainly do), then you can simply stick with your Photography Plan Bundle. Nothing changes for you. You’ll still be able to sync specific collections as you have done for the last few years.
Wait, didn’t we hear that Classic and CC have different catalog structures? If so, how do I use the photography plan bundle? If I use CC for uploading but want to use classic on my desktop, do I need separate catalogs? Or am I only using CC in a limited way. Further, I have too many images to fit into 1TB in the cloud and will only want a small portion of my portfolio to reside there. I agree I think I need the photography bundle plan but it’s the fine details of using this plan to fit my desired workflow that I’m worried about . . .
At this point, you’re probably best to ignore the Lightroom CC desktop app, and just continue using Lightroom Classic with the mobile apps, exactly as you have been. There are “foot in both camps” workarounds that involve using the Lightroom CC desktop app to get originals to the cloud, which then sync back down into your Classic catalog via cloud sync, but they’re messy as anything. If you want to carry on working exactly as you have been, then nothing changes for you.
Thank you!
I also have been working the same way Robert describes, and so far I need to keep using the classic desktop features. My question is: so far, it seems like I can import any amount of photos through Lightroom Mobile and they upload to the cloud and then download to my desktop, even if I go over 20GB. Will that still continue to work if I don’t change my plan to have more cloud storage space?
No, that will be limited to 20GB in future Jessica. Smart previews synced from Lightroom Classic don’t count toward that allowance though.
Thanks for the info. So what would happen if I import, say, a 32 GB card on my iPad LRM? Will it give me an alert, or will it just not upload the items, or what? I’ve been doing that for the past six months or so and it’s been fine, but I guess that will change?
I’d like to get the 1TB of cloud space instead of Photoshop, which I don’t use, but it looks like that option is only available if I switch to the new LR CC and I can’t do that because I need the LR Classic features that aren’t in the new one.
I can’t test the theory as I have the full TB Jessica, but AFAIK it’ll let you import them into LRM but won’t upload.
You’ll need to stick to your current plan as you need Classic at the moment, but you can add 1TB of storage to that plan for an extra $5 a year for the first year, and $10 a year thereafter.
$5 a year, not a month? That sounds great – where do I find my cloud storage options? I didn’t notice that option listed when I was browsing the new plans.
Oooooops, that was a big typo wasn’t it! Sorry, 18 hour days are catching up. $5 a month.
Ok… where can I see how much cloud storage I’m using?
I hope they adjust the plans so we can use LR classic without photoshop and with more cloud storage instead.
What if I wanted to use LR classic on my main computer but LR CC on a secondary computer – would I have to pay twice?
If you go to https://lightroom.adobe.com, click the LR icon in the top left corner then Account Info, it’ll tell you. Classic on one and LR CC on another is included, and it’s a great way of dipping your toe in the Lightroom CC water and seeing which features you’d miss. It works like having the mobile app on a real computer.
Thanks, you’ve been such a big help! I can’t believe I never heard of this blog before but now I’m subscribed.
Victoria, do you have a tutorial on the “messy as anything” workaround to use Lightroom CC to get originals to the cloud, and then cloud syncing to Lightroom Classic?
Nothing public yet Helen, but the Cloud Sync chapter of my Lightroom Classic Missing FAQ book covers what syncs in which direction (page 484-486) and ideas of how you might use both together (page 486-487). I’m working on some more detailed information, but I can’t give a timeline on that yet.