Is Lightroom CC Classic?

Jeff Harmon goes over the details about the two new Lightroom programs now available to Creative Cloud subscribers, the costs of the various Creative Cloud options, and a healthy number of bugs that have been reported making his recommendation be that photographers who need to get work done using Lightroom wait to update.

Not Ready For Professional Use

I know there are many of you who hold off updating your software until you get the “good to go” from me, so let me state it right up front in this episode that as of early November 2017 my advice is that anyone who relies upon Lightroom for their business delay updating because there are a lot of bugs that have been reported for both Lightroom Classic CC and the all new Lightroom CC.  Neither is ready for professional use. It saddens me that I have to give it a “wait to upgrade” rating because there are some promising things in the update, but it isn’t ready. Now let’s start with what changed.

Did We FINALLY Get a Rewrite of Lightroom?

Adobe had their Max conference at the end of October 2017 where they released changes and launched new software for all types of creative content makers.  Lightroom updates were among those announced.

Many in the photography industry, including myself and my idea of adding a Cull module to Lightroom, were asking/hoping Adobe would focus their efforts on performance improvements over adding any new features to the product.  We really wanted them to do a full rewrite of the software from the ground up as it is pretty clear that the dated technology at the foundations of the software were limiting the performance possibilities. After all, you have software like Photo Mechanic showing us what is possible with regard to how blazingly fast culling can be done.  

It turns out we got the rewrite of Lightroom, just not the way we wanted it.

What is Lightroom Classic CC vs. Lightroom CC?

Since the announcement of the products I have been buried by questions from listeners, many who are hobbyist photographers like me and have been running Lightroom 6 stand alone, or what Adobe calls perpetual license.  So let’s start with what Adobe has changed and how it is Creative Cloud works. 

Adobe now offers two Lightroom programs you can run on computer and staying true to form the naming of the programs is confusing. There is Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC, which to make sure you keep them straight in this episode I will call “the all new Lightroom CC”.  

Lightroom Classic CC is the same desktop program we have all been using on our computers for years now. It has been updated to version 7.0 and with the name “Classic” there is a lot of worry the Lightroom we are all very used to is now on life support where at some point in the not too distant future Adobe will pull the plug on. I will talk more about that in a moment but let’s finish up with the changes that have been made.  

The all new Lightroom CC, which replicates the Lightroom Mobile experience on your desktop, is the rewrite of Lightroom we wanted. It is built on current technology, delivering those significant performance advantages we all wanted, and it is very specifically built to leverage the Internet. Many are feeling that it is built too much around the Internet. It is pretty clear to me and all the others who follow Lightroom closely that this is where Adobe sees the future of post processing going.  I have a lot of thoughts on this topic of the future for Lightroom, but there won’t be time in this episode to go through...