Adobe: No, We’re Not Killing Lightroom Classic

Adobe is pushing further into the world of cloud-based software, and this week it rebranded Lightroom as Lightroom Classic CC so that the company’s new cloud-oriented app could be called Lightroom CC. But if your loyalties lie with the desktop app formerly known as Lightroom, don’t worry: Adobe says it will continue developing that app into the future.

Adobe has published a new FAQ-style article in its Lightroom Journal blog, and in it, Adobe product management director Tom Hogarty says Adobe remains committed to keeping Lightroom Classic alive.

One of the questions asks, “Is Lightroom Classic being phased out? How long will it be until Adobe kills Lightroom Classic?”

“No, we’re not phasing out Lightroom Classic and remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future,” Hogarty answers. “We know that for many of you, Lightroom Classic, is a tool you know and love and so it has an exciting roadmap of improvements well into the future.

“But please hold us accountable as we make updates in the following months and years to let us know if we’re meeting your expectations.”

Some photographers may be a bit wary of this promise, since Hogarty had said in a similar FAQ back in 2013 that Adobe would continue offering standalone versions of Lightroom “indefinitely” — this week Adobe announced that Lightroom 6 would be the final non-subscription version of the app (Adobe tells us that “plans have changed based on customer feedback”).

Lightroom Classic has a huge and loyal following among professional photographers, though, so we’re guessing Adobe is much more committed to keeping the app itself alive than it is keeping the app’s perpetual license alive.

And if you have some deeper questions into the new Lightroom landscape, Dan Watson of Learning Cameras just did a great interview with Hogarty and Lightroom product manager Sharad Mangalick about the future of Lightroom and the current state of things.

Hogarty says that there are two separate teams working on Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC now. However, there’s a connectedness between Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom CC because all of them handle photo edits using Adobe’s Camera RAW — any edits done in one program has all edits preserved when opened in the others.