Bye Bye Lightroom, Hello Lightroom CC and Faster Lightroom Classic

Lightroom is no more. Adobe today announced a new cloud-based Lightroom called Lightroom CC. The current desktop-based app you know as Lightroom is being rebranded as Lightroom Classic CC. Lightroom Classic will be desktop-oriented, while Lightroom CC will be cloud and mobile focused.

Lightroom CC in the Cloud

Adobe is pushing its app ecosystem further into the cloud to allow for editing, organizing, storing, and sharing photos from any device, anywhere.

“Launched over a decade ago, Lightroom became the industry’s leading desktop application for editing and organizing photography,” Adobe says. “Now in an increasingly mobile-centric world, and with major improvements in smartphone cameras, Lightroom is transforming digital photography again.”

Lightroom CC features the same power as Photoshop and Lightroom but a new streamlined user interface that allows for powerful editing of full-resolution photos on desktop, mobile, and the Web. Changes made through Lightroom CC on one device are automatically synced to all devices.

Photo organization in Lightroom CC is aided by intelligent features, such as the automatic tagging of your photos with searchable keywords using Adobe Sensei machine learning technology.

Cloud storage of your photos (including RAW files) is also scalable to meet a range of photographers’ needs. Once your photos are in the Lightroom CC cloud, sharing photos and custom galleries can easily be shared with a link.

Lightroom CC for mobile is getting a number of new features on iOS (built-in AI search, keywords, hierarchical albums, an improved iPad layout, and iOS 11 files) and on Android (tablet support, local adjustments brush, built-in AI search, keywords, and hierarchical albums).

Lightroom CC for Web is getting public gallery pages and deeper integration with Adobe Portfolio.

Lightroom Classic Now Faster and More Poweful

But if you’re loyal to Lightroom Classic CC, Adobe hasn’t forgotten about you. The app formerly known as Lightroom is getting an enhanced Embedded Preview workflow (scroll through large sets of photos to select a subset of images) and new edit tools (Color Range and Luminance Masking for precise edits).

What’s more, Lightroom Classic is getting a major speed boost. Adobe admitted earlier this year that Lightroom has performance issues, and now it’s launching a major update to fix that.

“While the palette of Lightroom features grew, our performance detracted from these gains,”Adobe says. “So we took stock of where you were feeling the most performance anxieties, and dedicated this launch primarily to addressing these issues.”

Lightroom Classic is being updated with improved speed in major areas, including launch time, preview generation, import selection, switching between Library and Develop, navigating between photos in Develop, responsive brushing, and more.

“We have also added new tools to make precise color and tone-based selections for Local Adjustments,” Adobe says. “You can now use the adjustment brush, radial, or graduated filters to define a rough mask, then refine the selection via the new Range Masking options found at the bottom of each Local Adjustment panel.”

No More Standalone Lightroom

Adobe is also announcing that Lightroom 6 will be the last standalone version of Lightroom that you can purchase once and use forever. There won’t be any Lightroom 7, and if you’d like to use the latest and greatest Lightroom updates and features, you’ll need to start paying regular subscriptions (just like with Photoshop CC). Lightroom 6 will no longer be updated after 2017, so you’ll find that newer cameras of the future will not be supported.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Lightroom CC and Classic CC are now available through 3 different photo-oriented subscription plans. The Creative Cloud Photography Plan includes both of them, Photoshop, and 20GB of storage for $10 a month. If you only need Lightroom CC and storage, you can subscribe to Lightroom CC and 1TB of storage for the same $10 a month. For all photo apps and 1TB of storage, you’ll need to pay $20 a month.

You can also subscribe to all Adobe apps for $50 a month. If you don’t need desktop at all, you can subscribe to Lightroom Mobile with 100GB for $5 a month.