Lightroom CC 1.0 Released!

For more than 10 years, Lightroom has been the industry standard for photo editing. Years of development and numerous new features, however, creates an ever-growing level of complexity. Many photographers have found Lightroom increasingly difficult to learn and understand.

At Adobe Max last year, Bryan O’Neil Hughes previewed a new cloud-native photography app, code-named Project Nimbus. Today, October 18 2017, that app has finally been made available to the public as Lightroom CC for Windows/Mac.

Because everything’s synced to the cloud, your photos and edits are available on all of your devices, wherever you are. Since Lightroom manages your photos for you, it’s really simple to use, but still has the non-destructive editing power we’ve come to expect from Adobe. It also adds cutting-edge image-analysis artificial intelligence, allowing you to find your photos by subject, even if you haven’t manually added that information. Better still, it’s been rewritten from the ground up, so it’s relatively bug-free (hooray!).

The previous version of Lightroom desktop, now rebranded as Lightroom Classic, isn’t going away anytime soon. It continues to be supported and developed by a separate engineering team, for those who prefer a local folder-based digital asset manager. (If you’re wondering about the name, see today’s other announcements here.)

It’s early days, so Lightroom CC doesn’t have all of the features of the Classic version, but it already has the essentials and will continue to develop rapidly. If you’re a current Lightroom user considering moving to the cloud-native app, check here to see whether it already has the features you need for your workflow. For now though, let’s take a look at the highlights:

Cloud-Native Family of Apps

Lightroom CC is a family of apps. With a cloud-native ecosystem, everything revolves around “the cloud.” The cloud is simply an Adobe server which acts as a central storage location for all of your photos and edits. The Lightroom apps on your computer or mobile devices connect to the cloud to access your existing photos and edits, and send new photos and edits up to the cloud.

Imagine you shoot some photos using your mobile phone, and during your coffee break, you edit them on your work laptop. Later, you’re out with your tablet, and you stop to show someone the photos, complete with the edits you did earlier. Back home in the evening, you load the day’s shoot from your DSLR onto your desktop, have dinner and view them on your Apple TV. It’s your choice.

All of your photos are available wherever you are, and fully editable, without being tied to a specific operating system or type of device.

To take advantage of this, you will need a fast unmetered internet connection. Exactly how fast depends on how many photos are in your archive, and how many photos you shoot each week.

Easy to Add Photos

The Import dialog is really simple to use, with very few decisions to make.

Easy to Manage Photos

Lightroom handles all of the file management so there’s no fear of missing photos! You can group your photos into albums (previously known as collections) and stacks, and add some simple metadata to help you find the photos again later.

Powerful Editing Tools

Lightroom CC uses the same camera raw engine as Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, so you have access to world-class editing tools. The Edit mode uses the same sliders as previous Lightroom versions but in a user-friendly modern interface and your edits are synced to all of your other devices. Presets designed for Lightroom 4 or later are fully compatible.

Search Your Photos

Easy Sharing

Photos can easily be shared to Facebook and entire albums of photos can be shared through Lightroom Web, as a grid or with additional text.

System Requirements

Windows

• Intel® or AMD processor with 64-bit support
• Windows 10 (64-bit) Version 1511 or later
• 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)
• 1 GB of Video RAM (VRAM). 2 GB of dedicated VRAM is suggested for large, high-resolution monitors, such as 4K- and 5K-resolution monitors
• 10 GB of available hard-disk space
• OpenGL 3.3 and DirectX 10-capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality
• Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, validation of subscriptions, and access to online services.

macOS

• Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
  macOS v10.12 (Sierra), Mac OS X v10.11 (El Capitan)
• 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)
• 1 GB of Video RAM (VRAM). 2 GB of dedicated VRAM is suggested for large, high-resolution monitors, such as 4K- and 5K-resolution monitors.
• 10 GB of available hard-disk space (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices)
• OpenGL 3.3–capable video adapter for GPU-related functionality
• Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, validation of subscriptions, and access to online services.

Learn More!

There are 5 more posts related to this series of announcements:

• The Future of Lightroom
• What’s New in Lightroom Classic October 2017 (7.0)?
• The End of Perpetual/Standalone Lightroom Licenses
• Lightroom CC vs. Lightroom Classic – Which Do I Need?
• What’s New in Lightroom iOS/Android October 2017 Releases?

I know you’ll have loads of questions, so I’ve written free Quick Start eBooks, available for download later today.

More extensive books for both Lightroom Classic 7.0 and Lightroom CC will be available soon in eBook and paperback formats, and I’ll let you know as soon as they’re released.

Download Lightroom CC

Want to play? Lightroom CC is available in the Photography Plan subscription or its own Lightroom CC plan.

If you already have a subscription, open the CC system tray / menubar app. If Lightroom CC is not already showing, click the cog icon and choose Check for App Updates.

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