The past week has been one to remember, and I don’t think any of us fancy repeating it. But as the adrenaline levels are dropping and we all start to calm down, let’s take a sensible look back at the main points of confusion and how we move forward from here.
Which Lightroom is which?
I’ve done my best to explain the changes here, but in short:
Lightroom CC = the cloud-native apps for iOS, Android, tvOS, web browsers and now for Windows and Mac too. It uploads everything to the cloud so you can access all of your photos everywhere. It’s only the first release, so its features are limited. Some existing Lightroom users describe it as “Lightroom mobile for desktops.”
Lightroom Classic = the latest version of the Lightroom we know and love, with performance enhancements and other improvements. This is the next step on from Lightroom CC 2015 and Lightroom 6, and stores all of your photos on your computer, as it always has done.
If you’re trying to figure out which one you need, try this feature comparison table.
![]()
Is Lightroom Classic end-of-life?
Is Lightroom Classic end-of-life?The short answer is no, Lightroom Classic is alive and kicking. Even if you don’t believe Adobe’s promises to keep developing it, at least for the foreseeable future, then consider the logic in this linked blog post.
Lightroom CC has features missing
Some subscribers installed the new Lightroom CC cloud-native app, thinking that they were upgrading the app they’ve been using for years, and therefore wondered where all of their favorite features went. It’s an easy mistake to make if you haven’t heard all the furor about the rebranding. If this happened to you, don’t worry, your previous Lightroom version is still installed. If you added a bunch of new photos before you realized, there might be a little cleanup to do, so post on the forum and we’ll help with individual situations. Otherwise, you can uninstall Lightroom CC if it doesn’t meet your needs right now.
Lightroom CC is only version 1.0 – it’s still a baby – and you get to help mold its development over the next few years. Your feature requests, and votes on other people’s feature requests, mean you can help develop Lightroom CC into the kind of app you need for your workflow. This is reminiscent of the early days of Lightroom, and it’s great fun watching it grow! So if Lightroom CC doesn’t have the features you need yet, make sure you add your vote at the Feature Request Forum.
Using Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic together
Lots of people are trying to use Lightroom CC desktop and Lightroom Classic together on the same computer, and since they weren’t really designed to work that way, they’re running into a few problems.
Most notably, even though keywords can be viewed/edited in Lightroom CC, they don’t sync to or from Lightroom Classic. There aren’t any good long term workarounds for this issue and it’s not considered a bug, so if it’s important to you, you’ll want to vote on this request.
I’m working on some blog posts on how to use them together, ready to post over the next couple of weeks, so if you’re struggling with this or considering trying to use both together, hold that thought!
Upgrading to 1TB of Space
To retain the full Photography Plan but add 1TB of space, in theory you’d go to your Adobe account > Manage Account > Sign In > Manage Plan > Switch Plan and then it’ll show a page something like this, so you can switch to a plan that includes 1TB.
The 1TB upgrade option isn’t currently available for discounted Student & Teacher licenses or certain other plans such as Teams. The web team are working on a solution. If you’re in a rush, go ahead and start filling up your space, and when you get close to running out, you’ll get a notification with an upgrade link.
Some subscribers installed Lightroom Classic but wanted to keep Lightroom CC 2015 installed too
Some subscribers updated to Lightroom Classic without realizing it would remove Lightroom CC 2015 by default. If you want both installed, perhaps because you’re following my advice not to upgrade your main working catalog until you’ve tested with a new or duplicate catalog, you can just reinstall CC 2015 from the CC app. Click the arrow to the left of Lightroom Classic to show Lightroom CC 2015. To avoid this happening next time there’s a major update (probably October 2018), look out for the Advanced Settings > Remove Old Versions checkbox when you click Install/Update.
Perpetual license owners accidentally upgraded to Lightroom Classic
Some Lightroom 6 users were confronted with a dialog telling them that an upgrade was available, and when they went to the CC app, they accidentally installed the new Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic, which are only trial versions.
It was a (big!) mistake on Adobe’s part. There’s lots of different departments involved, and it slipped through the net. We’re all human. (Edit – they’ve fixed it now) If this happened to you, there’s a couple of choices.
- You might decide you like the improvements in Lightroom Classic and go ahead and subscribe at the end of your 7 day trial.
- If you don’t want to subscribe, you’ll need to uninstall Lightroom Classic and reinstall Lightroom 6 from here, followed by the 6.12 or 6.13 patch from the same page.
If you’re going back to Lightroom 6 perpetual, and you’d done a lot of work in Lightroom Classic before realizing the mistake, there is a minor roadblock. Lightroom 6 won’t open the Classic catalog format, so you’ll need to write the changes out to the files (XMP) and read them back into your Lightroom 6 catalog. The exact instructions will depend on each scenario, so drop by the forum if you need help with that.
Lightroom CC 2015.13 and Lightroom 6.13 are coming tomorrow
If you’re a Lightroom 6 perpetual user, or you’re a subscriber who likes to avoid x.0 releases, you’ll want to install the CC 2015.13 / 6.13 release, which is due for release tomorrow, October 26. To avoid possible confusion, let’s take a quick look at how to install the right one…
- Open the CC app from the system tray (Windows) / menubar (Mac)
- Next to Lightroom Classic CC, click the arrow to show previous versions (this is the essential step).
- Next to Lightroom CC (2015), click the Update button.
I’ll also include direct patch links at the end of tomorrow’s blog post.
Bugs in Lightroom Classic
I’m hearing lots of reports of Lightroom Classic feeling a bit faster than Lightroom CC 2015, which is really good news. Of course, as I warned, some people are still suffering performance issues, and these issues remain a work in progress.
There are some reports of new bugs in Lightroom Classic. This isn’t unusual when doing a major upgrade (x.0), because there are major code changes and no amount of internal testing will catch issues that only happen on specific hardware/driver combinations. Most of the issues are related to graphics cards and their drivers, so checking the graphics card manufacturer’s website for an update would be a great place to start.
If you’ve been holding off updating, here are the main issues that are being reported:
- Lightroom sometimes crashes on startup or exit.
- This solution works well for most Windows cases. It’s also happening on some Macs, and that’s still under investigation.
- Problems with previews in the Library module, for example, a grey screen or ghosting.
- If you’ve already updated your graphics card driver, Sunil’s suggestion in this thread seems to work well for Library module issues.
- Problems with previews in the Develop module, for example, blocked blacks, ghosting or noise reduction not being displayed in Develop.
- If you’ve already updated your graphics card driver, option 2 on this tech note seems to work well for many Develop preview issues, even though the tech note is actually designed for crashes.
- Some people are reporting problems merging photos.
- Midi devices are not working properly in some languages.
On High Sierra, Lightroom can crash on startup if multiple SD cards are connected.(Fixed in 7.0.1, released 10/26/2017)- On High Sierra, map navigation doesn’t always work correctly.
For a major upgrade, there’s a surprisingly small number of people reporting problems, which is good news.
If you find any bugs in Lightroom Classic, here’s how to report them.
Just some advance warning… I’ll be offline for 2 weeks from this Saturday, working hard to get the Lightroom Classic book ready for release. In the meantime, tomorrow’s post (October 26) will cover what’s new in Lightroom CC 2015.13 / 6.13.
The post What a Week in the Lightroom World! appeared first on The Lightroom Queen.