What’s New in The World of Lightroom – October 2017
Welcome to my Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC resource page covering all the Lightroom news that was announced at Adobe’s MAX conference on October 18, 2017. There is a ton of big news :
- Lightroom as we knew it has been renamed “Lightroom Classic“.
- There is a brand new cloud-based “Lightroom CC” application that is tightly integrated into a larger “Lightroom CC ecosystem”, consisting of Lightroom CC desktop, Lightroom CC iOS and Lightroom CC Android for mobile devices, and Lightroom CC web. (Mobile and web applications are not brand new – they are the ones that we have been using for quite some time.)
- Version 7.0 of Lightroom Classic has been released as a subscription only, with performance improvements and a few new features.
- The perpetual / stand-alone Lightroom 6 product will continue to be sold and will get 1-2 small final updates in the next few months with support for new cameras, new lens profiles and bug fixes.
- New features have been added to Lightroom mobile for iOS and Android, including keywording and collection sets (called “folders” in the Lightroom CC world) – but these will not sync back to Lightroom Classic, just to the new cloud-based Lightroom CC.
- New features have been added to Lightroom Web, including an artificial intelligence-driven “Best Photos” feature.
The following links to articles and videos will take you through all the news. I recommend starting with the summary to get the lay of the land. Do chime in in the Comments section of any and all posts with your thoughts – but do keep it civil, please!
Summary of All the Lightroom News from Adobe’s MAX Conference
ARTICLE: Summary of All the Lightroom News
Lightroom Classic 7 , CC, Mobile and Web
VIDEO Summary of All the Lightroom News
Lightroom Classic 7 , CC, Mobile and WebRecorded Webinar
Confused and/or overwhelmed by all the news? In this 50 minute recorded webinar session I’ll cover the highlights and provide context and my thoughts about it to help clear up your confusion and enable you to understand what, if anything, you need to do.
Product names
What’s new in Lightroom Classic 7.0
What you can already do in Lightroom mobile and web with your Creative Cloud subscription and Classic 7
The new cloud-based Lightroom CC program and where it fits in the “Lightroom ecosystem”
Available plans and pricing
Mobile for iOS and Android; Web
Lightroom Classic
FOR A FREE DOWNLOAD of all of my video tutorials for Lightroom Classic 7’s new features, go to this page.
Lightroom CC
Making Your Decision: Whether to Use Lightroom Classic or CC
What’s New in Lightroom Mobile and Web
[…] big updates to mobile and web capabilities. Come to the meeting to learn more. Laura Shoe has a good blog post with more […]
Great information from you today Laura. Thanks so much for your work……we really appreciate you! Aloha nui loa from Maui.
You’re welcome, Neil – thank you for your note!
Looks interesting. My disappointment is that today when I saw an update to Lightroom 6 was available in the Lightroom CC control centre (I don’t know what it’s called – the icon at the top of the Mac screen), it said that Lightroom Classic was available but said nothing at all about it being a subscription. Nothing. Now it’s installed I have to decide if I’ll keep it and start a subscription, or somehow remove it and perhaps re-download LR6 … if that’s even possible? I think Adobe should have made the subscription-only nature if Lightroom Classic much much clearer.
The CC app only shows subscription products, Des – maybe you have it installed because you did a free trial? You can download and reinstall Lightroom 6 if you want to, but your Lightroom Classic 7 catalog can’t be opened into LR 6 – it’s not backwards compatible. (However, if you have done work in 7 that you want to get into 6 you could save to XMP (Metadata>Save Metadata to Files) and then import into 6 (or if the photos are already in 6 go to Metadata>Read Metadata from files). You would just lose your range mask work.
Thanks for that reply and extra information Laura.
Hey Laura,
no it doesn´t.
My Lightroom 6 standalone version and my Photoshop CS 6 are shown and updated throught the CC App since one or two years or so.
I have the same problem as Des. The App just showed an update like in the last months, installed the subscription only Classic crap and completly deleted my LR 6 Version… I will not pay 10 bucks per month for new features I dont need.
I saw an article from your hp that told me how to revert back to a previous version of LR. I will try that and hope it will work. I guess all my LR settings will be lost though….
Any ideas for this problems ?
Should I just install it and delete the LR Classic afterwards ?
Any help is greatly appreciated :-)
Keep up the good work !
Hi Ingo, I have a new article on how to roll back to an earlier version of Lightroom.
Thank you, Laura, that we can always count on you to bring us the latest Lr news, features, and help for deciding if, when, and to what version we should upgrade.
You’re welcome, Susan! What are you going to do?
Shall we update Lr mobile?
Yes, go ahead and update mobile, Rafael, but if you are a Lightroom Classic user, beware that keywords you assign in mobile won’t sync to Classic. Folders also won’t sync to Classic’s collection sets.
Hi! I will be very interested to read about the pro’s and con’s of using Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC together. I am thinking that the combination might suit me, even if it is a bit complicated.
Hi Peter, I don’t have an article at this point on working in both applications, but I speak to it briefly in my recorded webinar, at 46:00. https://laurashoe.com/2017/10/24/free-webinar-recording-whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-7-cloud-based-lightroom-cc-and-more/
[…] Laura Shoe: Umfangreiche Infos zu den beiden neuen Programmen […]
When is Adobe going to REALLY address the problem of LR’s side panels and filmstrip going black. Lots of time. Their remedy of hiding and then opening LR each time is a joke. I am a MAC user. It is not MAC’s fault. LR 6 never had this problem. The stand alone version. It started when they had the online subscription program.
Lightroom 6 did and does have this problem, Steve. I would suggest giving Adobe feedback on this page.
The stand alone LR 6 did not. It seemed to start happening when they went to the cloud version of LR6. I have the stand alone version on one of my computers and it has never happened. I have the LR CC on one computer and it still happens. I also have LR Classic on my laptop and it happens. It is an Adobe problem. Adobe knows all about this problem, you can read about it on their support page. Yes, I have given my feedback and all I get from them is it is a MAC and PC problem not a Adobe. I am ready to move on to another product. Adobe must take this problem seriously. You should tell them to work on this problem and not pass the buck
I’m sorry to hear that that is the case for you, Steve, but it has been happening to others since Lightroom 5.
Laura,
I purchased the standalone versions of Elements 14 and Lr 6 a few years ago and later went with the creative cloud subscription to include Photoshop. How can I tell if I still have Lr 6 installed and how would I access it? Also, I used to be able to select Elements when I would right-click a photo in Lr and chose “Edit in” – now the option is only Photoshop. Can I change that to include Elements in the choices? Sometimes I just want to use the healing tool to remove a spot or blight with more precision. I have the new Nikon D850 and need to be able to edit NEF/RAW files in Lr so I am ready to upgrade to Lr Classic but don’t want to lose my standalone versions just in case I quit the subscription someday.
Sorry if this is a very rudimentary or redundant question and is posted in the wrong thread. I’m just nervous about this upgrade on the one hand but need to process my NEF files as soon as I can.
THANK YOU, Shari
Hi Shari, Lightroom 6 is “Adobe Lightroom” in your Program Files (PC) or Applications (Mac) folder. To list Elements, go into Preferences and on the External Editing tab, add the Elements program to the Additional Editor section (navigate to the PC .exe or Mac .dmg program file.) This is covered in my Photoshop (and Elements) Preferences video in my Lightroom CC/6 and 5: The Fundamentals & Beyond series.
Thanks for accepting me for your newsletter, we all seem to be needing all the help we can get at the moment. I find it astounding that Adobe have made this switch/expansion so complicated.
I’m sorry, this might be a bit longwinded. I want eventually to install Lightroom Classic, alongside what I already have, and I’m very anxious not to make a mistake and end up with the cloud LR.
I have a Mac, OS 10.10, and am a CC subscriber. In the Creative Cloud app list I have LR5 which I know is a stand-alone perpetual app, and I have Lightroom CC (2015), which has an update button beside it, and if I click on What’s New, it says Lightroom 6.13, bug fixes and new camera support. LR Classic is not listed.
Some time ago, when there were problems with on-line downloads, I had to get a direct download .dmg package direct from Adobe (via Pro-Design Tools, very helpful). I still have the setup.dmg file in a folder called LR 2015.7 update.
So, after all that, my question is, is that update Lightroom 6.13 going to work? Will it work with the installed direct download 2015.7, and is it definitely NOT the cloud version.
As I said, longwinded, thank you for your patience.
Welcome Ruth! To get Classic to show up I would suggest signing out of the CC application (click on the gear icon) and signing back in again. If you also want to update CC 2015 to 2015.13, you can click on Update next to CC 2015.
Unfortunately I can’t always answer questions posted here right away (though I wish I could!) For quicker answers, the forums are your best bets – I like lightroomforums.net.