Adobe’s New Lightroom CC Cloud-Based Editor Review

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I’ve been a Creative Cloud subscriber for a couple of years now.  Adobe has always been adding apps on the mobile side but it’s always been a bit disjointed. That has now ended now with their new Lightroom CC, however, they’ve added to the confusion by continuing the previous desktop oriented Lightroom and calling it Lightroom CC Classic. I’m not sure if this will work for them.

I’ve loved using Lightroom to edit massive amounts of pictures. I learned to use it while taking a class on digital photography many years ago, and I am very used to its interface. However, it is a complex interface and Adobe knows this, that’s why they developed an entirely new and mobile-centered editor in Lightroom CC.

Adobe also wanted to grab the same audience that uses apps like Google Photos, so they created a Lightroom CC plan that’s only $9.99 and includes 1 Terabyte of storage; Lightroom CC will sync your originals up to the cloud, and you can edit them either on your desktop, Phone, or Tablet with apps available for both iOS and Android.

In addition, the new Lightroom CC also lets you share this to Facebook, Twitter and can also work with pictures you take on your mobile devices. It’s trying to be a more modern version of Lightroom, and it does that well. Adobe has also added some machine learning to Lightroom, but I have not really noticed it much yet — mostly because I don’t have a whole lot stored in their cloud just yet, but this will likely change.

Where I think Adobe is messing up is that Adobe is the industry standard for media professionals; professionals were already okay with Lightroom CC Classic. Thankfully, they have continued this with Lightroom CC Classic, and they are continuing to work on this application as well.  It’s a good thing too, as Lightroom CC is missing some things I use every time I write here on Gear Diary, or if it has these features, I haven’t been able to find them yet.

For instance, I couldn’t find an option in Lightroom CC to add watermarks to photos; I always add one to pictures I take for reviews, so I have to go down to Classic to use this. While I appreciate and actually like the new Lightroom CC, I can’t always use it. I hope they add features to the new interface, but for now, I’ll end up using both. For someone who has less specific needs, they could probably use Lightroom CC only and be perfectly happy. In my case, I’ll constantly need to fall back to the Classic (screenshot below)

I will give Adobe one thing — at least they didn’t go the same direction Apple did with Final Cut by completely abandoning the professional market. It would be suicide for Adobe if they did. The thing that concerns me though, is what if the very market they are going for, new users, suddenly goes for this.  Will they do the same thing with Premiere Pro CC and Aftereffects CC? How much will they take away from these applications if they do?


In my opinion, Adobe is looking for a market that probably wouldn’t be willing to pay for an application for photo storage. Many, including myself, use Google Photos already, and many are just fine using ONLY Google Photos and just the free version to boot!

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About the Author

Joel McLaughlin
Joel is a consultant in the IT field and is located in Columbus, OH. While he loves Linux and tends to use it more than anything else, he will stoop to running closed source if it is the best tool for the job. His techno passions are Linux, Android, netbooks, GPS, podcasting and Amateur Radio.