One of the biggest days of the year for creatives is when Adobe releases new versions of its software. That day is today and there is a lot of new stuff coming out across all of the Adobe products. As part of the updates, Adobe has released a new version of Lightroom, they also released a new Lightroom product, and they changed all the names. 

The program that everyone knew as Lightroom is now called Lightroom Classic. This is the same computer (desktop) application that we have been using for years. According to Adobe, the new Lightroom Classic is faster at importing images, moving between the Library and Develop Modules, and moving between images in the Develop module. (I will be testing these claims out). There are also updates to the detail control in masking and I will look into those as well. The real question, is if the software is any faster? I don’t know yet… but i will be running some real life tests very soon.

As you can see, the layout, tool placement, and modules are all in the same places and all look very familiar. Hopefully all the real changes are under the hood and Lightroom Classic runs faster than the old Lightroom. (All I really want is a faster Lightroom on my desktop so I can get my work done faster)

So if Lightroom for the computer is now called Lightroom Classic (and lets hope it does better than Coke Classic) what is Lightroom CC? According to Adobe, Lightroom CC is for mobile, allowing you to capture, edit, organize, and share photos on your smart phone or tablet. This is not a desktop application but is meant for those people who use their smartphones as cameras. 

According to Adobe, this s a complete system, but it really is based for people who are not shooting huge number of images on a constant basis. This allows you to keep your smart phone, tablet, and desktop images synced because everything is stored in the cloud. Will this work for someone like me who shoots thousands of images multiple times a week? or for the wedding photographers who shoot two or three weddings a week? Probably not. I do love the Lightroom CC camera on my iPhone.  

So which version of Lightroom is right for you? I can’t answer that. All I can tell you is what I will be doing and right now, and that is to update my computer Lightroom application to Lightroom Classic and see if it really is any faster. 

So all this sounds pretty good, but I do have a few personal comments and questions. Why did Adobe change the name of Lightroom and then release a new Lightroom mobile product instead of just giving the new product a new name. It would be a lot less confusing to just call the new Lightroom CC mobile app something like Adobe Photography Mobile, or Adobe Photos (since it is a lot like Apple Photos) and just leave Lightroom as Lightroom. the second issue I have with the new names is the perception that anything named Classic translates into Old. So in my head I see the name as Lightroom Old.