Ever since Adobe announced a major update to Lightroom Mobile earlier this week (which has been met with much love), I have seen comments to the effect of “This Lightroom Mobile update looks really good, but has Adobe forgotten about Lightroom CC for the Desktop?” and even worse “Has Adobe stopped developing Lightroom for the desktop?”
It has been a while since the last major update for Lightroom CC, and understandably people are starting to ask questions like these. We’re all gettin’ a little antsy. We want to know what Adobe’s been working on (or maybe we just want to know that they are at least working on something).
Apparently, Adobe has heard these questions, too, and last week Adobe’s Tom Hogarty gave us some insight (on ‘Lightroom Journal, the Lightroom team’s official Blog) into what they’re working on for the next version. Tom wrote:
I would like to address concerns recently voiced by our community of customers around Lightroom performance, as improving performance is our current top priority. We have a history, starting with our first public beta, of working with our customers to address workflow and feature needs, and we’d like to take that same approach regarding your performance concerns. We already understand many of the current pain points around GPU, import performance, certain editing tasks and review workflows and are investing heavily in improving those areas. Over the past year we’ve added numerous enhancements to address your performance concerns but we understand we will have a lot of work to do to meet your expectations.”
As one who has been griping to Adobe about performance (especially the speed of displaying thumbnails and standard size previews) for years now, I was really happy to see Tom mention that Adobe is “investing heavily” on performance related issues and that improving Lightroom’s performance is their “current top priority.”
But beyond all that, I think Tom’s comments put a lot of user’s minds at ease (well, it certainly did mine anyway) — they’re working on the next major update, and their top priority is speed. Also, saying that their “top priority” is speed, that tells me they have other priorities as well, so hopefully it will have a few other juicy features, too. Anyway, if it’s gonna haul butt, I don’t mind waiting a bit longer for the engineers to do their thing.
Speaking of Lightroom engineers, when I did my Lightroom seminar in Minneapolis a month or so ago, I got to meet directly with some of the Lightroom team and engineers and gave them a ton of crap I shared many of the concerns and comments you guys have posted here on the blog or emailed me about. It was a really productive meeting, and they listened a lot, asked a lot of questions, and we had a great discussion. They are really great people, and they are truly committed to making Lightroom better and better. Many of them are photographers themselves; they use Lightroom for their own photography, and they understand us (and our struggles) better than you’d think.
One more thing…
Tom gave a link where users can give their feedback directly to the Lightroom team. Here’s that link (I encourage you to take advantage of this. This stuff matters).
My Lightroom Seminar is in Richmond Wednesday and Nashville on Friday
I’m going to have around 300 photographers there for my seminar in Richmond — don’t be the only photographer in town that’s not there – come on out and spend the day with me. Nashville (home of Brad Moore), is where I’m headed on Friday. It’s going to be epic. You should be there, too! It’s a Lightroom love-fest, and you’ll learn a lot. More details here.
Have a great weekend everybody!
-Scott
P.S. If you’ve got a sec, stop by my other blog today (scottkelby.com) for a very inspiring story for photographers.
Yeah, I’m with Tim on this one.
Above extra features and updates, PERFORMANCE is the No.1 concern! Glad theyre investing in that because it will definitely improve all aspects, including mobile apps.
I would love to have the Upright feature on iOS!.
Every release we hear the Lr teams top focus is performance. Loading large files and building preview for a D810 takes a long time if you want smart previews as well. However, can’t the walk and chew gum at the same time. We need performance AND new features that wow us. Please.
I did wonder whether moving to CC would reduce the updates. I had LR2 originally and when LR3 was released, I wanted the new shinies so I upgraded. Same to LR4 & 5.
Now though – it feels very much as though Adobe have got their annual subscribers and can take their foot off the gas. A quick glance at the wikipedia page shows no update (for LR) since 2015. As for Photoshop – it’s the same story – severely reduced content since introducing CC.
Is this value for money? At this rate, it will be cheaper to just buy standalone – then wait for the next version rather than pay continuously for no innovation. Performance updates? They should be standard with each release – not a ” major feature”.
2015 is the base number, there have been dot releases continuously. Much of the new feature set is in the mobile realm. But desktop – guided upright fixing, dehaze, dehaze as a brush option, panorama/hdr … facial recognition, saved brush settings (A, B – and the erasure)… https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html
I have complete faith that we’ll see some improvements in time. My concern is that a major LR update hasn’t occurred since April 2015, and it’s only now that Adobe has created that survey, which is a good thing, but it’s much later than I’d expect them to be looking at performance based problems.
It leaves me wondering just how much longer we’ll be left waiting for an update (outside of lens/camera/minor bug fixes) as I’d assume performance based fixes possibly require some fundamental changes to be made.
Hi Scott,
thank you a lot for this article. Don’t you know how big is the Lightroom development team?
I work for a big software company and it would be very interesing to know how many people right now really doing chages in Lightroom source code.
Thank you
Ales
I pulled the plug and cancelled my subscription last month. It was a bad deal as I also purchased a standalone version of LR6 before the subscription as well. So, I paid twice and all benefit I got was Photoshop which I never used. By the way, in Germany you have to pay almost 14 USD a month …
I’m in the same boat. The conversion from the US dollar to Canadian for my subscription is too high and I’m canceling when it is up in October. I just don’t want to end up buying LR6 for desktop if they are going to release LR7.
[…] post Has Adobe Forgotten About Lightroom CC? appeared first on Lightroom Killer […]
Not to worry as there has been software developed by other companies and they have speed.
And if you quit paying for lightroom you still have just no develop or map modules.
Any conversation about integrating Adobe Stock libraries to the workflow. I’ve got a growing amount of images purchased through Adobe Stock and it seems logical that I could manage them within Lightroom?
i just checked the new LR and the bugs which i reported seems to be solved… so i am happy so far.. 🙂
Any mention of Lightroom 7 from anyone?
We are looking forward to a bump in speed to Lightroom CC and thanks for sharing the link to give Adobe feedback.
You bet. Speed kills! 🙂
Have to agree with Christian. The whole point of SaaS (Software as a Service) is that you are happy to pay the monthly fee to always be on the latest version AND receive regular updates, which for LR have been sorely missing of late.
I wonder if they are spending their time and effort working on the 100% cloud version (which was showcased at recent Adobe conference) – forget what its called now.
Amen to that! Why are we paying monthly if there are very infrequent updates? A SaaS model presumes frequent maintenance/updates! If nothing else they should be embarrassed that it’s still called LR 2015! They should at least have changed the name at some time.
The part of Tom Hogarty’s statement that worries me is he says, “I would like to address concerns **recently** voiced by our community of customers around Lightroom performance.” (emphasis mine). This makes it sound like they’ve just noticed users have been complaining about performance when it has been the number one complaint for years.
Correct
Hi Scott,
My question is why have a monthly paid version vs full time license?
I have lightroom 5 which I paid for a full license, and I do not want to pay on a monthly basis a fee to have the CC version. I can see that for Adobe is more profitable but for the non business user it is an very high monthly expense.
The update are very welcome, specially the ones related with the program performance(speed), but for me the move from one time payments license to a monthly basis is a bad move.
Best regards
Rui
I realize finances are different for everyone, but $9.95 is a “very high monthly expense”? It’s absolutely tiny compared to other monthly bills, such as utilities. I’ll forgo a Big Mac meal or two a month for the Creative Cloud Photography plan. LR & PS for $9.95 is a deal that can’t be beaten.
It’s not because the price is kind of ok (which is what I think) that makes it normal for Adobe not to deliver, as promised, regular and real update. Adding new lenses and dslr are not considered as updates.
There is definitely a plus with the CC compared to the licence (no need to argue with that any more, at least for me) but there is clearly a lack, for too long now, on the update side.
Scott, maybe you don’t feel that way because you have access to the beta version and you keep seeing new stuff.
You obviously are not on a fixed income (social security.) I updated LR 6 two years ago for $79 as opposed to almost $240 for a two year subscription. It is not a tiny expense for some of us.
Spot on Timothy. As a retiree all I wanted was Lightroom and a one time cost. Subscriptions are not an option on a fixed income. I’m not in a postion to give something else up – I already have!
Yeah, I’m with Tim on this one.
The problem is that not all people need PS. Why would I pay for both programs when I need just one?
What’s the point to argue about which pay model is better? Give people a choice! But I assume that Adobe is afraid to do it since most people will choose less profitable one-time-pay option.
Well, Tim and Scott, $9.99 a month surely isn’t a lot of money for most folks … but, other than time in service, just what has Adobe given us in the way of new features since LrCC 2015.0 was introduced that has increased the value of Lightroom? Sure there was Dehaze and Guided Upright and some other ancillary items. There surely hasn’t been much in the way of improvements outside of the Develop module that are exceptionally noteworthy … if this was the days of yore and I was contemplating an upgrade fee for a perpetual license with what has been offered over the past 2+ years. Not to mention that almost every update to Lightroom since 6.1/2015.1 has included significant problems that caused hardship for more than a few users because they insist upon utilizing their subscribers as pay-to-play beta testers … I’d be hard pressed to deem such ‘features’ worthy of further monetary investment. There are times when even a modest Big Mac Meal isn’t really a bargain … at ANY price … especially if it is served cold, undercooked and lacking any special sauce.
Thanks Scott for the info.
But it has been so loooonnnnng since the last REAL update that I don’t even remember why I’m paying every month for the CC.
We were told that, compare to the licence, we would receive regularly real update.
Ok there is more than just LR CC, there is PS, mobile, web…
ok fine but the masterpiece is LR ! I couldn’t care less about the other part if LR is gong forward on a regular basis for new fonctions et better usability.
Anyhow thanks for your help
Apart from an increase in speed what would you like to see new in Lr CC? I find it does everything I need with my images and there are plenty of areas when editing in Photoshop that takes me even further. As a package, I think it’s great having both tools in my arsenal.
Has Lightroom added the nudge feature yet? I’m on an older version, not on the cloud, and being able to smoothly and minutely move images with L-R and Up-Down arrows in a collage would make me upgrade.
I would like to see layers/photo stacking in LR. That’s the only thing LR doesn’t do for me, and I don’t want to have to learn PS, or pay for it (either license or subscription) to do stacking. That said, I’d be willing to pay a bit more for the license to get that feature.
Currently using On1 RAW for layers. It’s ok, but I’d drop that if LR had the feature just to avoid having to have more other software.
[…] Source link […]