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No plans to kill off Lightroom Classic, says Adobe

by 8 Comments

There’s been a lot of doubt and confusion since Adobe’s announcement about Lightroom CC. Standalone Lightroom has disappeared. The old Lightroom CC is now “Lightroom Classic”, and a lot suspect that Adobe plan to eventually phase it out.

According to a blog post on the Adobe Lightroom Journal, though, Adobe say they’re absolutely not planning to kill it. They say that they “remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future”. They it has an “exciting roadmap”, and even prompt users to hold Adobe accountable. Of course, we’ve heard this kind of thing before.

The blog post is put together more like a Frequently Asked Questions page, of which I’m sure Adobe have received many. One particular question deals with Lightroom Classic.

Q. Is Lightroom Classic being phased out? How long will it be until Adobe kills Lightroom Classic?

TH: No, we’re not phasing out Lightroom Classic and remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future. We know that for many of you, Lightroom Classic, is a tool you know and love and so it has an exciting roadmap of improvements well into the future. But please hold us accountable as we make updates in the following months and years to let us know if we’re meeting your expectations.

Adobe have gone back on their word before, though. Along with the announcement of Lightroom Classic was the fact that Lightroom Standalone was disappearing completely. Which is the exact opposite of the statement they made in 2013.

Q. Will Lightroom become a subscription only offering after Lightroom 5?

A. Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely.”

Of course, I would imagine Adobe would argue “Well, Lightroom Classic is not Lightroom. It’s Lightroom Classic, and there won’t be any new versions of Lightroom, so it doesn’t count”.

But, that won’t instil confidence in many users of Lightroom Classic that it will continue to be developed along with Lightroom CC, and not simply abandoned at some point.

So, if you’re a Lightroom Classic fan, be sure to hold them to their request of keeping them accountable.

Still no word on when we’ll see Lightroom Zero, Diet Lightroom, or Caffeine Free Lightroom yet.

Related posts:

Adobe ditches the desktop and moves Lightroom CC into the cloud Adobe soon launches Lightroom update to speed up its performance Adobe: Sorry for releasing Lightroom that “didn’t uphold the level of quality”, releases bug fix update Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw now use AI to enhance details in your photos
  • Frank Elston

    Here’s a short guide on how to create a long goodbye from Lightroom (perpetual) users.

    1. Make promises of continuing Lightroom perpetual forever and break them three years later.
    2. Leave Lightroom 6.x perpetual users with a two year old feature set in a cul de sac
    3. Make decisions on doubtful analysis about users converting from perpetual – does Adobe know how many users are still using old versions of Lightroom at all let alone pending a new release?
    4. Have a ‘no-way-back’ feature for anyone deciding after a trial that the new Lightroom Classic is not suitable after all.
    5. Charge users an absurdly high monthly charge for providing Lightroom bundled with unwanted other software.
    6. Leave desktop users of Lightroom only with no option but ditching LR through lack of support.
    7. Provide spurious explanation that perpetual versions are more difficult to support

    It is a shoddy piece of decision making ignoring user requirements. What happened to delighting customers. I have no use for Photoshop so do not want to pay for it. I made a decision to stay with Lightroom based on promises of three years ago which have been totally undermined, after using Lightroom for 10 years. I would have started the search for an alternative much earlier. I have little intention of adopting a forever subscription from anyone especially if one costing more than a mobile phone contract. A Lightroom Classic only subscription might prove usable but not an LR mobile only offering – you have to own a compatible tablet or mobile to use it.

    All in all the current releases and re-packaging do not meet my needs. Hence the beginning of a long goodbye.

  • Q. Did you consider calling Lightroom CC ‘New Lightroom’ and instead of calling regular Lr ‘Classic Lightroom’?

  • They killed the standalone version. That’s enough. But who Needs Lightroom at all? There’s still good software available.

  • ‘No plans to kill’ does not necessary mean Lightroom will be supported. It is possible to kill off without any plans.

  • Jesse

    In the immortal works of Fox Mulder “…trust no one !” particularly any corporation in silicon valley, where things change daily.

  • bill bane

    Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame you me.

    Adobe is “committed to LR Classic,” my a##. Adobe has lost all credibility, especially regarding their concern about their customers.

    The existing management is maxing out short term income to pad their options values, to shortly thereafter leave everyone else in the ditch. Sounds like their Board has drunk the koolaid.

  • Tech

    I think the mistake they made is to rename the current version as Classic instead of leaving it as it is and calling the Cloud version as “Lightroom Cloud”. Naming something ‘Classic’ doesn’t give a sense of future upgrades.
    Also, killing standalone install is a big mistake. It doesn’t make sense why I’m forced to pay yearly when I’m happy with the current version features and not interested in new camera compatibility. Let me decide when to upgrade based on when I can spend.

  • They also, originally, had no plans to stop developing a stand alone version. I’ve bought ON1 Photo Raw and dropping the subscription model that Adobe uses

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