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In order to keep its legacy users happy, Adobe kept the old version of Lightroom around but switched its name to Lightroom Classic. That’s not true when you’re poking your finger onto a relatively tiny phone screen. After all, the original Lightroom assumed you had access to a keyboard and mouse, which made cramped sliders and dense UI easy to navigate. In order to make it compatible across platforms, Adobe had to cut into Lightroom’s features and alter its interface. You had to subscribe to Creative Cloud if you wanted Lightroom now. Adobe also took this opportunity to do away with perpetual licenses. Lightroom CC ties tightly into the company’s Creative Cloud, which means you’d get a similar editing experience on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet.
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Adobe built it for maximum synergy across different platforms. It was much different than the previous version. In 2017, Adobe introduced a new version of Lightroom called Lightroom CC. Adobe Lightroom vs Lightroom Classic split Adobe gradually added local adjustment options, improved profiles, preset compatibility, and hardware acceleration. The tools, interface, and even the underlying architecture have changed considerably over the years, however. The modern flavors of Lightroom aim to satisfy the same need. That can save a huge amount of time during a big edit, especially if you’re in a studio situation in which the lighting doesn’t change much. In Lightroom, you can edit one photograph from a whole set and then easily apply those settings to the rest of the collection. Apple’s Aperture offered similar features, which made editing large groups of photos much easier than slogging through Adobe Bridge to organize images and then importing them one at a time to Photoshop. That includes importing and sorting your photos, editing, then exporting final versions. Lightroom has had a similar goal from the start: Manage your photography workflow. Adding a fun bubble texture is an amusing thing to do when you’re slacking off at work, but it’s not useful for actual photo editing. Photoshop itself had grown into a massive goliath packed with awesome features that photographers just didn’t need when tearing through a memory card worth of images. Way back in 2006, Adobe introduced a program called Photoshop Lightroom.
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While we appreciate the constant stream of new editing toys to play with, the Adobe lineup has gotten somewhat convoluted. Adobe constantly updates its offerings with new features and apps.
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The programs we use now look a lot different than they did back then. Since the late ‘80s, Adobe has been offering advanced photo editing software.
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