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Frequently-asked questions about the Creative Cloud Photography plans
General questions
Adobe photography plans offer the perfect solutions for editing, organizing, storing, and sharing images for anyone interested in photography—from photo enthusiasts to professionals.
The Lightroom plan includes Lightroom with 1TB of photo cloud storage and Adobe Firefly. It’s the ideal option for photographers who want to access and edit their photography anywhere.
The Creative Cloud Photography plan includes Lightroom with 20GB of photo cloud storage, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and Adobe Firefly. It’s ideal option for photographers who want to access their photography anywhere and want the transformative power of Photoshop.
The Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1TB includes Lightroom with 1TB of photo cloud storage, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and Adobe Firefly. It’s the ideal option for anyone who wants to take full advantage of cloud storage in addition to everything offered in the Creative Cloud Photography plan.
The Creative Cloud Photography plan includes the following apps:
- Adobe Photoshop on desktop, iPad, and web
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on desktop, mobile, and web
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic
- Adobe Firefly
- Adobe Portfolio
- Adobe Bridge
- 20 GB cloud storage
You get all the essential tools to organize, edit, and share your photographs from anywhere—on your computer, on the web, and on your iOS or Android device. Master new skills with an extensive library of how-to videos and always have access to the latest imaging innovation from Adobe.
To learn more, see:
The Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1 TB includes the following apps:
- Adobe Photoshop on desktop, iPad, and web
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on desktop, mobile, and web
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic
- Adobe Firefly
- Adobe Portfolio
- Adobe Bridge
- 1 TB cloud storage
You get all the essential tools to organize, edit, and share your photographs from anywhere—on your computer, on the web, and on your iOS or Android device. Master new skills with an extensive library of how-to videos and always have access to the latest imaging innovation from Adobe. Learn more about the Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1 TB.
Lightroom is the cloud-based version that works across desktop, mobile, and web. Lightroom automatically stores full-resolution photos to the cloud when you import them from desktop, mobile, or the web. Edits are automatically reflected on all your devices.
Lightroom is a cloud-based photo service so that you can work across desktop, mobile, and web. Lightroom Classic is the desktop-focused photography product.
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Lightroom Classic |
Lightroom |
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Where you like to work on your photography? |
Desktop only |
Desktop, mobile, and web |
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Location of originals |
Local hard drive |
Cloud |
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File backup |
Not provided |
Automatic |
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Ease of use |
Most comprehensive |
Intuitive, streamlined |
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Organization and finding photos |
Manual keywords |
Automatic tagging and intelligent search |
Read more about the differences between Lightroom and Lightroom Classic here.
Lightroom Classic is the renamed version of the Lightroom app you have used in the past, and it is optimized for desktop-focused workflows, including local storage of your photos in files and folders on your computer. The interface, import and organize functionality, and the editing feature set is much the same as before. We are continuing to invest in Lightroom Classic.
You can upgrade your plan here. When you're nearing the storage limit for your current Creative Cloud Photography plan, you're also prompted within Lightroom to upgrade your plan and get more storage.
Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Lightroom and Photoshop) are installed locally on your computer. You don't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them. You only need to connect to the Internet once every 30 days to validate your membership.
However, an ongoing internet connection makes your Lightroom experience much richer. For example, you need an internet connection to back up your images to the cloud and have them available on all your devices. You also need an internet connection to use the search feature in Lightroom.
Lightroom, included in the Creative Cloud Photography plans, safely backs up all your photos to the cloud. Lightroom manages your photos for you, so that your photos don’t fill up your hard drive space. This storage management allows you to keep and work with many photos, even if there’s not enough room for all those photos on your hard drive.
You can always view and work with all your photos in Lightroom, even if the original file is not stored on your hard drive. When you begin working with that photo, the original file is automatically downloaded from cloud storage. Lightroom provides you the option to always keep all your original files on the computer’s hard drive, in addition to backing them up to the cloud.
If you'd prefer to not store your images in the cloud, you can use Lightroom Classic.
You maintain complete ownership of your images at all times.
Adobe will continue to store your original images and videos for one year or so before they're deleted. You can use the Adobe Lightroom Downloader app to download your photos from Creative Cloud within this period after your membership or trial expires. See Lightroom Cloud deletion for details.
Up until your files are not deleted, the following applies:
Lightroom Mobile: With Lightroom on your iPad, iPad Pro, iPhone, Android device, or Chromebook, you can continue to view and edit your photos for free, but you will lose access to premium features and syncing capabilities across your devices.
Lightroom Desktop: With Lightroom on your macOS or Windows desktop, you will no longer be able to sync new files to the cloud. You can, however, continue to launch Lightroom to download your original files from our cloud to your local hard drive.
Lightroom Classic: With Lightroom Classic on your macOS or Windows desktop, you'll still have access to all your photos on your local hard drive. You can continue to import and organize photos as well as output your edited photos through Export, Publish, Print, Web, or Slideshow. Access to the Develop & Map modules and syncing capabilities are not available after your membership ends.
Yes; your photos are stored securely and safely using Adobe's cloud services infrastructure.
Yes. When you delete synced photos from Lightroom on desktop, mobile, or web, they are placed in the Deleted album where you can access and restore deleted photos within 60 days of deleting them. You can also choose to permanently delete photos.
With Lightroom Classic, synced photos that are deleted are still stored locally on your computer and aren't removed from the hard disk.
Your Creative Cloud Photography plan stays at the same price. If you want to upgrade to the Photography plan with 1 TB, you can do so through an exclusive offer. See Change your Adobe plan.
Yes; you may switch to the Creative Cloud Photography plan if you want to do so.
Yes, Lightroom is available in Creative Cloud Team and Enterprise plans.
If you subscribed to the Creative Cloud Photography plan before October 18, 2017, refer to the frequently-asked questions below:
Your plan still includes Photoshop and the same Lightroom desktop app (now named Lightroom Classic), and you pay the same price: $9.99 per month. Your plan now includes an additional app—the all new Lightroom and 20GB of cloud storage.
- The version of Lightroom that you have been using is now called Lightroom Classic to reflect its more traditional desktop-centric use case. Lightroom Classic has significant performance improvements and several new editing features. No features or functionality have been removed from Lightroom Classic.
- Photoshop is updated with several new editing features; see the New features summary.
- Additionally, your plan now includes the new Lightroom app across desktop, mobile, and the web along with 20GB of cloud services, so you can get a feel of the new Lightroom.
We are excited about the new Lightroom and see it as the future of photography—a complete photo service that provides anywhere access and easy editing of full resolution photos, worry-free backups and effortless organization, but also has the editing power for someone like you.
That said, some customers prefer local storage of their photos and are used to the existing Lightroom user interface. So, we wanted to keep that experience available for those who want it. We used the term “Classic” to indicate that this version is optimized for the more traditional way of working, with the desktop as the center of the experience. Lightroom Classic was improved on October 18, 2017 with significant performance improvements and editing features and will be updated on an ongoing basis in the future.
If you are a current Creative Cloud member who has been using Lightroom and you want to stick with what you’re used to, simply use Lightroom Classic. Be sure to update to the most recent version to enjoy the significant performance improvements.
Simply install it using the Creative Cloud desktop app. You can enjoy it using the 20GB of cloud storage in your plan. Lightroom ia also available on mobile devices and on the web. Download Lightroom on mobile in the Apple app store or Google Play app store. Or access Lightroom on the web at lightroom.adobe.com.
If you've used Lightroom in the past, you may notice that the new Lightroom does not yet include all of the features that have existed in Lightroom in the past. This is a version 1.0 of the new Lightroom; it meets the needs of many users today. If there are key features or capabilities that you’d like to see added, please give us feedback here. We're actively developing Lightroom on the desktop and will inform you of the new features added in each update.
Creative Cloud Photography plan has always offered the ability to edit photos from Lightroom on mobile and web. But, there are two areas of key differences in how the all-new Lightroom service interacts with the cloud and how Lightroom Classic does so.
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Lightroom |
Lightroom Classic |
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Solely on your desktop. |
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Role of Lightroom on mobile and web |
Mobile and web are an equal partner to the desktop, so all your original images are available anywhere and edits are always in sync on the cloud. |
Mobile and web apps have access solely to SmartPreviews (lower resolution proxies) for the photos that you designate on your desktop and edits made to those SmartPreviews sync back to your originals on the desktop. |
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Creative Cloud Photography plan has never included storage per se. With Lightroom Classic, your edits sync back to the originals on your desktop via SmartPreviews (lower resolution proxies). Only photos taken on your mobile device are at full resolution. 20 GB is more than enough to handle this syncing, and should not be looked at as storage or backup.
If you choose to use Lightroom as a Creative Cloud Photography member, 20 GB is enough to give you a taste of the full-cloud photo service. If you would like the full 1TB of cloud storage or more, you can upgrade to the Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1TB. Here’s how to change your Creative Cloud plan.
The Creative Cloud Photography plan provides 20 GB of storage by default. If you need more storage, you can purchase a 1 TB storage plan through Adobe.com. You can also purchase 2 TB, 5 TB, and 10 TB plans through your Adobe ID account (Manage plan > Change your plan). Follow the step-by-step instructions given here to change your Adobe plan.
We are committed to meeting the needs of professional photographers and photography enthusiasts of all levels. Some will choose to use Lightroom, while others will continue to use Lightroom Classic. Both will be supported and updated with new features and improvements for the foreseeable future.
Creative Cloud All Apps members get access to the Lightroom app and can use it with the 100 GB of cloud storage included in their plan. An All Apps member can move up to the Lightroom service with the full 1 TB for an additional $9.99 per month.
Lightroom prompts you that you'll soon fill up all of your cloud storage. To continue enjoying the benefits of backup, and the ability to view all of your photos on a mobile device, you can upgrade to a full 1 TB of cloud storage.
Once you hit your cloud storage limit, you can still import photos into Lightroom on the desktop, but those photos will be stored only on your local drive. They are not backed up to the cloud. They're also not available via Lightroom on mobile or the web. Also note that the ability to search on whatever objects are present in your photo requires that your photos are in the cloud.
Look for the 
icon to check which photos are backed up to the cloud. The 
icon indicates that the original of the photo is not backed up to the cloud.
When you've reached 100% of your cloud storage...
Lightroom prompts you that you've filled up all of your cloud storage. To continue enjoying the benefits of backup, and the ability to view all of your photos on a mobile device, you can upgrade to a full 1 TB of cloud storage.
After you've hit your cloud storage limit, you can still import photos into Lightroom on the desktop, but those photos are stored on your local drive only. They are not backed up to the cloud, nor do they become available via Lightroom on mobile or the web. Also note that searching based on whatever objects are present in your photo requires that your photos are in the cloud.
Look for the icon to check which photos are backed up to the cloud. The icon indicates that the original of the photo is not backed up to the cloud.
We encourage anyone who currently uses Lightroom Classic to download and try Lightroom in order to decide if you’d like to switch to Lightroom. Our recommendation is that you pick one and use it on an ongoing basis. We don't recommend using both together in the long term.