I started using Lightroom on a Mac in 2008, when “Photoshop Lightroom 2” was launched.

I upgraded regularly up to Lightroom 6, and kept on working with this version until I started progressively using Lightroom Mobile on iOS and iPadOS devices. At some point this year I came to the conclusion that I was not using Lightroom 6 and the old Mac anymore, that all my recent pictures were cataloged and processed on the iPad, and that it made sense to migrate my Lightroom 6 catalog to Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

Using the “Lightroom mobile app” on a iPad – I had not seen how fundamentally different the new cloud based Lightroom was from the old PC or Mac based versions. When some features were absent, I had just assumed it was due to limitations of the iPad or to restrictions imposed by Apple. It’s only when I started considering migrating my Lightroom 6 catalogs to the “new Lightroom” that I could see that Lightroom was at best an umbrella brand, and that there was little in common between the Classic and the (non-Classic) Lightroom.

Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic are conventional desktop and laptop based applications, that keep a local catalog of the images, and store them on directly attached hard drives and on network attached storage.

The new Lightroom (currently known as “Lightroom”) is a totally different animal. The storage of the images is taken care of by Adobe’s own Creative Cloud. The end users can upload, catalog and edit their images from a Web Interface running in their favorite Web Browser, or from a thin application layer running on smartphones or tablets (iPhone, iPad and Android devices), or on conventional laptops and desktop PCs or Macs. This application layer does not store the images permanently – it just downloads them from the cloud to a local cache when the photographer wants to work with them.

Now, let’s stop for a minute. Yes, you’ve read it right – Lightroom Classic (with the local catalog pointing to the local storage) and the new Lightroom thin app with its cloud storage can run simultaneously on a PC or a Mac. Depending on how you set them up, they will or will not keep their respective collections in sync. In sync, but separated and largely independent.

What I had not understood was that even if they look similar upon a cursory examination, Lightroom Classic and Lightroom (the new, cloud based Lightroom) are largely incompatible. Each lives in its own universe – they share pictures and edits transparently, and seem to cohabitate in perfect harmony – but they remain in separate worlds.

You fully realize how different the two products are the day you decide to abandon Lightroom Classic and its local storage, and start considering working exclusively with “Lightroom” in the cloud universe. Naturally, you will want to bring your catalog of Lightroom Classic images to the Creative Cloud, and that’s when you’ll start feeling the pain.

Because the migration of your Lightroom Classic catalogs is painful. In fact, there is no migration as such. When you export a collection to the cloud, Adobe retains your original image as transferred from the camera, but all the subsequent edits to that image will be aggregated in a single all encompassing step. Basically, you will get your original, and the final state of your image after all the edits have been applied. Adobe will also retain the metadata of the picture, the information you have added (title, comments, keywords, flags, stars) but not much else. The original folder structure on your local disks, the smart collections, the photo albums, the slide shows, even geo tagging information – won’t be transferred and will therefore be lost.

It may seem like a huge loss. But I’m an amateur and don’t make a living from my pictures. I’ve already printed the photo albums I needed to print, shared the slide shows I wanted to share, and won’t need to go back and rearrange them. As long as I can keep my pictures as they were when I was finished editing them, I’ll be fine. Having the ability to return to my images from any device, anywhere, without having to worry about storage devices, RAID arrays and off site backups, without even a laptop, has more value to me than the layout of a few photo albums.

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Naming conventions….

Adobe has kept changing the names of its “Lightroom” products, and even today, they are not perfectly consistent.

The conventional PC/Mac version of Lightroom, with its local storage, its local catalog, and its very broad feature set, is known as “Lightroom Classic“. Abbreviation: “LrC”

The “new” Lightroom, combining cloud storage and a thin interface running on a browser, a smartphone, tablet, PC or Mac is simply known as “Lightroom“. Some people still call it “Lightroom Creative Cloud” or “Lightroom CC”. But it’s “Lightroom“, abbreviated as “Lr” in the dock of a Mac or a PC, and on the Home screen of a mobile device.

When it’s running on a smartphone or a tablet, “Lightroom” is designated officially as “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom mobile app“, but it’s still abbreviated as “Lr”. The Lightroom mobile app is free but its feature set is limited. In order to work with RAW files, store images in the Adobe Creative Cloud and play with the new generative AI features, you will need to subscribe to Premium features (and you will be using “Adobe Lightroom mobile app with premium features enabled“, abbreviated as “Lr”, of course).

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More about the differences between Lightroom Classic and Lightroom when it comes to storage

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Did you recognize them?