Adobe certainly knew how to confuse the living bejesus out of photographers when they began offering TWO choices for their Lightroom program - Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic.

So, what’s the difference between the two? What does each one do differently? Who are they for? And most importantly, which one should you get?!!

Find out the answers to all these questions below!

Confused about the differences between Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC, and most importantly, which one is best for you? Read on and see which of these two editing programs will suit you best!

What’s the difference between Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic?

Let’s look at the MAIN difference between Lightroom CC and LIghtroom Classic.

Lightroom CC is cloud based, meaning that ALL your photos are stored in the “cloud”. In essence, this means pay Adobe for access to the Lightroom CC application AND for photo storage. This is wrapped together for $9.99 per month for up to 1TB of photos - but once you exceed that limit, you need to pay extra for storage each month.

Lightroom Classic CC is desktop based, meaning that your photos are stored locally, either on your computer hard drive, or as I recommend, on an external hard drive.

You get Lightroom Classic CC as part of the Photography Plan from Adobe, where you also get Lightroom CC (but only with 20GB of storage) and Photoshop for the same price, $9.99 per month.

This difference alone as to where you store your photos can be enough for many people to decide whether they want one or the other!

Some questions to ask yourself here:

Do you want to have your photos stored in the cloud or locally?
Are you happy to continue to pay for storage, and increase that storage capacity as time goes on?
Are you a high volume shooter? Will you run out of space quickly?
Do you need to have ALL your photos available online so you can access them anywhere?
Do you typically edit from different locations and on different devices?
Or do you typically edit in one location (even on different devices)?

What are the OTHER differences?

So although that’s the biggie, there are some other differences to consider too.

Although many of the editing tools are exactly the same, there are one or two differences, both in terms of availability and how they function, with LIghtroom Classic having more features such a virtual copies, snapshots, history, soft-proofing feature etc.

However, with Adobe constantly updating both programs, I don’t believe it’s worth it to go down to that level of detail, because on the whole, you will be able to edit effectively in either Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic.

So let’s just look at the BIGGER differences. With Lightroom Classic being the more rounded program, it has additional features that Lightroom CC does not, such as:

Print, Book, Slideshow & Web Modules

Lightroom Classic is a full end to end photo management system, which means it has other modules other than Library and Develop, such a Print, Web, Slideshow and Book.

That last one was a game changer for me - the ability to create photo books directly within Lightroom! Seriously would not be without it as it alone saves me oodles of time creating my family photo books.

You don’t get these in Lightroom CC, as it’s not intended to be a full end to end solution.

Collections & Smart Collections

I don’t always want my images to be viewed in the same way that they are stored, and that’s where Lightroom Classic Collections come in. SMART collections is amazing because they automatically add photos to different collections for you based on rules - again, love this feature of Lightroom Classic.

More Export Features & Options

Lightroom CC only gives you basic export features, and the ability to add a text watermark only.

Lightroom Classic CC gives you a full range of export option, save in multiple file types, add a graphic watermark or a text one, control the level of compression etc

Really Useful Plug Ins!

You can get plug ins for LIghtroom Classic for just about anything - uploading directly to galleries such as Pixieset or SmugMug, sharing directly to Flickr or Instagram, saving your photos to Amazon Prime drive, external specialist editors show focus points…. too many to list here, but you get the idea.

There’s no plug ins for Lightroom CC .

Again, when considering which one is for you, ask yourself some questions:

Do you want to be able to create photo books easily, and not have to download the photos from the cloud, and then upload to a photo book place?
Do you want to create slideshows, or collages?
Is it important to you to make sure that your images look the way you intended for print and online (that’s soft-proofing!)
Do you want the option to add a graphic watermark?
Do you want something that will help streamline your workflow?

Who is Lightroom CC made for? And who is Lightroom Classic made for?

This is a tricky one to answer, because sometimes people fall right there in the middle, but generally speaking…

Lightroom CC is for you if:

You are primarily a mobile photographer (not much DSLR photos)
On average you are a low volume shooter, more holidays and special occasions than daily
You want to be able to access all your photos, from anywhere in the world
You like to be able to edit in different locations, and primarily on your iPad or mobile device.
You don’t care about photo books, slideshows etc

Lightroom Classic is for you if:

You are primarily a DSLR shooter
You take a decent number of photos each year!
You primarily edit at home, either on a desktop, or between your desktop and laptop
You like the idea of being able to create photo books, slideshows, and collages all in one place
Need to get on top of your ever-expanding image collection, and get organised.
Getting correct colour in your photos is essential
Other features, such as renaming files, graphic watermarks etc are essential

If you tell Adobe that you are a hobbyist, they will swiftly tell you to use Lightroom CC, as they are promoting it hard (a more cynical person might say that’s do with the fact that once all your photos are up there in the cloud, you’re there for life!) but of course, there are different LEVELS of hobbyists, so think more carefully about what you want to be able to do now, or in the future.

You can also check out this blog post on why I love Lightroom even as a hobbyist.

But here’s the thing….you can use BOTH!

When you get the photography plan from Adobe, you get BOTH Lightroom Classic and LIghtroom CC (along with 20GB of storage) and can use them together! And it’s just $9.99 per month

In this set up Lightroom Classic is your MAIN program, but you can also sync photos to Lightroom CC for editing or sharing on the go, and vice versa.

It doesn’t have to be an either / or situation, but rather, get the best of both worlds!

And finally, Photoshop…

One final thing. On that Photography Plan, you’ll also get Photoshop included in your subscription.

You may not go on to use Photoshop daily, but let me tell you, it is a LIFESAVER in many situations.

So Lightroom Classic is where you will do the vast majority of your edits (because it’s quicker, and non-destructive) and then you’ll take your images into Photoshop for fine tuning.

(Want to know when you might want to use Photoshop? Check this out!)

In Conclusion….

I can’t tell you what to get, because only you know what your needs are, and how to edit to use the program.

However, since I hate wooly answers like that, I’m going to tell you what I recommend.

Get the Photography Plan from Adobe.

You’ll have absolutely everything you will ever need for $9.99 per month, which for all you get, is a total steal in my opinion.

Use Lightroom Classic as your main “hub”, taking images into Photoshop when you need that extra pixel editing capabilities or advanced editing, and sync some images to Lightroom CC when you want to edit or share on the go.

Done.

Already got Lightroom Classic and are ready to get started? Then make sure you download our FREE Lightroom Starter Kit! It’s got a little bit o’ everything to help you rock Lightroom from Day One - a guide to importing, a step by step editing checklist AND a exporting cheat sheet. And the best part is, it’s totally and utterly FREE. Grab it here.