I could use some help understanding the Adobe Lightroom products. I've read articles about how Lightroom has evolved into the 2 current forms: Lightroom Classic and Lightroom. Classic being basically the non-cloud version where the user keeps all of their images on a local drive and Lightroom which provides cloud storage, so the user can edit photos on different devices: computer, phone, tablets, etc.
My confusion is when you go to the Adobe website Lightroom Classic is advertised as part of the Creative Cloud Photography plan. Once you start down the rabbit hole of the 7-day trial or buying it gets confusing as to whether you are getting the product Lightroom Classic without automatic cloud syncing. See the attached snippet. As you can see the trial or buying site says you get both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom. As I don't want any cloud service is this the correct product even though it includes 20GB of cloud space? Or does "Lightroom" now let you turn off syncing making the whole question/difference moot? I've read about people choosing the wrong product and not being able to turn off syncing.
I've looked through the Adobe FAQs and Help pages, but they don't offer much help. Thanks in advance for any advice you might provide.
Nice hey when companies create these incomprehensible jungles :)
Although I still use the old subscription-less Lightroom 6 (hehe, jokes on you Adobe) once in a while, I did have a subscription for a brief period. As far as I knew at that time, Lightroom Classic on Desktop is the 'normal' Lightroom where you have your photos on your computer and a catalog file. Of course Adobe really wants you to sync all your files to their cloud, but you could turn that feature off (I never used it). That said, this has been a few ago, but I think you can still choose not to use the cloud sync feature.
The Adobe Photography plan includes Lightroom for mobile, Lightroom classic for desktop use, Photoshop, camera raw, Bridge, and more, plus a certain amount of free cloud storage. You can sync if you want up to the cloud limit. All for $9.99 plus tax.
Yeah, that's the right plan @photofan. Adobe bundles the cloud version of Lightroom with the package, and it's non-removable, even though many of us never bother to download it at all.
If you want to keep your files locally and not share them with the cloud, I suggest you choose the Creative Cloud Photography plan and use Lightroom Classic. If you need to, you can turn off cloud sharing for specific pictures or groups of photos.