Help Me Understand Where I'm Working Now...

[RichardMillward]

I'm trying to find documentation/resources for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which I have as a service from Adobe with 1TB of storage... I do not have Photoshop, I just have Lightroom. The software on my machine references "version 4.3," but I'm utterly confused about whether that's Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic, or Lightroom (online) - all of which I see mentioned on the web - or if it's yet some other version specific to the service I've licensed.

I'd very grateful if someone could explain what all the different product names are for, and identify the one for which I should be attempting to identify training resources... Thanks in advance!

[JP Hess]

You have been caught in the trap of being confused by the Adobe naming convention. First of all there is no Lightroom "CC" anymore. That designation has been done away with. And the problem is that many of the tutorials, even on Adobe websites still identify the program as such. NOW there is Lightroom Classic and there is Lightroom. Lightroom Classic is what I call the "traditional" Lightroom that has been around for more than a decade, uses a local catalog, stores images locally on your hard drive, and with the newer versions allows you to share collections with the cloud. Lightroom, version 4.3, is the cloud version that stores your images in the cloud. The 1 TB of storage that you referred to is the amount of cloud storage you have to store your images in the cloud. When you look for documentation/resources/tutorials you need to carefully select what you watch because the titles of those resources may not clearly define which version they are referring to.

[RichardMillward]

Thanks for the info, Jim. I think I understand now what I've gotten myself into!

[Jim Wilde]

You are subscribed to the "Lightroom ecosystem" which is a set of apps which run on various devices, all of them able to sync with each other via a central cloud-based hub, where all your images would be stored.

There's an app which runs on MacOS or Windows10 computers, now called Lightroom Desktop, though in the past it was known as Lightroom CC which caused (and still causes) endless confusion as the app which is now called Lightroom Classic (available under a different subscription plan) used to be called LR CC for a short while, before that it was simply called Lightroom. So for your plan, stick with calling the desktop app Lightroom Desktop and that should be fine. Other apps in your "ecosystem" include various versions of the Lightroom Mobile app which runs on most smartphones and tablets...so there are versions for iOS, iPadOS, Android, and even a version for Apple TV. Finally there's an app which is browser-based, known as LrWeb.

In the main, all these apps in your plan have a common look and feel, though there are obviously differences due to the underlying differences in the operating systems that they run on. In terms of online documentation, most of the video tutorials on the web are based on Lightroom Classic, as that has been in existence for many years longer than the Lightroom ecosystem. However, there are some books available which are dedicated solely to the Lightroom ecosystem, such as the "Edit like a Pro" book written by Victoria Bampton, AKA the Lightroom Queen. I can certainly recommend that.

The question which others might have for you is whether you have chosen the correct plan. Did you decide from the outset that you wanted the cloud-based Lightroom, rather than the local storage based Lightroom Classic? As mentioned, the latter has been around a lot longer than the cloud-based system, thus currently has more features. Some of them may be of no interest, but you might want to look at the options before you commit one way or the other. Have a read of this article, also from Victoria, which might help you figure out which plan you really need: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-cc-vs-classic-features/