Adobe Lightroom CC v4.1 Brings Native Apple M1 Support

[bradman83]

There's a fair amount of subscription-bashing here today, but I wanted to point out one major positive. During both the Classic to Mac OS X and PowerPC to Intel transition, most major software developers waited for the next major paid version to add compatibly for the new OS/architecture. With the software-as-a-service model there's less incentive for the developer waiting to release a compatible update. I suspect some developers who sell paid updates to their programs will still go that route.

(Obviously apps sold through the App Store which get lifetime updates for a flat fee like Affinity photo are a major exception here).

 

[J InTech82]

Lightroom CC was likely quite a wee bit quicker for Adobe than classic will be due to them already having CC on the iPad and iPhone and it is likely got way less legacy code crammed into it.

What I said over on 9to5Mac regarding Photoshop but applies to Lightroom classic versus CC:

I have a feeling Adobe is just going to be porting over the iPad version of Photoshop to the Mac, hence why the beta they have out now has "limited features." Talk about a lazy hack job from Adobe. It's crazy that people still rely on the bloatware that Adobe develops when there are much cheaper alternatives available, that currently completely support M1 Mac's.

 

[The Game 161]

That was quicker than I expected

 

[ruka.snow]

What I said over on 9to5Mac regarding Photoshop but applies to Lightroom classic versus CC:

I have a feeling Adobe is just going to be porting over the iPad version of Photoshop to the Mac, hence why the beta they have out now has "limited features." Talk about a lazy hack job from Adobe. It's crazy that people still rely on the bloatware that Adobe develops when there are much cheaper alternatives available, that currently completely support M1 Mac's.

Photoshop on the iPad is pretty quick, if they are porting the iPad version over and getting feature parity with the existing desktop version then we finally get a non bloated(by old code) Photoshop.

 

[warp9]

Adobe has repeatedly said they have no plans to drop LrC support, and they've been adding in the same new features as they've been putting in Lightroom CC, such as the new color grading tools. They know that would be a final straw that would push away a number of customers. Lightroom is a much newer program with a much more modern codebase and which already has established Apple silicon code in the form of its iPad counterpart so it was the easiest to update.

That would be great if they kept it but I have no faith.

Some other software that was suddenly discontinued:
- Softimage
- Final Cut Pro 7
- Aperture
- Phase One Media Pro
- PageMaker
- Picasa

I understand software gets old and eventually retired but I've been here before. When a developer says "no plans", that just means it hasn't been scheduled yet. I would like to think I can still use Lightroom Classic in 5 years but I doubt it.

 

[jerryk]

I have no problem paying for Adobe CC. I get a lot of programs for less than the yearly update to Photoshop used to be. My gripe is that I can only use that software on 2 computers at a time.

They need to be like Office 365. Pay the monthly and load it on every device you have.

 

[Chancha]

I have no problem paying for Adobe CC. I get a lot of programs for less than the yearly update to Photoshop used to be. My gripe is that I can only use that software on 2 computers at a time.

They need to be like Office 365. Pay the monthly and load it on every device you have.

Adobe actually does let you install CC and its apps on unlimited number of devices, and only limits the number of them havng apps launched to two concurrently. I have 4 machines rotating the “quotas” and deactivate one while I want to use it on another. The process takes like half a minute and require internet of course, and you can do this endlessly.

 

[warp9]

What I said over on 9to5Mac regarding Photoshop but applies to Lightroom classic versus CC:

I have a feeling Adobe is just going to be porting over the iPad version of Photoshop to the Mac, hence why the beta they have out now has "limited features." Talk about a lazy hack job from Adobe. It's crazy that people still rely on the bloatware that Adobe develops when there are much cheaper alternatives available, that currently completely support M1 Mac's.

Over the 30+ years I've been doing graphic work, I've seen countless graphic apps come and go. They all tout to be better than Adobe and then they just disappear. Throughout it all, Photoshop has always been there, making me money and making me employable. The annual cost of the CC full package is less than a few billing hours. Same with the computer it runs on. Cost is not even considered.

 

[macbookfan]

Ok, installed, compared to the pre-M1 version this can utilize all 8 cores when exporting RAW to JPG - but I actually find this worse than before, since when I let Lightroom export photos even the mouse cursor starts freezing and whole OS is unusable... before it took a bit longer but I could normally work since it could use only around 50% of cores if I remember correctly...
Memory usage is still heavy, Lightroom consuming ~12.5GB (which on my Mac Mini with 8GB RAM means swap ), but that is okay, memory should be used if it improves performance...

I bet the lag is caused by the swapping not the cpu

 

[macbookfan]

Over the 30+ years I've been doing graphic work, I've seen countless graphic apps come and go. They all tout to be better than Adobe and then they just disappear. Throughout it all, Photoshop has always been there, making me money and making me employable. The annual cost of the CC full package is less than a few billing hours. Same with the computer it runs on. Cost is not even considered.

I have not doubt it’s paid for itself. I do all my editing for clients with Pixelmator. Still making money here and Pixelmator is super fast. I never get lag like I used to with Photoshop or Lightroom. I just wish Pixelmator would make a photo organizer to go with the editor. Apple Photos is only ok not amazing.

 

[Steve686]

Hmm. There was a time when MacOS was not a free upgrade every major release.

 

[warp9]

I have not doubt it’s paid for itself. I do all my editing for clients with Pixelmator. Still making money here and Pixelmator is super fast. I never get lag like I used to with Photoshop or Lightroom. I just wish Pixelmator would make a photo organizer to go with the editor. Apple Photos is only ok not amazing.

I mostly work for studios where Adobe experience is a selling point. If I was doing freelance again, I might explore other options.

 

[Frank Philips]

That's nice, but I still miss Aperture.

 

[Frank Philips]

RawTherapee​

Or Darktable

 

[bradman83]

What I said over on 9to5Mac regarding Photoshop but applies to Lightroom classic versus CC:

I have a feeling Adobe is just going to be porting over the iPad version of Photoshop to the Mac, hence why the beta they have out now has "limited features." Talk about a lazy hack job from Adobe. It's crazy that people still rely on the bloatware that Adobe develops when there are much cheaper alternatives available, that currently completely support M1 Mac's.

It’s not really fair to call this a hack job. It’s not like they’re just giving us the iPad versions of the app and calling it a day. The big advantage of Apple silicon putting the Mac on the same CPU architecture as iPhones and iPads is that apps, even if there are separate versions designed for desktop and mobile, can share an underlying codebase. Affinity Photo is a good example of this. Photoshop for iPad uses the same core rendering engine and codebases as desktop Photoshop, so it’s smart for Adobe to share code between versions where it can. That’s exactly how Apple wants developers to approach the two platforms.

 

[thunng8]

What I said over on 9to5Mac regarding Photoshop but applies to Lightroom classic versus CC:

I have a feeling Adobe is just going to be porting over the iPad version of Photoshop to the Mac, hence why the beta they have out now has "limited features." Talk about a lazy hack job from Adobe. It's crazy that people still rely on the bloatware that Adobe develops when there are much cheaper alternatives available, that currently completely support M1 Mac's.

They are not.

photoshop for mac beta for Apple Silicon already has many more features than the iPad version. They are not porting over the iPad version, they are porting over the desktop version. Some features are not working yet, so are being worked on.

 

[henrikhelmers]

Adobe has repeatedly said they have no plans to drop LrC support, and they've been adding in the same new features as they've been putting in Lightroom CC, such as the new color grading tools. They know that would be a final straw that would push away a number of customers.

This is not entirely true. When Lightroom CC was released, it was not well received. And so eventually, Adobe restarted work on Lightroom Classic.

They probably learned that ending support for Lightroom Classic would have forced many of their users to change software, which would risk them looking at competitors.

Look at it from the point of Adobe; why would you want that old codebase (and UI written in Lua) around? Of course they'd like to axe it.

 

[kave]

And yet... my top paid for apps (Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, Affinity apps...) were all one-off purchases that get decent updates.

With Apple, pay once an then we will eof it, like Aperture. What I miss that app.
What we pobably do know is that the renting model gives us some form of stability in products. Apple introducing, ending product lines at any moment.

 

[Manzanito]

With Apple, pay once an then we will eof it, like Aperture. What I miss that app.
What we pobably do know is that the renting model gives us some form of stability in products. Apple introducing, ending product lines at any moment.

First of all, I fully agree with the sentiment regarding aperture. One of the reasons I’m staying in Mojave is to be able to run it.

As for the renting model, I think apple is simply unreliable. See what happened to xserve, color, shake or the disaster that was fcpx launch. But that’s just the way apple works, it’s not related to renting/buying software. Other companies like serif manage to sell and update their products without charging a monthly fee.