The Calibration Panel - I use the calibration panel in Lightroom Classic on 99.9% of my edits it's a great way to make an impact with one or two sliders and it doesn't exist in any way, shape, or form in Lightroom CloudĬolor Labels - Color coding my edits is an integral part of my editing and organization workflow: Red tells me I've started an edit but it's still in early stages Yellow indicates I've reached a 'final draft' state, with Sharpening and Noise Reduction applied, and I'm just letting it percolate for a bit to see if I want to tweak anything before sharing or making available as a print on my site Green indicates a finished image that's been shared on social media and is a candidate for my print store, blue and purple help me group images that need to be combined in Photoshop for one reason or another. Import Options - With 'new' Lightroom, the main schtick is that you're adding your images to the Adobe Creative Cloud and it seems that may be the justification for Adobe leaving out many of the robust importing options that are available in Classic, such as moving or copying files from your source storage (SD card, drive, etc.) to a specific location (or two), creating Develop presets to be applied at import, managing metadata at import, applying keywords at import, adding images to existing (or new) collections at import. Range Masking - I could, in one way or another, more or less workaround the previous missing features within Lightroom Cloud, although for some it would be pretty cumbersome to do so, but range masking is one feature of Lightroom Classic that I use on basically every single one of my images and it simply does not exist in Lightroom Cloud this is a total deal-breaker for me History Panel - One of the core characteristics of either version of Lightroom is that your editing is entirely non-destructive, meaning you can always undo what you've done and your original file is never altered because of this, it is extremely easy to jump back to a previous state of your edit via the History panel in Lightroom Classic which, for some inconceivable reason, is not included in Lightroom Cloud you can undo changes but you can't immediately jump back, say, 20 steps in your history if you're not happy with your changes Printing Tools - If you plan to do any printing of your own, or want more control of your images when sending them to a third-party for printing, Classic is the way to go as it has not only Soft Proofing - where you can select paper and ink parameters to visualize how a printed version will look so you can tweak settings specifically for printing, without impacting your primary edit - but also an entire Print module where you can control margins, layout, resolution, create proof sheets, and more you get none of that with Lightroom Cloud Lightroom Cloud is far more limited in its options for exporting as you can in Lightroom Classic (I use the layers option, for instance, to open multiple frames I captured for focus stacking or more advanced exposure blending)Įxport Options - Lightroom Classic lets you export images as PNG or PSD files, has a robust arsenal of ways you can rename files upon export, allows you to set a file size limit and control the pixels-per-inch, and provides the ability to create export presets that you can use to meet your various needs (print, web, social media, or whatever else you may need on a regular basis).

in Lightroom Classic, you can create slider and color presets for your local adjustments (Graduated and Radial filters, and the Brush adjustment) so you can replicate a certain look/edit quickly and easily, which is key for me when applying, for instance, my Orton Effect adjustments in Classic you guessed it, Lightroom Cloud doesn't let you create local adjustment presetsĮdit in Photoshop Options - With Lightroom Cloud, you can right-click on an image and choose to open it in Photoshop - and bring the new file back into Lightroom - but you cannot select multiple images to open as layers in Photoshop, nor can you open an image as a Smart Object in Photoshop. Local Adjustment Presets - I actually just stumbled across this one as I was preparing notes for the video and this article.

Adobe lightroom cc vs classic