Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, usually called Lightroom, is an image organization and processing application developed by Adobe. It is licensed as a standalone subscription or as part of Creative Cloud. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and tvOS (Apple TV). Its primary uses include importing, saving, viewing, organizing, tagging, editing, and sharing large numbers of digital images. Lightroom's editing functions include white balance, tone curve, HSL, color grading, detail, lens corrections, and calibration manipulation, as well as transformation, spot removal, red eye correction, graduated filters, radial filters, and adjustment brushing. The name Lightroom is a play on the darkrooms used for processing film.
Lightroom is offered in two versions. The first version, known as Lightroom Classic, stores files locally and has the most extensive set of features. The second version, known simply as Lightroom and formerly known as Lightroom CC, stores all uploaded photos and edits on Adobe's cloud servers and permits syncing between desktop and mobile.[6][7] Both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic are non-destructive editing software that save edits as parametric instructions, separate from the original image.[8] This allows the user to make changes to the image without any loss in quality and without modifying the original files,[9] in contrast to raster graphics editors such as Photoshop, which save edits directly to the image.[10] When images are exported, a copy of the image with the adjustments is created.[11] Both versions allow for keywords, IPTC, XMP, and geolocation metadata to be added to images.[12] Images can be filtered based on metadata, and organized into user-defined collections and albums.[13] Lightroom and Lightroom Classic are compatible with TIFF, JPEG, PSD (Photoshop), PNG, CMYK (edited in RGB color space), raw image formats,[14] and some video file formats.[15]
Lightroom Classic contains features not present in the cloud-based version of Lightroom, such as virtual copies,[20] creating books[21] and slideshows,[22] proofing photos for print,[23] and creating HTML5 web galleries.[24][25] Likewise, while both versions of Lightroom support basic video trimming,[26] the cloud-based version of Lightroom allows for exposure adjustments, white balance, color grading, tone curve, and vignetting in video.[27]
History
In 1999, veteran Photoshop developer Mark Hamburg began a new project, code-named Shadowland, a reference to the 1988 kd lang music album of same name.[28] Hamburg contacted Andrei Herasimchuk, former interface designer for the Adobe Creative Suite, to start the project.[29] It was an intentional departure from many of Adobe's established conventions. Forty percent of Photoshop Lightroom is written in the scripting language Lua. In 2002, Hamburg left the Photoshop project and in fall of the same year he sent a first experimental software sample, name PixelToy, to his former teammate Jeff Schewe for review; in 2003, Hamburg presented Schewe a first version of Shadowland in a very early UI version.[28] After research by Hamburg, Herasimchuk, Sandy Alves (the former interface designer on the Photoshop team), and Grace Kim (a product researcher at Adobe), the Shadowland project accelerated around 2004. Herasimchuk chose to leave Adobe Systems at that time to start a Silicon Valley design company. Hamburg then chose Phil Clevenger, a former associate of Kai Krause, to design a new look for the application.[29]
Lightroom's developers work mostly in Minnesota, comprising the team that had already created the program Adobe ImageReady. Troy Gaul, Melissa Gaul, and the rest of their crew (reportedly known as the "Minnesota Phats"[30]), with Hamburg, developed the architecture behind the application. George Jardine was the product manager.[29]
Beta development
On January 9, 2006, an early version of Lightroom was released to the public as a Macintosh-only public beta, on the Adobe Labs website. This was the first Adobe product released to the general public for feedback during its development. This method was later used in developing Adobe Photoshop CS3.
On June 26, 2006, Adobe announced that it had acquired the technology of Pixmantec, developers of the Rawshooter image processing software.[31]
On January 29, 2007, Adobe announced that Lightroom would ship on February 19, 2007, priced at $299 US, £199 UK.
Further beta releases followed. Notable releases included Beta 3 on July 18, 2006, which added support for Microsoft Windows systems. On September 25, 2006, Beta 4 was released, which saw the program merged into the Photoshop product range, followed by a minor update on October 19, which was released as Beta 4.1.
Creative Cloud
On April 8, 2014, Adobe released a mobile version of Lightroom for iPad, available with a Creative Cloud subscription.[32] An Android version was released on January 15, 2015.[33] Photos and edits are saved to the cloud and synced between devices.
On October 18, 2017, Adobe released Lightroom CC as the desktop counterpart to Lightroom for mobile; the older version of Lightroom was subsequently renamed to Lightroom Classic CC. Lightroom CC is a separate application and can be installed alongside Lightroom Classic CC. Lightroom CC can be synced with Lightroom for mobile, with photos and edits available between desktops and mobile devices.[34] Lightroom 6 was the last version of Lightroom that could be obtained with a perpetual license, and received its last update on December 19, 2017. All subsequent versions of Lightroom are only available through an ongoing Creative Cloud subscription.[35] If the subscription is cancelled, Lightroom CC will retain user data for one year, while Lightroom Classic CC can continue to be used indefinitely to organize and export, but not develop, images.[36]
In 2019, Lightroom Classic CC was renamed to Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom CC was renamed to simply Lightroom.[37]
Apple TV
On July 26, 2016, Adobe launched Lightroom on Apple TV, a means of displaying photographs on a large screen using Apple's network appliance and entertainment device.[38]
Samsung Galaxy
In 2023, Adobe announced that the Expert RAW app/function on the Samsung Galaxy S23 series will integrate Adobe Lightroom.[39][40]
Talk given by Troy Gaul, Adobe's lead Lightroom programmer in 2009 at the C4 conference, covering Lightroom's history, code and architecture up to version 2.0
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