# Adobe Talks OS Support for Next Version of Lightroom



## Canon Rumors Guy (Jan 21, 2015)

```
<p class="entry-title"><strong>From Adobe:

</strong>We are hard at work on the next major release of Lightroom, and wanted to share some information on operating system requirements in order to give everyone time to prepare for the release.</p>
<p>In order to leverage the latest operating system features and technologies, Lightroom 6 will require Mac OS X 10.8 or above, or a 64 bit version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1. Focusing our work on more modern operating systems and architectures allows us to spend more time adding functionality requested by users, including additional advanced imaging features and improving general application performance.</p>
<p>If you are on Mac OS X 10.7, or a 32 bit version of Windows, you will continue to be able to install and run Lightroom 5 and use Lightroom mobile. However, you will not be able to install Lightroom 6 until you upgrade to a supported operating system.</p>
<p>If you are currently running Mac OS X 10.7, Apple offers a free upgrade (<a href="https://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/">here</a>) to a more current operating system. For Windows users, Microsoft has a how-to reference (<a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/find-out-32-or-64-bit">here</a>) to help you determine whether you are running a 32 or 64 bit version of Windows.</p>
<p>Source: [<a href="https://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2015/01/update-on-os-support-for-next-version-of-lightroom.html" target="_blank">Lightroom Journal</a>] via [<a href="http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=14326" target="_blank">TDP</a>]</p>
<p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">c</span>r</strong></p>
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## vscd (Jan 21, 2015)

Lightroom 6 is coming, I guess. Please support the Sigma Merrills! Pleeeease!


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## Jamesy (Jan 21, 2015)

I thought LR 5 introduced the requirement for a 64bit OS already, am I missing something here? I was running LR 4 on a work laptop on Windows XP and needed to buy a laptop with a newer OS to run LR 5 to support the raws from my 5D3.


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## R1-7D (Jan 22, 2015)

I just hope I can still purchase a full downloadable version; I don't want a cloud version


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## Click (Jan 22, 2015)

R1-7D said:


> I just hope I can still purchase a full downloadable version; I don't want a cloud version



Ditto.


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## fish_shooter (Jan 22, 2015)

R1-7D said:


> I just hope I can still purchase a full downloadable version; I don't want a cloud version



Roger That !!!!!!


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 22, 2015)

Windows 10 will be out later this year as a free upgrade to windows 7 and 8. Adobe needs to be working on support for that.


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## Sabaki (Jan 22, 2015)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Windows 10 will be out later this year as a free upgrade to windows 7 and 8. Adobe needs to be working on support for that.



A free update?! Sweet!!!

I dual boot my PC with 7 & 8.1....I'll keep 7 and update 8.1


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## Occams_Cat (Jan 22, 2015)

I've been using lightroom for several years and whilst it's a very useful and increasingly advanced application...it's as slow as molasses and needs GPU support urgently! When you're ploughing through a 20K image edit, every second counts and the rendering times are very laggy when applying filters and retouching, even on the most advanced systems.


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## Jan (Jan 22, 2015)

Finally something about LR6. Nice to hear that it will be coming and (as I read the post) it will not be cloud-only.


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## nicolas.det (Jan 22, 2015)

I am now using CaptureOne. It is a great software (better RAW, not as good catalog compared to lr but catching up)..

Also, I feeled really like an idiotic sheep by Adobe.

Regards



fish_shooter said:


> R1-7D said:
> 
> 
> > I just hope I can still purchase a full downloadable version; I don't want a cloud version
> ...


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## Stu_bert (Jan 22, 2015)

Jan said:


> Finally something about LR6. Nice to hear that it will be coming and (as I read the post) it will not be cloud-only.



+1. There must be some significant changes for the gestation to be this long, both under the hood and in terms of features. Fingers X that the SDK finally allows developers to do more than import/export. Either that or all the dev's were tied up with the mobile versions which non-cloud users cant experience :-[

We've not even had a beta, and I would be very surprised if we did not have a 3 month iterative release cycle, and thus a final release in May/June.


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## Joey (Jan 22, 2015)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Windows 10 will be out later this year as a free upgrade to windows 7 and 8. Adobe needs to be working on support for that.


Well that'll be a first then...


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## Marsu42 (Jan 22, 2015)

Joey said:


> Mt Spokane Photography said:
> 
> 
> > Windows 10 will be out later this year as a free upgrade to windows 7 and 8. Adobe needs to be working on support for that.
> ...



No problem there - Win10 is Win8 is Win7 is WinVista. They all use the same code base, they did the big jump in driver design and security with Vista - which is one reason it was so unpopular at the time. Essentially, Win10 is Vista SP6 minus the Aero design plus "Metro" touch interface.

Of course Microsoft is happy to grab money again for Win10 re-certification, but it will be their *last* operating system: All subsequent improvements most likely are delivered as a rolling release, Adobe-CC like subscription, here we come.


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## LDS (Jan 22, 2015)

Jamesy said:


> I thought LR 5 introduced the requirement for a 64bit OS already, am I missing something here? I was running LR 4 on a work laptop on Windows XP and needed to buy a laptop with a newer OS to run LR 5 to support the raws from my 5D3.



LR5 runs on 32 bit OS but no longer runs on XP. Hope you got a 64 bit OS


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## LDS (Jan 22, 2015)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Windows 10 will be out later this year as a free upgrade to windows 7 and 8. Adobe needs to be working on support for that.


Guess they are working on it, but until Windows 10 is not officially released, LR can't support it officially. AFAIK LR6 will be released before Window 10, thereby it can't support it.

No software vendor I know supports an OS which is still in beta, and not officially released and supported by its vender - and where changes can still be introduced. It's like asking to support the 5D4...


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## iKenndac (Jan 22, 2015)

Occams_Cat said:


> I've been using lightroom for several years and whilst it's a very useful and increasingly advanced application...it's as slow as molasses and needs GPU support urgently! When you're ploughing through a 20K image edit, every second counts and the rendering times are very laggy when applying filters and retouching, even on the most advanced systems.



If LR6 is nothing but LR5 optimised for performance and GPU rendering I will be _so_ happy.


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## jeffa4444 (Jan 22, 2015)

I have Photoshop CC / LR5 subscription model (I had LR5 but wanted the mobile version which you only get through subscription). 
I find LR clunky and many features overly complicated and not very intuitive, Photoshop is slightly better but frankly I found Aperure to be far far easier to use. Apple have something coming in 2015 to replace Aperture and iPhoto although they have been a. rubbish over the annoucement about retiring Aperture and b. rubbish at oulining what exactly the new photo application will be. For that reason I moved to Adobe but the move for me has been a nightmare and frankly I dont like Adobe. 

I will wait to see what Apple do but Im seriously considering going to Capture One Pro its simplier and does what I want without being forced down the subscription route the US software companies are moving too.


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## AcutancePhotography (Jan 22, 2015)

Click said:


> R1-7D said:
> 
> 
> > I just hope I can still purchase a full downloadable version; I don't want a cloud version
> ...



I ditto your ditto and raise you a "me too".


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## JonAustin (Jan 22, 2015)

Marsu42 said:


> Joey said:
> 
> 
> > Mt Spokane Photography said:
> ...



Exactly. The good news is that Win10 will be free to install over most instances of Win7 and Win8.x during its first year of availability. The real news is that it's not really an upgrade, just a change in the user interface. That's not an upgrade, unless you consider changing from a blue shirt to a green shirt to be a wardrobe upgrade.

The new phone & gaming integration and new web browser could have just as easily been released as service packs.

The truth is that Win8.x was worse than a resounding flop, it actually made it harder for many upgraders to use their PCs. Witness all the "how do I get Win8 to look and work like Win7?" posts. With Win10, MS is simply trying to save face while recovering from / atoning for that debacle. I doubt that much "retooling" of LR6 would be required (or even of any value), once Win10 is released.

Happy Win7 x64 user here, with no plans to upgrade to Win10 anything.


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## LDS (Jan 22, 2015)

JonAustin said:


> Exactly.



Wrong. Windows 10 will have new features and improvements as well over the previous OS. Win 8 has features 7 has not, i.e. SMB3, native USB 3.0 support - 7 needs third party drivers -, per monitor High-DPI support, NVMe, Advanced Format HD, and others. 8 also has a different memory manager designed to use less memory.

In 10, expect more native support for the latest hardware standards, more security features, and it will come with the Windows 2012 hypervisor (and probably it will be able to use it to run "sanboxed" applications).

Never judge an OS from the UI changes only. Everything can be released as a "service pack" - even Adobe has no need to release LR6 - it could add the same new features with an update.

From a technical point of view you can always update the previous software in some way. If it makes sense for your commercial business is another thing...


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## DFM (Jan 22, 2015)

JonAustin said:


> The real news is that it's not really an upgrade, just a change in the user interface.



Windows 10 has a completely new kernel (Microsoft OneCore, NT10.0) - it is _not_ a UI refresh on the NT6.4 kernel used in Windows 8.1.

Adobe products are certified to run on the latest operating system version on each supported platform _as available to retail customers at the time the software is launched_, plus a selection of legacy OS candidates that happen to have the features necessary. There will be no claim of compatibility for an OS in Technical Preview, as the vendor will not permit certification.


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## AvTvM (Jan 22, 2015)

@DFM: thanks for the information. As you are posting here, would you possibly also have some information as to whether LR 6 will be offered also as one-time purchase license - or only as cloud service (CC)? 

The question is of significant importance to me. I do like LR a lot, but will not move to a cloud-based rental scheme. If LR 6 comes as CC version only, I will either revert back to Canon DPP or migrate to Capture One.

I also have a license for PS CS5 but don't like the UI at all, so I am not using it and am also not interested in the LR/PS combo offer on CC.


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## privatebydesign (Jan 22, 2015)

AvTvM said:


> @DFM: thanks for the information. As you are posting here, would you also have some information as to whetehr LR 6 will be offered also as one-time purchase license - or only as cloud service (CC)?
> 
> The question is of significant importance to me. I do like LR a lot, but will not move to a cloud-based rental scheme. If LR 6 comes as CC version only, I will either revert back to Canon DPP or migrate to Capture One.
> 
> I also have a license for PS CS5 but don't like the UI at all, so I am not using it and am also not interested in the LR/PS combo offer on CC.



I well understand people not wanting to subscribe to CC, but to call the model _"a cloud-based rental scheme"_ is laughably inaccurate, and is, I suspect, part of the resistance to it. 

The software is neither cloud based nor a rental scheme. If it had been sold to the photography community as a stand alone downloaded program (which it is), and a subscription payment service (which it is) instead of a pay for it all upfront once and upgrade when you get a new multi thousand dollar camera.

Adobe have stated several times their intention to maintain LR as a stand alone product.

Improvements I would like/need in LR are mostly file based, for instance, why in gods name can't LR read .psb files? That is a stupid oversight, I don't want LR to replace Bridge for all graphics work, but basic image files created by PS should be readable by their premium image cataloging software. I'd also like the ability to edit grad filters, why can't we just have an erase brush to rub the grad filter off certain areas of the image?


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## DFM (Jan 22, 2015)

Although it's included in CC, Lightroom is one of the "retail" products (along with the Elements apps) and those have always been available with perpetual licenses. Adobe have not said that will change, but I cannot give you a categorical statement beyond what's on the LR blog. The cloud-based features (Lightroom Mobile and the web portal) do require users to run a subscription version of the desktop application, so for some people who need the LRm tools the existence of a perpetual license in LR5 is somewhat moot - but someone's got to pay for the millions of DNGs passing across Adobe's servers.


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## Lee Jay (Jan 22, 2015)

AcutancePhotography said:


> Click said:
> 
> 
> > R1-7D said:
> ...



I doubt that'll be a problem.


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## AcutancePhotography (Jan 22, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> Adobe have stated several times their intention to maintain LR as a stand alone product.



That is good news. I hope Adobe sticks with it. Give their customers the choice.


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## StudentOfLight (Jan 22, 2015)

jeffa4444 said:


> I have Photoshop CC / LR5 subscription model (I had LR5 but wanted the mobile version which you only get through subscription).
> I find LR clunky and many features overly complicated and not very intuitive, Photoshop is slightly better but frankly I found Aperure to be far far easier to use. Apple have something coming in 2015 to replace Aperture and iPhoto although they have been a. rubbish over the annoucement about retiring Aperture and b. rubbish at oulining what exactly the new photo application will be. For that reason I moved to Adobe but the move for me has been a nightmare and frankly I dont like Adobe.
> 
> I will wait to see what Apple do but Im seriously considering going to Capture One Pro its simplier and does what I want without being forced down the subscription route the US software companies are moving too.


I grew up using GIMP and used RawTherapee for a while when I first started shooting RAW. Eventually I bought Lightroom a couple years back due to RAW workflow. I find the LR interface quite intuitive and only occasionally have some slowdown. 

I also got Photoshop but have been don't like the PS interface. I struggle to "see" the icons which drastically slows down my learning. Also the fact that I can get most of my edits done in LR or GIMP leaves little motivation for me to learn PS despite it's powerful editing options.

Different stokes for different folks I guess.


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## Lee Jay (Jan 22, 2015)

jeffa4444 said:


> I have Photoshop CC / LR5 subscription model (I had LR5 but wanted the mobile version which you only get through subscription).
> I find LR clunky and many features overly complicated and not very intuitive, Photoshop is slightly better but frankly I found Aperure to be far far easier to use. Apple have something coming in 2015 to replace Aperture and iPhoto although they have been a. rubbish over the annoucement about retiring Aperture and b. rubbish at oulining what exactly the new photo application will be. For that reason I moved to Adobe but the move for me has been a nightmare and frankly I dont like Adobe.
> 
> I will wait to see what Apple do but Im seriously considering going to Capture One Pro its simplier and does what I want without being forced down the subscription route the US software companies are moving too.



I'm not fond of the LR interface, but PS, frankly, has the worst user interface of any piece of software I've ever used in 33 years of computing. I've only used the C1 trial, mostly because the user interface was so much worse than LR's.


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## JonAustin (Jan 22, 2015)

DFM said:


> JonAustin said:
> 
> 
> > The real news is that it's not really an upgrade, just a change in the user interface.
> ...



The purpose of the "completely new kernel" is simply to unify Windows PC, Windows Phone and Windows Embedded product families around a common internal core. Just because it's "new" doesn't mean it's improved. Adding code components to support additional product families doesn't inspire hope that it will run better / faster / more efficiently.


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## sgs8r (Jan 22, 2015)

Occams_Cat said:


> I've been using lightroom for several years and whilst it's a very useful and increasingly advanced application...it's as slow as molasses and needs GPU support urgently! When you're ploughing through a 20K image edit, every second counts and the rendering times are very laggy when applying filters and retouching, even on the most advanced systems.



+5

I finally broke down and bought Photo Mechanic (PM) because of this issue. I now use PM for the first stages of reviewing and grading my images and it has been a huge productivity boost. I can move through images as fast as I can scroll the wheel on my mouse.

(BTW, I run a Win 7 x64 machine with quad core i7 cpu overclocked to 3 GHz, 24 GB RAM, LR catalog on a Samsung SSD and images on Raptor drives. LR is still very sluggish.)


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## davidcl0nel (Jan 22, 2015)

I don't need much additional features, its quite good. The gap from LR4 to LR5 wasn't big either. And i didn't buy it, because I got it "for free" from Canon for my 5D3.
I would only consider to buy LR6, if
- its standalone, I will never ever use a cloud based service for my workflow, i don't want to upload something anywhere...
- its significantly faster. My catalog and the photo import folder is already on a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. Ok my CPU isn't the best anymore, but it should be at least 100% faster... especially the spot removal tool. If you have 5 of them in the picture, its much slower than before... and then add another 5...
- i could use the second monitor better. The current way of use a second monitor isn't very good, i.e. compare images, see a zoom range while edit on the one and the full image live on the other etc....
- 64bit only is quite ok, its a while, since I use such an OS (7) the first time... about 5 years i think. And this is good, I hate the double download package with 1 GB every update, and I throw away the half download of it anyway! I know what 64 or 32bit is, why can't i load only the 64bit version now...


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## privatebydesign (Jan 22, 2015)

davidcl0nel said:


> I don't need much additional features, its quite good. The gap from LR4 to LR5 wasn't big either. And i didn't buy it, because I got it "for free" from Canon for my 5D3.
> I would only consider to buy LR6, if
> - its standalone, I will never ever use a cloud based service for my workflow, i don't want to upload something anywhere...
> - its significantly faster. My catalog and the photo import folder is already on a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. Ok my CPU isn't the best anymore, but it should be at least 100% faster... especially the spot removal tool. If you have 5 of them in the picture, its much slower than before... and then add another 5...
> ...



And nobody will ever accuse you of getting your facts straight before posting knee jerk rubbish.

LR, and PS for that matter, are NOT cloud based services, the application and all image files, catalogs, libraries etc etc are on your computer and you do not need an internet connection for it to work, well it needs to be connected once every 90 days to verify the license, and all Adobe products have had 'phone home' checks running for years. You never have to upload anything anywhere to run the CC version of LR other than an anonymous user name and password, just the same as you do to post here.


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## davidcl0nel (Jan 22, 2015)

privatebydesign said:


> other than an anonymous user name and password, just the same as you do to post here.



Yeah right, anonymous.
I got plenty of spam since one year to my adobe-only-mail-address. I don't trust them one little bit anymore.

And you have to upload images, if you use the IOS/Android part of the cloud service. You don't have to do that, right - but so I can't use this tablet feature... And the upload isnt needed really either (sync the smartpreviews by USB?!), so who knows, if they will add some more restraints to the normal workflow either, "because its necessary"?
Again: I don't trust them.


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## Lee Jay (Jan 22, 2015)

davidcl0nel said:


> And you have to upload images, if you use the IOS/Android part of the cloud service. You don't have to do that, right - but so I can't use this tablet feature... And the upload isnt needed really either (sync the smartpreviews by USB?!), so who knows, if they will add some more restraints to the normal workflow either, "because its necessary"?
> Again: I don't trust them.



There are other ways spammers get your email than some company selling it. And if you don't like LRMobile, don't use it! I don't. The cloud upload is too slow to be useful.


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## RLPhoto (Jan 22, 2015)

Still Running LR4 ... maybe i'll get LR6 if 5D4 is worth the monies.


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## LDS (Jan 22, 2015)

JonAustin said:


> The purpose of the "completely new kernel" is simply to unify Windows PC, Windows Phone and Windows Embedded product families around a common internal core.



This is one of the aims, but not the only one. Remember kernels are also shared with the server version...
This unification had already started with Windows 8 (phones, xbox and PC share the kernel), but was not yet complete.



JonAustin said:


> Just because it's "new" doesn't mean it's improved. Adding code components to support additional product families doesn't inspire hope that it will run better / faster / more efficiently.



Nor it doesn't imply it is not. "New" means also some old legacy code can be removed, and more modern implementation adopted. Every release, even those that were not successful, had interesting new kernel features (if you want to know them, read the "Windows Internals" books)


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## LDS (Jan 22, 2015)

sgs8r said:


> LR is still very sluggish.


What are your preview settings?


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## Neutral (Jan 23, 2015)

Interesting how long we will be waiting until Adobe will start using GPU acceleration in LR (including RAW processing not only Open GL for smother rendering ) to improve performance especially NVIDIA CUDA processing

This is possible and there are some implementations providing extremely fast processing: 

http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=24728.0


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## LDS (Jan 23, 2015)

Neutral said:


> Interesting how long we will be waiting until Adobe will start using GPU acceleration in LR



One of the reason is that a good slice of LR is written in LUA - a "scripting" language that makes more difficult to use the CUDA (or any other GPU accelerated) libraries, which are mostly designed to be used by sofware written using the C/C++ language. That's why it was simpler to use GPU acceleration in Photoshop than Lightroom. Guess Adobe needs to re-write some of the code to really take advantage of GPU power in LR - just it needs to have a business sense for them, and don't eat into more renumerative PS sales too much.
IMHO LR became a more pro app than it was in the beginning, and needs tu fulfill pro needs PS can't because of the different workflow, but PS is still the "flagship" Adobe app.
I would also like to see an LR that can work with a central repository and database, so more than one station can access the same catalog at the same time without issue...


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## sgs8r (Jan 23, 2015)

LDS said:


> sgs8r said:
> 
> 
> > LR is still very sluggish.
> ...



I used to have 1-1 previews created as part of the import process (I would let the import complete before doing further processing). Now with PM, I make 2 passes (adding first 1 star, then a second star), then import to LR with minimal previews and then generate 1-1s for only the 2-star images. I typically leave lens corrections and detail (noise and sharpening) till towards the end and do any extensive healing/cloning in Photoshop. 

I have a dual monitor setup, usually with the grid or develop view on one and fit or 1-1 on the other. With 1-1 on the second display (e.g. to compare similar images for sharpness), moving from image to image, it can take several seconds for the "Loading..." message to disappear. This makes reviewing hundreds (or thousands) of images a grueling forced march.


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## PeterP (Jan 24, 2015)

I just hope they stopped using sqlite as the database manager for Lightroom.

That has prevented the use of a central network drive based lightroom catalog that you could be accessed from any machine in your local network.
Which has been a really big flaw if you have multiple people who are all trying to work on a large image bank.

NB: Coming out with a native Linux version would be a bonus, but not holding breath for that one.


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## Lee Jay (Jan 24, 2015)

PeterP said:


> I just hope they stopped using sqlite as the database manager for Lightroom.
> 
> That has prevented the use of a central network drive based lightroom catalog that you could be accessed from any machine in your local network.
> Which has been a really big flaw if you have multiple people who are all trying to work on a large image bank.
> ...



Since SQLite is the basis of the entire LR catalog system, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one either.


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## Al99 (Jan 24, 2015)

Jan said:


> Finally something about LR6. Nice to hear that it will be coming and (as I read the post) it will not be cloud-only.


Why do you think that? 

I also hope that there will be a version without CC Membership, because PSE an Lightroom is enough for me! Photography is just a hobby!
So keep your fingers crossed! 

Al


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## Marsu42 (Jan 24, 2015)

Lee Jay said:


> PeterP said:
> 
> 
> > I just hope they stopped using sqlite as the database manager for Lightroom.
> ...



I've got some experiences with dbms, and for a single-file based db sqlite is blazingly fast though it lacks some fancy stuff of the bigger enterprise systems. 

If Adobe want to speed up LR on that end, they have to exchange the whole backend into a no-sql custom solution. But I'm not sure if this would gain a lot, reading/writing a 1gb+ db is a bottleneck on its own.


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