Adobe Subscription Changes

Just an FYI—Adobe has re-aligned their subscription packages, and it may be in your favour.

Up until yesterday, I was paying CAD $25.99/month for Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. To me, this isn’t a great use of my resources as I almost never use Photoshop and almost never for photographs, mostly for creating graphics. The problem was, to get both Lightroom CC and Classic, you needed the $25.99/month place, which included Photoshop.

The only time I need a Photoshop-like product for a photographs is when merging images for HDR, focus stacking or panoramic and only when working on iPad (as Lr for iPad does not!!), so it’s not too common. When travelling with iPad and I want to Merge, I’ve begun using Serif Affinity Photo. Works perfectly!

Over the past year or so, I’ve been transitioning to using Serif Affinity products. Originally, I purchased Affinity Publisher to create the large ‘Birds of the Rideau’ poster. But buying their three products together was such a bargain that I purchased Photo and Designer as well.

So, there I am, paying $10/month for Photoshop and hardly using it.

Back in December, I picked up on a mention of Adobe re-aligning plans and it seems to have worked out in my favour. Up to now, if you wanted Lightroom Classic (which is still my legacy photo editor), you were required to subscribe to the higher-priced monthly plan that included Photoshop.

Now, at CAD $15.99/month, we get Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic. Hooray!! And it still comes with 1TB of online storage. I like working on iPad, so having files available online is very convenient. Surprise, surprise, it also comes with the mobile version of Photoshop, certainly not equal to the laptop/desktop version, but it’s there if I need it.

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UPDATE – 23 Jan ‘25: I just switched from 15.99/mo monthly payment to an annual payment of $155.88, which is $12.99/month. Easy peasy and was done using the virtual assistant.
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The switchover was as easy as going to Adobe.com, signing in have a look around. It seems everytime I go back to the Adobe site, the layout has changed. Look for ‘Plans and Proiducts’ and/or ‘Change your plan’.

While my recent files (last 18 months or so) are in the Adobe cloud, my legacy files are all backed up on a hard drive. I’m gradually moving the more used files into the cloud. Having files available anytime, anywhere, without having to cart a hard drive along is certainly convenient.

With all my recent raw files in the cloud, I can work on iPad or laptop anywhere I have a connection. And, if no connection exists, I keep working on Smart Previews and everything gets updated when I next connect.

So, have a look at what plan you’re using. Do you have Photoshop? If you make good use of it, great. But if you’re paying for it, like I did, to get the 1TB Lr CC + Lr Classic plan, have a re-think. You may end up saving yourself $10/month with the new re-aligned plans.

Every little bit helps!