Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom is a photo catalog and raw editing app that organizes large libraries and develops images non-destructively. It is used to cull, edit, mask and export shoots, with cloud sync across desktop and mobile.
#33 in Image & Design ToolsPhoto EditorsNo free plan
Who it's for
Best for
Photographers who batch-edit and catalog large raw shoots across devices
Hobby photographers who want strong AI masking and denoise without deep study
Not for
Photographers on Linux who will not keep a Windows machine just for editing
Hobbyists on a tight budget who want a one-off licence, not a recurring fee
Free planNo
Lightroom$11.99/mo
Photography$19.99/mo
Creative Cloud Pro$69.99/mo
Features
Monthly generative credits
Lightroom memberships list a monthly generative credit allowance, starting at 250 credits per month on the base Lightroom plan.
Creative Cloud Pro bundle
Creative Cloud Pro lists 4,000 monthly generative credits for premium creative AI video and audio features such as Text to Video.
Free trial on every plan
Every membership block on the plans page carries a free trial option next to the buy button, plus a separate Free Trial Details link.
Compare plans side by side
A Compare Plans link at the top of the Lightroom page opens a side-by-side view of the membership tiers, beside a Free Trial Details link.
What users say
Pros
- AI masking picks out subjects, skies and backgrounds accurately, cutting the time spent on selective edits.
- Stray objects, dust spots and clutter come out of photos in seconds with the remove and heal tools.
- Noise reduction on high-ISO raws beats in-camera output and can be reapplied to years-old files with newer algorithms.
- Catalog ratings, keywords and edits live in one database, keeping a 100k-photo archive searchable while editing.
- Bulk edits across a shoot go quickly, and the shortcut layout becomes muscle memory after a few sessions.
Cons
- Raw editing stays locked behind a subscription, and repeated price rises add up over the year.
- Recent builds run slowly, with laggy panel dragging and sluggish response on high-resolution raws and heavy masking.
- Catalogs drop out without error messages, saved profiles vanish, and sliders in one release jumped to the left.
- There is no Linux build, so a second Windows or Mac machine, or an unusably slow virtual machine, is required.
- Moving between cloud Lightroom and Classic means re-downloading the whole library and losing albums and other metadata.
A selection of the review sources we used:
Summarized from public user reviews and community discussions. View details
Global Traffic Rank
Not enough traffic data yet, so its traffic level is Low.
Alternatives
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