Lightroom update – and future?

Yesterday (15th July) the Pantry met and we discussed a number of issues and watched a couple of videos.

First – I reminded members of the post from the last meeting on installing Plugins (esp. for external editors) and the behaviour of some – depending on how you accessed them from within Lightroom. Essentially there are three locations where you can access Plugins and run them

We then turned to the latest Lightroom updates, focussing on Lightroom Classic. I highlighted that my first port-of-call when an update (or upgrade) falls, is to read about it on The Lightroom Queen. There are quite a considerable number of enhancements – finding duplicates; improved subject masking; enhanced culling as well as updates to Camera RAW which will probably appear in Lightroom Classic in due course.

It is important to note that you are promoted to do a Catalog Backup before proceeding with the update because the Catalog of 15.3 is not compatible with 15.4. Once you’ve done that and installed the update, you will be shown a screen which describes the changes.

So we watched Julianne Kost guiding us through the update at her usual breakneck speed. I suggest the first two-third’s are worth watching at least. I might suggest you take a look at her video on updates to Camera RAW as well – which goes into greater detail on the improved subject mask as well as the introduction of bidirectional linear gradients.

This feature was picked-up by Mark Denney who showed how bidirectional linear gradients could be used with Colour Grading as well as how to quickly get into Camera RAW to use this enhancement.

We didn’t view, but these might also be of interest:

What’s NEW in Lightroom Classic ver 15.4 (Morganti)

FINALLY! Lightroom Added The Feature We’ve Wanted for Years! (Kloskowski) and

Adobe Finally Fixed This (Kloskowski) which covers the Camera RAW enhancements.

We then turned to what is in my mind one of the most contentious subjects swirling around the Lightroom Classic world, which even brings into the spotlight whether it (and the Photography Plan) has a future for many amateur photographers. In June 2026 Adobe came to an agreement with Topaz to purchase the company. No doubt a good financial deal for Topaz, and one that cements my view that Topaz’s subscription model for Studio (which includes Photo) is not the way forward for me – I’ve written about that previously.

You can read about the take-over on PetaPixel and Matt Kloskowski suggests what some of the outcomes might be. Both worth a read.

However it does throw into confusion 1) how the integration of the Topaz photo products will be accomplished (remembering that there is a degree of integration already – if you’re willing to pay Adobe CC credits to use it); 2) what it means for the pricing of the Photography Plan moving forward – I think we can all guess that outcome; 3) whether we should be planning an exit strategy, or at least be aware of the possible exit strategies.

Tom suggested that the long vaunted commitment by Adobe to enable LrC users to retain access to the Library, Slideshow, Print and Export facilities might be at risk. Currently that does not appear to be the case (according to Perplexity) …

However digging deeper it would appear that access might be conditional on you retaining your Adobe account and accessing it occasionally (once every 42 days is mentioned), which can of course be done if you don’t delete your Creative Cloud account and set it to open at Login to your machine. So that’s worth remembering.

The decision then opened up to consider how one might perhaps adopt a different editor instead of Lightroom. Affinity and PhotoLab both being mentioned as they do not employ a subscription model but do (at least in the case of PhotoLab) require a periodic connection to the DxO servers to ensure licence validity. Therefore offline editing should only be used occasionally.

We agreed that this was an issue that we should return to in September when perhaps more detail on the Topaz take-over would have emerged. Just be aware that DxO usually offers its products at discount pricing on Black Friday and similar events.

As a taster and to make you ponder even more, here are two respected photographers talking about DxO PhotoLab as a photo editor replacement for Lightroom:

Sick of PAYING MONTHLY? The best LIGHTROOM ALTERNATIVE in 2026 (Simon d’Entremont) and

Sorry, Adobe! DXO Did it Better with Photolab 9 DEEP PRIME! (Chelsea Northrup)

Following the meeting I’ve undertaken quite exhaustive research on the possibilities of using Adobe Bridge as a Digital Asset Manager (DAM – or database), or continue using Lightroom as a DAM, with PhotoLab as an editor. I’ll share that research with anyone who’s interested, or will throw it into the conversation we have in September.

Confusing times!