Adobe Lightroom is a great piece of software for cataloguing and editing your images.
Best Buy customers often prefer the following products when searching for adobe photoshop. Photoshop is the industry standard in image editing. It's been around for more than 25 years, and there's a reason why it's still so popular: It's powerful, intuitive, and packed with features. Krysteena: It’s a one time purchase with photoshop. I would recommend Lightroom you can get a 30 day free trial at adobe.com. If you are a student, you can also get a student discount at adobe.com on photoshop and lightroom. You just missed a crazy good sale on both at B&HPhoto.
In this article, we’ll give you the rundown of the current Lightroom versions, and your purchasing options.
What Photo Editing Software Belong to Adobe Creative Suite?
Adobe markets many photo editing programs – or at least it seems that way. Most are options in Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
Let’s start with untangling the various photo editing products from Adobe.
Photoshop
In 1990, Adobe released Photoshop as a graphics editor. For over fifteen years, this was Adobe’s main photo editing program. Because the software wasn’t initially designed for photographers, it can be confusing. Also, many of the tools aren’t useful for photography.
Nowadays you can find Photoshop on practically every platform. In 2019, Adobe released a version of Photoshop for the iPad. This app is still in its early days and is not yet a fully functioning Photoshop.
Photoshop Elements 2021
Photoshop Elements 2021 is a basic version of Photoshop for desktop users. Adobe markets this program to beginning photographers who are learning post-processing. It is software used for quick edits. There is a lot of pre-programmed functionality and guided edits included in Elements.
For more information, see our article comparing Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.
Lightroom (Classic)
In 2007, Adobe released Lightroom with photographers in mind. In many ways, it’s a simpler version of Photoshop. It features the editing tools that photographers need. Adobe also redesigned the user interface to make common photographic adjustments easier.
One major addition to Adobe Lightroom was the cataloguing options. Lightroom acts as a library for all your images. Lightroom was also redesigned a non-destructive editor. Non-destructive editing means that you can always go back to the original image. This is a huge advantage to those who worry about editing over an original file, losing it forever.
For a detailed comparison of Lightroom and Photoshop, see our article “Lightroom vs Photoshop: Which Is Better? 2020 Review“.
With the release of Lightroom CC in 2017, this version was re-branded as Lightroom Classic.
Lightroom CC
Lightroom CC (Creative Cloud) is Adobe’s cloud-based version of Lightroom. This program is like Lightroom Classic. But there are differences in the interface and the tools available. In this article, we compare the programs.
Adobe supports Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic as parallel, but different programs. Updates may apply features to one and not the other.
Confusingly, when you launch Lightroom CC, this program is called “Photoshop Lightroom”.
Lightroom Classic is often thought of as the desktop version. But Lightroom CC also works on your desktop. The main difference is the interface and that your images are stored in the cloud.
Lightroom Mobile
There’s a third option called Lightroom Mobile or Lightroom Web. This online-only version of Lightroom comes with your purchase of Lightroom.
It is a simplified, web-based photo editing program. The interface is like Lightroom CC but again has some differences.
All Adobe plans that include Lightroom come with at least some online storage. Lightroom web is useful for publishing and sharing online collections.
Lightroom Purchasing Options
To get Adobe Lightroom, you buy a monthly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud. Many subscription plans are popular with photographers. The plans vary in which Adobe programs you can use and the amount of cloud storage space.
All plans come with at least some cloud space. They also come with Adobe Portfolio, a webpage to showcase your images.
Adobe Creative Cloud apps can be active on up to two different computers.
Let’s talk about how buying Lightroom has changed. And why this has led to confusion and controversy. Then we’ll describe the subscription plans available from Adobe.
Buy-to-Own vs Subscription
For many years, Adobe sold Lightroom with a perpetual license. You bought the program once and could use it forever.
In 2013, Adobe began phasing in their Creative Cloud subscription model. This created a lot of controversies. Many photographers wanted to buy the standalone program rather than pay a monthly fee to use it. The cost is higher with the subscription.
By 2016, Adobe stopped supporting the earlier, standalone versions of Lightroom. The last standalone version released was Lightroom 6.14. Older versions do not receive updates. So, new camera and lens profiles are no longer updated.
Photographers are still using old versions of Lightroom. But you can no longer buy Lightroom as a standalone program that you can use permanently.
The Creative Cloud subscription fee was the first of its kind and was a controversial act. Many people felt angered by this huge increase in price. And there is still a lot of negativity surrounding this subscription model.
Creative Cloud Lightroom Plan
If you only want Lightroom, Adobe offers a simple Creative Cloud Lightroom Plan. You get Lightroom CC and 1 TB of creative cloud storage space.
As we mentioned earlier, Lightroom CC is sometimes referred to as “Photoshop Lightroom”. But Photoshop is a different program and is not included in this subscription plan.
The plan is currently $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year.
More cloud storage space is available. You can get 2 TB, 5 TB, or 10 TB of storage. Prices are $9.99/month per terabyte.
Adobe also offers a Photoshop-only plan that comes with 100GB of cloud storage. As of 2019, this plan also comes with the Photoshop iPad app.
This plan is $31.49 per month or $238.88 per year.
The Lightroom plan is the simplest, but it is not the best plan for most photographers. It limits you to using the cloud-based version of Lightroom, and you won’t be able to use Photoshop.
Even if you don’t use Photoshop now, it costs nothing more to add it to your plan. The best is the Photography plan that includes both Lightroom and Photoshop.
Creative Cloud Photography Plan (20 GB)
The best Lightroom plan is one of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Plans. The Photography Plan comes with Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, and Photoshop. As of 2019, this plan also comes with the Photoshop iPad app.
This basic plan comes with only 20 GB of storage. 20 GB approximately 4,000 JEPGs. This is fine for photographers who store their photos on hard drives rather than in the cloud.
The plan is currently $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year – the same price as the Lightroom-only Plan.
Creative Cloud Photography Plan (1 TB)
This Photography Plan comes with Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC, and Photoshop. It also increases cloud storage to 1 TB. You will have room for approximately 20,000 raw images or 200,000 JPEGs. As of 2019, this plan also comes with the Photoshop iPad app.
This plan is the best for photographers who store a lot of photos in the cloud.
![How How](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7pIKIYHafwY/maxresdefault.jpg)
The plan is currently $19.99 per month or $239.88 per year.
More cloud storage space is available. You can get 2 TB, 5 TB, or 10 TB of storage. Prices are US$9.99/month per terabyte.
It’s easy to amass 10 TB in images, especially if you are using one of the newer high megapixel cameras. To get the maximum 10 TB of storage, you’ll be paying $109.99 per month or $1319.98 for the year.
If you only want to backup your images, there are less expensive online storage options. But if you’re editing-on-the-go, this may be the plan for you.
Creative Cloud Premiere Rush Plan
Photographers who also edit videos will often add a Premiere Rush subscription. This is Adobe’s basic video editing program. For more advanced videos, use Premiere Pro.
The Premiere Rush plan includes 100GB of cloud storage. More cloud storage space is available. You can get 2 TB, 5 TB, or 10 TB of storage. Prices are US$9.99/month per terabyte.
The plan is currently $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year.
All Apps Plan
If you want access to all Adobe Creative Cloud apps, buy the All Apps Plan. You will get programs for editing video, audio, graphics, webpages, text, and photos.
This option is good for photographers who publish in many formats.
This plan includes 100GB of cloud storage. More cloud storage space is available. You can get 2 TB, 5 TB, or 10 TB of storage. Prices are US$9.99/month per terabyte.
The plan is currently $79.49 per month or $599.88 per year.
Trials and Discounts
Adobe doesn’t have many discount programs that cover photography software. For most products, the price is the same regardless if you pay per month or prepay for the year.
You can get a 7-day free trial for the Lightroom plan, both Photography plans or the All Apps plan.
Currently, you can get a 30-day free trial of the new Photoshop iPad app.
Students and teachers can get special pricing on the All Apps plan. You do need proof of your educational status and a school email account.
The student and teacher discount is $19.99 per month for the first year and $29.99 per month after that. Compare this to the regular $52.99 per month fee.
You may also be able to find a deal offered through one of the online retailers like B&H Photo.
Photoshop Elements
Photoshop Elements 2021 is the only Adobe photo editing program that you can buy without a subscription. It is more like Photoshop than Lightroom. But if you want a photo editing program that you can buy once and use forever, this is it.
The program is currently $99.99 or $149.99 if you also buy the video editing program, Premiere Elements.
Photoshop Elements is great if you are a beginner or only want to do quick edits on your images.
Conclusion
The best way to get Lightroom is by subscribing to the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan. With this plan, you get both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC. You also get Photoshop in both the desktop and mobile versions.
Get the 1 TB version if you want to have your photos in the cloud for sharing and editing.
If you have no interest in using Photoshop but want the extra storage, get the single app plan. You can add a program like Premiere Rush to your plan if you edit a lot of video footage.
You can no longer buy Lightroom as a standalone program and own it forever. To access Lightroom, you must subscribe to a plan. If you stop your plan, you will lose access to the program and the images you have stored in the cloud.
Now it’s up to you to choose the option that fits your needs best!
Want to become a master in editing with Lightroom? Why not check out our course Effortless Editing with Lightroom next!
If you’re interested in trying a Lightroom alternative, check out our Capture one vs Lightroom article!
Photoshop is the best and most powerful image editor on the market. It has the tools to take a regular photograph and transform it into a work of art. Photoshop was the first editing software to work with layers which makes it much easier to work on large projects without worrying that any change might affect a different segment of the project.
There’s a whole host of tools that include changing backgrounds, adjusting facial features, creating 3D images, video editing, and much more. There is a learning curve to get the most out of most of the tools and features, but Adobe has an extensive collection of guides to help get the most of each tool.
Photoshop is a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud collection of apps, and therefore, it can seamlessly integrate with the other products, to allow you to combine multiple types of images, videos, and audio clips into your work.
While Photoshop is a premium tool, follow the instructions below and I’ll show you how to download your copy free for 7 days – and keep reading for my full review of Adobe Photoshop
How to Download Photoshop for Free on PC
1. Click the link and the official Adobe Photoshop download page will open in a new tab.
2. Click on the Free Trial button located on the menu bar.
3. Choose the package that fits your needs. The packages are:
Photoshop: Includes apps for desktop and iPad, complete with 1000 GB of cloud storage,
- Photoshop and Lightroom: in addition to Photoshop, you’ll get Adobe’s Lightroom apps, which come with Adobe Portfolio, Fonts, and Spark.
- The entire Creative Cloud collection. Large collection of tutorials, 100GB of cloud-based storage, and access to Adobe software like Acrobat Pro, Dreamweaver, InDesign, XD, Premiere Pro, and much more.I’m downloading Photoshop for this example, but the process is the same for all three options. Then, click the Start Free Trial button.
4. Enter a valid email address in the provided space and click the Continue button. Remember which email address you use, as this will be your Adobe username.
5. You will need to enter your credit card or PayPal information – but you won’t be charged until the end of your 7-day free trial.
6. After the payment method is approved, you can create a password and click the Complete Account button.
7. The installation file will automatically download to your computer. When it’s done, open it to run the installation wizard.
8. The Setup Wizard will open with a page about entering your password to begin the installation. Click Continue to start.
9. Adobe’s Creative Cloud will automatically begin to download. While installing, there will be several survey questions about your experience with Photoshop, your role, and your creative interests. It’s an optional survey, but if you answer the question, Adobe will use the answers to send you relevant tutorials, guides, and other pertinent information.
10. When the Creative Cloud installation is complete, it will automatically begin installing Photoshop. This large file can take around a half-hour to forty-five minutes to install, depending on your internet speed and computer.
Photoshop Overview
Photoshop is a layer-based editing program. What this means is that for each action you take, a new layer is created. This makes it easier to edit the image and ensures that even if you make a mistake, it won’t ruin the entire project.
The program comes packed with tools that can adjust color tones, add texture, filters, text, hundreds of fonts, magic wands — the list just goes on and on.
There is no point in getting into a “how to use Photoshop” tutorial in this post, as there are entire books written on the subject. I will say that, for most questions you might have, YouTube will have some helpful videos that will help with basic editing and photo touch-ups.
Adobe Photoshop Features
This is a basic overview of some Photoshop features. I’ll get into more details in the Special Tools section below.
Working with Layers
Perhaps one of the most essential features of Photoshop is using layers to create your project. It not only gives you complete control over every aspect of your work but allows you to treat each object as an independent object.
This means you can change colors, opacity, add borders, and easily move each object without affecting anything else on the page. Additionally, if you make a mistake, you only need to correct the one layer and not worry about the entire file.
Excellent collection of Selection tools
Photoshop has a group of tools known as Selection tools because they make it easy to select different objects that you want to edit. The main tools are the Lasso, Magnet Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, Magic Wand, Quick Mask, and Rectangular Marquee. Once you master these tools, you’ll be able to easily cut objects out of images, change colors, remove backgrounds, and more.
Improve Quality of Photographs
Photoshop has intuitive tools that make it easy to remove blemishes from pictures, including getting rid of red-eye, wrinkles, adjusting body shapes, changing the colors, cropping, trimming, sharpness, a wide selection of filters, and more.
Text Overlay
In addition to hundreds of font options and colors, Photoshop has many different text styles that allow you to insert the perfect vibe into your project. Some of the options include fisheye, bubble in, bubble out, bridge, reverse. Photoshop supports SVG OpenType fonts, which have become extremely popular with responsive designs that work for both computers and mobile devices, and recently added emoji fonts.
Video Editing
Photoshop has added a video editing element to its collection of features. The multitrack editing board allows you to merge multiple files, crop, trim, splice videos, add text overlay, and insert filter. You can also add an audio track, with the option to fade in and out, adjust the volume, and mute it.
Special Features and Tools
Neural Filters
Neural filters are one of the newest and most exciting additions to the software. It’s a workspace that makes it easy to change a person’s appearance by making them look older or younger, change their mood by turning a frown into a smile, or glaring eyes into happy ones. It uses AI machine learning, powered by Adobe Sensei, and generates new contextual pixels to alter the image.
Surprisingly, the filters are not that hard to use, and you can easily manipulate the images. The face tools use sliders, and you can adjust them to change happiness, anger, and surprise levels. However, if you go too extreme, the image will lose its natural look, so it’s a good idea to play around with the sliders until you get the proper expression and moods.
Many of the filters are still in Beta, which means that there is still room for improvement.
Here is the original picture selfie I took:
And after playing around with the filters, I added a little smile, took some years off my face, and shortened my hair.
Improved Tools for Photographers
These days, Photoshop is known for its drawing tools, selection, and font tools – but when it first came out, Photoshop was for photographers. Adobe has gone back to its roots, so to speak, by upgrading its photo editing features. This includes support for raw camera files and excellent tools for correcting flaws and adding in natural effects.
You’ll have everything from basic selection tools that can add or remove objects to more advanced tools such as lens-profile-based geometry correction and histogram adjustments. Here are a few other new upgrades that can improve the quality and appearance of your pictures.
Change the Sky
It is a bit surprising that it took so long for Photoshop to add this feature. But now, instead of working with making tools and layers, you can turn that cloudy sky into a bright blue sky with a click of the button. There are also plenty of customization tools available so you can get your sky looking perfect.
Use AI to Fix Lens Blur
Can I Buy Photoshop Forever
Photoshop has always had a blur tool, but it has been improved with AI. Now, the blur tool understands the color scheme in the pictures, which helps ensure that you won’t have an off-color blur. Another advantage is the tool gives you control over out-of-focus or blurry items in the background.
Expand your images
The content-aware crop tool is perfect for when you take a picture in portrait mode but need to display it in landscape mode. Often, the picture isn’t wide enough, and you’re left with extra white space on the sides. This tool will fill in the sides of your image with matching content. This works best with easy to duplicate patterns such as the sky, buildings, and the beach. Things that aren’t easily duplicated, like people, won’t look as good.
Adjust a person’s facial features
The Face-Aware Liquefy tool is similar to the Neural filters because it makes it easy to change the subject’s facial features and even the shape of the head. The biggest difference is that while Neural filters work with AI and add contextual pixels, Liquefy works with the pixels already in the image.
No more blurry pictures from shaky cameras
If you have a blurry picture, thanks to a shaky hand, or perhaps you snapped the shot while riding a roller coaster, Photoshop has a filter for you. Adobe has developed an intelligent mechanism that can detect the direction of your shaky picture, whether it’s horizontal, in an arc, going back and forth, or by rotating and realigning the pixels to sharpen your image and remove the blur.
Improve Font Match and Design
Photoshop has done many cool things with fonts over the years. Their latest updates will save you time and energy and allow you to maintain consistency with different documents. You can highlight the font you’re looking for, and Photoshop will give you the best matches.
If you open a file or documents with fonts that aren’t in your font library, Photoshop will run an automatic search online and install them for you.
If you have a font on a document, but you’re not sure which of the hundreds of fonts it is, the Font Match feature will identify the font for you.
Can You Purchase Photoshop Anymore
A search function lets you filter fonts by classifications like Serif, Script, and Handwritten. Based on these attributes, you can see all similar fonts, choose your favorites, and preview any font by hovering over it with your mouse.
Multi-Track Video Editing
Can You Still Buy Photoshop
Photoshop has come a long from its early days as a photo editing software. One of the biggest improvements is the addition of video editing tools. Now you can add the same types of editing layers to videos that you can add to an image. Each video track is treated as a separate layer, allowing you to make changes or work on it separately from the other clips.
Video editing with multi-track editing board
Photoshop has all the basic video editing tools so you can split, trim, splice, and merge multiple videos. You can also add an audio track, fade it in and out, adjust the volume, or mute it.
The editing options include fixing overexposed or underexposed videos, cropping, and adding a wide selection of filters. Photoshop also gives its users access to the same editing tools that are included in Adobe’s main video editing tool, Premiere Pro. This allows you to work on multiple tracks and apply keyframing.
The one area that is a bit lacking is the transition options between videos is a bit limited, with the only option being a variety of fades.
All movie or video files are saved as PSDs by default, but you can export them with H.264, QuickTime, or DPX encoding. There are also multiple resolution options, depending on where your video will be shown. These include 720p, 1080p, and 4K.
Export and Share Your Work
Photoshop now integrates with your operating system to streamline the exporting and share options. To get started; click on the Up Arrow located on the top right-hand corner of the window:
- Mac: Instantly export your projects to AirDrop
- Windows: Export the file to your email, My People, or any app that accepts photo files.
A Share option will also scale down the file size to fit the parameters for a quicker upload. You can upload directly to your preferred social media site or upload it to other Adobe apps where you can continue working on or completing your project.
Photoshop has many different ways of export options, including:
- Save the same file in multiple sizes
- Convert an existing design to sRGB, which is ideal for web display
- Add metadata, such as copyright information or a link back to your site, to protect your intellectual property
- Export a single Artboard or the entire project
- Use Quick Export to use your preferred format automatically
- Export files as PNG, JPG, GIF, or SVG
The Save for Web option is still available if you prefer the old ways of doing things, although the new style is faster and creates smaller files.
The Photoshop Interface
Photoshop improved its interface to make it more accessible for the average user with each new release. It has plenty of customizable options, including workspace options that are targeted for different editing styles. These include photography, painting, web-based images, videos and animations, and 3D. If you don’t see a workspace that fits your needs, you can always set up your own workstation with the panels, windows, and tools that you use frequently.
![Forever Forever](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/6416/6416700_sa.jpg)
The default Photoshop interface
The interface can also recognize what type of work you are doing, automatically adjusting to fit your needs. For example, if you’re using a selection tool, such as the lasso or hand, or zoom, it will change the workstation to the Mask and Selection, which only shows tools that you can use while a selection tool is active.
Ease of Use
No one will confuse Photoshop with an easy-to-use editing program. However, there are some basic functions that even a novice can quickly pick up. Things like cropping, coloring, adding text, filters, and resizing are the same with most editing programs.
What makes Photoshop special is its collection of advanced tools that turn your photographs and paintings into works of art. The interface has undergone improvements, which does help the usability since it groups the tools by function, so you can quickly find what you’re looking for. There are also plenty of helpful tutorials, both on Photoshop and online, that will take you through the step-by-step process for using different functions and features. These include hanging background, removing blemishes, adjusting color balance, 3D rendering, working with smart objects, and much more.
While the learning curve is steep, and there is a lot to learn, once you’ve familiarized yourself with the tools, you’ll appreciate how intuitive the software is and how easy it is to use.
Getting Started
To start a new project, click on the New Document button on the top-left corner, and the dialog box will open. Now you can choose what type of template you want to work with, including options such as Textured Geometric Masks, Instant Film Mockups, and Photo Collage Layouts.
You can choose your Photoshop template to help get started
To make it easier to find the right template for you, adjust the filter to only show filters based on the category of your work. The available filters are:
- Photo
- Art & Illustration
- Web
- Mobile
- Film & Video
If you’re already familiar with starting a project on an older version of Photoshop, there is the option to use the classic start menu.
If you’re unsure how a feature or tool works, you can click on the Home button, which will show you a list of all the tutorials, user guides, and a list of new features. Another option is to click the magnifying glass icon on the top-right corner of the page and utilize the search tool. In addition to finding objects, like your images, Adobe stock photos, and files, you can also search for “how-to” guides.
Compatible with Windows and Apple Touch devices
Developing touch-friendly apps for Photoshop is a big improvement, especially for users of computers like Microsoft Surface and iPads. You can zoom in or pan images through touch, and Photoshop recognizes different swiping gestures, such as two-finger for undo and three fingers for image scroll. While the touch apps aren’t perfect, and there are many features and functions that you still can’t use, it’s good to see that it is in the developmental stages and will only get better with time.
There are also mobile viewing apps, so while you may not be able to edit the file on your Android or iPhone, you can open and view PSD files.
How to Remove Photoshop From Your Computer
In the (unlikely) event that you decide that Photoshop isn’t the best choice for you, there are 2 easy ways to completely delete Photoshop. The first way is through the Creative Cloud app.
- Go back to the Creative Cloud app and find the Photoshop logo.
- Click on the three dots and then UNINSTALL.
The second method is to delete Photoshop directly through Windows.
- Start typing Add or Remove Programs in the Windows search bar.
- Scroll down to Adobe Photoshop and click uninstall.
Additional Adobe Creative Cloud Apps
There are more than 20 apps in the Creative Cloud that can be used to create, edit, and produce professional photography, design, video, web, UX, and more. Here are just a few of the most popular apps you can download.
- Illustrator: A must-have program for any graphic designer. Illustrator is a vector-based design studio that you can use to create logos, banner ads, book illustrations, web designs, and more. Since the program uses vectors instead of pixels, you can enlarge your designs without affecting the quality.
- InDesign: Design the layout and page design for print and digital media with the intuitive InDesign software. It has all the tools and fonts needed to create professional graphic designs.
- Premiere Pro: Use the multi-track editing software to produce videos for film, TV, and the internet. Premiere Pro has all the editing tools needed to add special effects and audio clips to your work, and it’s easily integrated with Adobe Creative Cloud apps, to easily include your work into the video clips.
FAQ
Is there an unlimited free version of Photoshop?
No, Adobe doesn’t have a totally free version of Photoshop, but you can download it and take advantage of the free 7-day trial.
Is there a Photoshop for beginners?
Photoshop is generally considered a high-level program. While some of Photoshop’s editing features can be learned quickly, to truly master the software takes a lot of time and practice.
Can I buy Photoshop or do I need to make monthly payments?
While it used to be possible to purchase a copy of Photoshop that is no longer the case. You will need an account with Creative Cloud, and through that, you can make either monthly or annual payments.
If Photoshop is in the cloud now, do I have to be online to use it?
No, you download Creative Cloud (as well as Photoshop) and this allows you to use it when you’re not connected to the internet.
Can Photoshop open RAW images?
There is a Camera Raw plugin that comes bundled in the Photoshop installer. You’ll need to activate this to convert RAW images to a proper photoshop friendly format. To make sure the settings are correct, go to Edit > Preferences > File Handling > Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for Supported Raw Files. Make sure to check this box, and it will open the file directly in Camera RAW.
Visit Adobe Photoshop Website