Adobe Lightroom Classic (2026) review: Perfect photo organization with time-saving AI at it's best - but it can be hit and miss

Date:
Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:58:51 +0000

Description:
Adobes Lightroom Classic is a powerful tool to catalog, review and edit your shots, and the latest version adds more AI tools to it, from the highly
useful to the somewhat questionable. Lets check out whats new.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Its
been a while since I last reviewed Adobe Lightroom, and as always with Adobe, many features have been added and a host of others have been improved, so
lets take a look at Lightroom 9.2 and see what its all about.

But before we do, I need to point out that there are two versions of Lightroom: Lightroom, and Lightroom Classic. Lightroom is a simpler, more
user friendly version, whereas Classic is aimed at the professional user or someone demanding a higher degree of control, who prefers to store their
media on their local hard drives. Ill be primarily covering the Classic side of things here. Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps subscription options: 12 month plan - 56.98 per month (683.76 total cost) Adobe Lightroom Classic: Pricing & plans Three subscription options No perpetual license Additional AI credits available As with most of Adobe's professional software, Lightroom Classic is subscription-only - and here, there are three options available.

Grab Adobes entire portfolio with Creative Cloud Pro for US$70 a month. Alongside Lightroom, this unlocks other popular apps such as Photoshop , Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, the works.

For a less expensive, photo-focused subscription plan, there's the
Photography bundle. This brings together both versions of Lightroom as well
as Photoshop for $20 a month. Alternatively, you could just limit yourself to Lightroom and Lightroom Classic for $12 a month.

These are monthly costs, based on a year-long contract. They also come with Generative Credits, from 250 a month for the cheapest option to 4,000 for the high end plan. Those credits dont roll on: if you dont use them in a month, they dont get added to your next allotment the following month. Are you a
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If youre really into generative AI creation, Adobe has add-on plans to suit your appetite, from an additional 2,000 credits for $10 a month, to 50,000
for $200 a month. Pricing & plans: 3.5/5 Adobe Lightroom Classic: What is it? (Image credit: Adobe // Future) Very well designed app Easy to organize, alter, and share your work Lets start with the basics: what is Lightroom Classic?

Quite simply, it has the dual purpose of storing and cataloging your photos, while also allowing you to make alterations to them and prepare them to share with others. Any change is non-destructive, so the original photos are never altered, and you can go back to the source to make additional tweaks without ever suffering from quality degradation.

I feel the interface is very well designed - and interacting with interfaces is what I do most of the time! You have seven different sections, all accessible through a large menu bar, top right. By default, youre in Library, which is where you can see all the photos youve imported and worked on.

You can actually do a fair amount of work there, such as rotating an image, adding tags, a star rating, keywords, and even perform some light colour correction. But if you want to get fully immersed in image manipulation, then Develop is the place to be.

This is where you get to apply in-depth colour correction, cropping, remove red-eye, correct for lens distortion, completely remove an object from a scene, and mask specific sections to fine tune which part of an image to
alter - among many others. Youll find the tools at your disposal are quite extensive.

But Lightroom Classic goes beyond that. You have the Map section where you
can see all the photos you took in a specific location (and alter a shots metadata should you need to), theres a section dedicated to designing a Book, or creating a Slideshow, Print selected photos, or upload them to the Web. Although, truth be told, this is something consumer software like Apple s Photos offers too.

All in all, Lightroom Classic makes it easy to organise your shots, make them look their best with a wide range of tools, and share them in numerous ways. But what does its latest release bring to the table? Lets find out. Score: 4.5/5 Adobe Lightroom Classic: Whats new? (Image credit: Adobe // Future) New AI features can save time But I found results vary in quality And its not
like you get your credits back if youre not happy While the general workflow remains unchanged from previous versions, the big new features are primarily AI-based. This will delight some, and send shivers down the backs of others.

The most useful application of AI is Assisted Culling. Currently in Beta (Adobe calls it Early Access), its designed to accelerate the photo selection process upon import, by automatically filtering out blurry, closed-eye, misfired images, and more. Youre given a few sliders to determine the intensity of the cull, and can choose which options to filter for. After a
few seconds (depending on how many images youre importing and your computers capabilities), the results are ready to be reviewed.

I found the process works very well, identifying with ease any issues its designed to look for, and if it made a mistake, you can alter the decision shot by shot. This makes looking through a series of very similar photos a much quicker process (and if you dont like a machine doing that kind of work for you, you can always disable the feature). As an added bonus, this AI tool is free Unlike Lightroom Classics new Generate using Firefly options. (Image credit: Adobe // Future) Now why would we want Generative AI in Lightroom? Well, if youre not well-versed in Photoshop, then its a quick way for
somewhat clever algorithms to perform relatively complex actions for you but
I admit having a few issues with such technology.

As an example, I asked AI to colorize a black and white photo of my brother and I when I was just a baby. It shouldve been a simple process, and indeed the colours used do look good. However, it added an object on top of a chest of drawers, and changed my brothers face. In another shot, it cleaned up a tray. Although I can appreciate the virtual maid having tidied up, its not what I had asked for. Plus if youre not satisfied, you dont get your
generated credits back.

To be fair, other results were better, and Firefly didnt alter the faces of other ancient family members of mine - even my great great grandmother was faithfully updated. The resolution of the resulting version can be set up to
a maximum of 2K. Great for older images that have lower resolutions, but not so good for more modern shots.

If you have credits to burn, you can bring a photo to life by turning it into a video. I found this a bit disturbing, although others around me loved it. And it must be said, Firefly did an impressive job of bringing my long-gone relative to life (Dr Frankenstein would be proud). Score: 4/5 Adobe Lightroom Classic: Classic vs Lightroom (Image credit: Adobe // Future) Lightroom is much simpler Generative Upscale tool is better than Classics gen AI features Before finishing up, I wanted to quickly dip into the simpler Lightroom, as theres a feature there thats worth mentioning: Generative Upscale.

Its worth mentioning as this AI-based upscaling isnt actually done by Adobe but in partnership with Topaz Gigapixel instead, and unlike the Firefly
option we explored above, you dont leave Lightroom when using it, which is a definite plus.

The feature not only tells you how many credits youll need, but also how many you have left - a useful addition which is sorely missed in Classics Firefly. The downside though is, as with Firefly, you have no control over the
process. You get what you get, whether youre happy with it or not.

Overall, Lightroom Classic is a very good image management and manipulation tool, and its new AI-based additions will no doubt please some, but aside
from the useful Assisted Culling feature, you have next to no control over
the output of AI. Score: 4/5 Should I buy? Buy it if...

Youre looking for a high-end, easy to use and feature rich image management tool, and appreciate the growing proliferation of AI tools within it. Don't buy it if...

You dont like subscriptions, and having more and more AI in your software
irks you, not to mention that you have to pay extra for those tools. We
tested out the best photo editing PCs and the best laptops for photo editing and these are our top picks. Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps deals Recommended Retailer Creative Cloud All Apps 49.94 56.98 /mth View at Adobe



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/software-services/adobe-lightroom-classic-2026-r eview


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