# Upgrading LR Classic- how?



## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 2, 2020)

Hi...I'm being forced to upgrade my Mac OS (my version, from 2015? forget the name, I think it was prior to Yosemite!) to a more recent OS, which will also force me to upgrade to LR CC. I just went to the Adobe.com site, and it's only giving me ONE choice of software (just LR).  I don't want to accidentally get roped into the cloud based system- I want to maintain control of my photos locally..Help appreciated- and any discounts out there?  I know this is an adobe question, but this forum is much friendlier and easier to navigate, and I'm sure others have done this recently   Can add more OS/app details when I get home..


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## Hal P Anderson (Jan 2, 2020)

Dawn,
You want the one on the left, the Photography Plan. You'll use Lightroom Classic, which is a later version of the version of Lightroom that you're already using. The images are kept on your disk, just like they always were. It includes Photoshop as an added bonus. It also includes the Cloud-based, new Lightroom, which you are free to ignore. You can also ignore the 20 GB of cloud storage. I hear that you can sometimes get a deal if you buy a year's worth of subscription at a go.


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## Replytoken (Jan 2, 2020)

Hi Dawn,

Yes, Adobe does not make it easy to upgrade, but assuming that you want the basic Classic "Photography Plan" @ $9.99/mo, then try this link:  Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan | Photo editing software .  You have a couple of options here.  The easiest is to scroll down to the middle of the page and click on the Learn More button in LR Classic.  At the bottom of the new page, you will see the 20GB plan int he left box.  That is the plan that you want.  If not already installed on your machine, Adobe will install the Creative Cloud Desktop so you can control what apps are installed.  The plan includes both Classic, what you want, and Lightroom (what we call "Cloudy") as well as a bunch of other apps.

Before installing the software, backup all of your catalogs in case you do have an issue.  Then install Classic.  Once installed, it will open a blank catalog or you can point it to one of your catalogs from LR6.  It will append the name of the catalog with a "-2".  That is fine for now, but you can give it a name that is more helpful.  I previously identified my catalogs with what version of LR they were associated with, but that is not a requirement.

This should get you up and running for now.  If you have issues, stop and post with questions.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 2, 2020)

Thanks to both of you for the info!  I didn't read the "left hand" carefully enough since "Photoshop" turned me right off (no interest in that).
Now I see what to look for. Thanks!
Dawn


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## Replytoken (Jan 2, 2020)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> Thanks to both of you for the info!  I didn't read the "left hand" carefully enough since "Photoshop" turned me right off (no interest in that).
> Now I see what to look for. Thanks!
> Dawn


The basic Photography Plan comes with a lot of Adobe products.  One that might have some interest to you after you get everything set up is Portfolio.  It is basically a web site where you can post images.  Yes, web sites are available all over the web, but it is free.  There are also a number of other programs as well, but first things first, get Classic up and running.

--Ken


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 2, 2020)

Thanks Ken.
Yeah.. I'm nervous about this transition, because it will be big changes in both realms - Mac OS (confirmed I currently am on Yosemite) and with LR (would be upgrading from LR 5.x..Yikes!). I attempted an upgrade some 4 years ago and it went so traumatically badly (user error- didn't have all the files I needed nor where to find them, so w/ help of apple store, restored back again), that I'm scared almost to death to try again. I have a photo collection of over 100k and am so afraid of losing data.


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## Replytoken (Jan 3, 2020)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> Thanks Ken.
> Yeah.. I'm nervous about this transition, because it will be big changes in both realms - Mac OS (confirmed I currently am on Yosemite) and with LR (would be upgrading from LR 5.x..Yikes!). I attempted an upgrade some 4 years ago and it went so traumatically badly (user error- didn't have all the files I needed nor where to find them, so w/ help of apple store, restored back again), that I'm scared almost to death to try again. I have a photo collection of over 100k and am so afraid of losing data.


Hi Dawn,

I have to confess that I have been quite behind in updating and maintaining my desktop computer due to a variety of issues that all add up to me not having the time I need to do what I want to do.  Over the past week, I successfully updated Win7 to Win 10, a task that I thought was going to be quite involved as I had initially wanted to do a fresh install.  Instead, I upgraded the existing OS and much to my surprise, there have not really been any issues.

And now that Win 10 is my OS, I just did my update from LR5.x to Classic.  It all went very smoothly.  If you want, I can find links to some of the videos I watched just before doing the installation.  I did not exactly follow them as I first installed Creative Cloud Desktop while logged into my Adobe account, but the directions they provided were still spot on for a Windows machine with regards to installing Classic.

--Ken


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## Paul_DS256 (Jan 3, 2020)

Here's my tale of whoa and recovery. 

I have a 2009 MacBook running LR 6 that I use when travelling. I decided I wanted to put Classic on it but, like you, I discovered I had to update the OS. I did this (and sorry I can't remember to which version) but then the new OS was slow even before upgrading to Classic. Some Googling uncovered that some older Mac's had this problem. The solution was to down grade.

Now here's the recovery part. I use Time Machine so was able to return to MacOS X El Capitan 10.11.6 with the click of a mouse. It was painless! Wonderful.

So, the moral of this story, is to make sure you have a good Time Machine backup before you do anything to the OS.


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## Rob_Cullen (Jan 3, 2020)

_"I first installed Creative Cloud Desktop   (App)"_
Yes, for anyone upgrading, this is the one major difference between the 'standalone' versions 4,5,6, and the subscription versions (Lr Classic 9.1,  etc)
The *Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop App *is the controller of your Adobe software. It is used to sign you in. It checks you are 'financial' and activates the software, and it does all the installs of Lr, Ps, etc,  and it updates and upgrades the software.


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 3, 2020)

Ken- thanks. I'm a mac user so I don't think the particular vids you used will help, though the intention is appreciated.
I do run time machine, and it did save my butt back in 2017.  My photos reside on the same drive that I currently use for time machine, and I've done backups from there to 2 alternating drives. It's been a while since  backed up though and last I checked those drives were full.  I just ran out tonight for (yet another!) external drive so I can do a fresh new backup, which will include my local hard drive contents.   Then, I'd like to transfer my  photo collection to the new drive as the primary storage, but it's going to take "forever" with  so many photos. After THAT's all done I'll feel more ready to make the changeover for OS then LR.  Ugh. Makes me cringe thinking about it.


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## Replytoken (Jan 3, 2020)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> Ken- thanks. I'm a mac user so I don't think the particular vids you used will help, though the intention is appreciated.
> I do run time machine, and it did save my butt back in 2017.  My photos reside on the same drive that I currently use for time machine, and I've done backups from there to 2 alternating drives. It's been a while since  backed up though and last I checked those drives were full.  I just ran out tonight for (yet another!) external drive so I can do a fresh new backup, which will include my local hard drive contents.   Then, I'd like to transfer my  photo collection to the new drive as the primary storage, but it's going to take "forever" with  so many photos. After THAT's all done I'll feel more ready to make the changeover for OS then LR.  Ugh. Makes me cringe thinking about it.


The videos may be OS neutral, but I cannot remember.  It is wise to always back things up even if it is a time vampire.  If you are still feeling unsure, do a Youtube search and watch a few videos.  The good ones are almost all alike and I find that it is nice to watch things happen before you "take the wheel" and do it yourself.  I think that you may be surprised.  If you are not trying to tie LR "Cloudy" with Classic, then there should be very little drama.  to be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed after all of the the installs.  I opened up a test catalog that I sometimes use and I felt right at home.

--Ken


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 3, 2020)

Ken-- Haha!!  I started the backup of  my photo collection last night at around 10:40.  As of 7:30 this morning I was at abt. 120k/ 135K photos!! whew!! Keeping fingers crossed our cleaners don't mess with those wires!!!

So when I get home I'll have a full time machine backup (which is running in background all today), and a full backup of  my photos on a brand new hard drive.  I had already gone through the prepping section of Victorias guide to moving computers, and manually copied over all these various files she listed, so those files are now triple backed up.   My keyword hierarchy and presets are one of my most valuable aspects of the program, along with the catalog of course.

Still scared though. When I attempted this switch back in 2017, I had conferred on this forum (thankful that the archives were saved when she moved the forum), and I'm just not sure that the same error won't come back up...


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## Replytoken (Jan 3, 2020)

You could start small and just install the Creative Cloud Desktop as this controls all of the other Adobe apps.  If it goes smoothly, you could then install Classic from within that program.  They both get installed if you install Classic directly (as CC Desktop is needed), but this method splits the installation into two separate parts.  I am not sure if it is a better method, but if something goes wrong on the CC install, there is less to "unwind".

--Ken


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 3, 2020)

Not a bad idea Ken - Seems that by doing desktop first, it might be easier to uninstall LR if needed.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Jan 4, 2020)

One possibility (I think, I don't do Mac, so check) is to upgrade Lightroom to Classic first, get up and stable and know you know where things are.  Then upgrade the OS.  That way if something goes wonky during either one, you know the cause.


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 4, 2020)

Ferguson said:


> One possibility (I think, I don't do Mac, so check) is to upgrade Lightroom to Classic first


Can't be done. Minimum requirement for Classic is MacOS 10.13, whereas Dawn is currently using 10.10, I believe.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Jan 4, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> Can't be done. Minimum requirement for Classic is MacOS 10.13, whereas Dawn is currently using 10.10, I believe.


Ah...


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 5, 2020)

All backups are done... But I procrastinated all day on the os upgrade {sigh}., maybe I'll get the courage tomorrow...


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## Paul_DS256 (Jan 5, 2020)

NJHeart2Heart said:


> I procrastinated all day on the os upgrade {sigh}.


Well, if you have a Time Machine backup, like I described above, you can easily back out of an OS upgrade if it doesn't work as expected.


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 5, 2020)

Paul_DS256 said:


> Well, if you have a Time Machine backup, like I described above, you can easily back out of an OS upgrade if it doesn't work as expected.


I do.. But I had one last time, and though grateful, it was still a huge mess.


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## NJHeart2Heart (Jan 5, 2020)

Alleluia!  Finally did it!  upgraded OS, then subscribed and installed LR Classic.  Recognized photos my keywords appear intact... I'm a happy camper after limping around on Yosemite and LR 5 for too many years!


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## Hal P Anderson (Jan 6, 2020)

Way to go!


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