Adobe has announced that the upcoming Lightroom 6, its Creative Cloud photo manager, will support only 64-bit operating systems. The new version of the software, which last saw a major upgrade in April of 2013, will no longer support 32-bit operating systems.
Lightroom 6 will thus require Mac OS X 10.8 or above, or a 64 bit version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1.
“Focusing our work on more modern operating systems and architectures allows us to spend more time adding functionality requested by users, including additional advanced imaging features and improving general application performance,” Sharad Mangalick, Adobe’s photo product manager, stated on the Lightroom Journal blog.
If you are using OS X 10.7 on the Mac or a 32 bit version of Windows, you will continue to be able to install and run Lightroom 5 and connect via Lightroom mobile. However, you will not be able to install Lightroom 6 until you upgrade to a supported operating system.
Apple’s upgrades are free. Microsoft has published a how-to to help you determine whether you are running a 32- or 64-bit version of Windows.
Adobe has not announced a release date as yet for Lightroom 6, but it should be fairly soon, judging from Adobe’s traditional upgrade cycles of 12 to 18 months. The company just introduced the first mobile version of Lightroom for Android handsets.
Lightroom is the only Creative Cloud photo app that sells as a perpetual software license, though it is also available to Creative Cloud subscribers and is part of Adobe’s cloud-based Photography subscription plan that includes Photoshop CC 2014 and Lightroom Mobile for $9.99 per month.
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