Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan REVIEW

Disclosure: The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.

I see the world in different angles and enjoy portraying that in my photography. Although I am totally an amateur I hope someday to expand my photography skills. Over the past 6 or so years I have picked up tidbits of knowledge here and there and even went through a good core beginner skills course. And now as a blogger on this site, travel blogger, and mom of 3 I have a strong desire to take that amateur photography hobby one step further – to learn how to decently edit my photos.

I have always used the basic editing program on whatever computer I am using but after seeing a few of my friends on Facebook use Lightroom I was increasingly interested in trying it out. I felt limited by the generic computer program and thanks to Best Buy I have decided it was time to take the leap and try out the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan.  Now I can’t go back!

I have always heard of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom but the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan was new to me – it includes BOTH which is really awesome! And not only that it allows you access to your images on any device (thus the cloud) which will come in handy when we’re visiting family and traveling. It’s a 1 year subscription that lets you get the best of all worlds. I have thousands of photos so this is a great way to store it in the cloud instead of clogging a zillion edits on my laptop! I am definitely no PRO with photography editing so this review is strictly from an Adobe beginner’s view that dabbles in photography. The photo above I need to re-do because I learned about the “magic tool” that will immediately take away that little shadow at the bottom of the photo! That perhaps may be my favorite feature of all!

Although the Creative Cloud Photography Plan is geared towards advanced active photographers this is definitely the plan for me. I like to think I know what I’m doing around my DSLR even though truly I’m in between novice and advanced. I shoot in manual only most of the time but am far far from a pro photographer. The Creative Cloud plan gives me the control I desire in editing my photos though which is really important to me because these are my memories and the memories my family has made.

I prefer basic natural edits (mostly lighting perhaps with a pop of color) and the Creative Cloud is letting me totally revel in micromanaging how my pictures look. When we found out we were expecting our first child 9 years ago we made the decision to invest in a good camera and learn a little bit of photo shooting as opposed to spending the money for professional family photos each year. I wish I had learned how to use these programs long ago!

I was a little bit apprehensive about trying to figure out how this whole Creative Cloud thing worked since I do NOT like trying new technologies – weird huh? I am happy with my familiar way of doing things – even if I end up loving the technology later! These is a little bit of a learning curve, but I was able to figure out how to Import my photos and play around with them before watching any tutorials. However, there is a LOT I don’t know and I’m guessing it will take me at least a year to learn all of the ins and outs of the advanced settings!

After attending an Adobe webinar thanks to Best Buy it helped me understand a little bit more how to use these programs. When you put a photo into your Lightroom or Photoshop (Creative Cloud) any editing you do actually does NOT change the original photo – it is only edited in the Adobe programs. That way if you totally ruin your photo – it’s actually just a copy that’s ruined. There is also a pretty extensive ability for organizing and sharing your files that I’m still trying to master.

 I loved playing around with the presets and need the time to learn how to import new presets – I’m dying to try a few new artistic things! You can see here too that as you edit you can have your photos shown side by side! I LOVE that feature and found it immediately. It’s incredibly simple to toggle between the individual photo and it’s edited version. You can also put 2 completely separate photos side by side which I found useful for color matching in my school projects.

 Here you can see how I added some extra lighting to my photo on the right. I wanted to take some fun photos of my kids so these were special to me! I “thought” I had them edited the best that I could with my basic computer program as you see on the left but Lightroom gave me SO much more control to lighten them up!

I’ve just started going back through some of my old photos and editing them! This one was a special one as it was one of the last times we were able to see my husband’s grandpa before he passed away. I’m going back through all of the extended family’s photos and lightning them up to better preserve our memories! I can’t believe what a difference there is! If you are at all into photography as a hobby, a parent who snaps a zillion photos of their kids, a blogger, a home based entrepreneur, etc. I definitely recommend taking a second look at the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan! The 12 month prepaid plan will absolutely be on my holiday list every year!! We’re actually doing family pictures this upcoming weekend and I can hardly wait to get my pictures into Lightroom to play with!

It’s SO much cheaper to use the Creative Cloud program than it is to purchase Lightroom and Photoshop separately. Did I mention SO much cheaper?! The two BIGGEST pros I can see to this besides saving a ton of money is:

1. You ALWAYS have the most updated version – you don’t have to spend the money each year to upgrade your systems.
2. You can access your files ANYWHERE. You’re not bound strictly to your desktop!

If you have a photographer want to be in your family, a pro photographer, or just want to have access to more than one photo editing software the Creative Cloud program is the way to go! You can buy a 12 month pre-paid plan!

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