How to buy LR6 standalone (full or upgrade)

[GerryinAus]

There has been much confusion forums about not being able to get LR6 as an upgrade or standalone product, so I thought I would post how I did it.

Steps are as follows:

1. Go to www.adobe.com
2. Scroll to very bottom and click on change region if necessary (I'm in Australia so had to) then return to this page.
3. Scroll to the very bottom again and click on Products (right next to change region).
4. Adobe products are listed. Some have Join in the RH column (means CC) and some have Buy (means standalone licence). Click on the "Buy" for LR6. Do NOT click on the text "Photoshop Lightroom 6" as this will take you to the LR6 CC!
5. If you wish to upgrade from an existing standalone licence for LR 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 click on the "I want to buy" dropdown and change it to upgrade. The price will now reflect the upgrade price, not the full price. Then click the "I own" select product dropdown and specify which version you already own. Later it will prompt you for the licence number of the version you already own.
6. Choose how many licences you wish to buy.
7. Click Add to cart
8. Your cart is shown with your intended acquisitions listed. You can edit or remove any items. If it shows the full version I think you can edit it here to change it to upgrade. Again you will have to specify which verison you already have.
9. Click Checkout when you are done and ready to buy. Note that you will need to login to buy. Be careful not to Login to Creative Cloud.

In Australia the full version is Au $186 and the upgrade (from LR5) is Au $99. In the USA they are US $149 and US $79 respectively. In the UK they are 103.88 pounds (couldn't find the pound sign) and 59.09 pounds.

Note: I had some problems at checkout time because I run script blockers (eg NoScript) and privacy extensions (eg Ghostery) on my browser (Firefox and Safari) and the Adobe pages seem to have many bits and pieces from many places which ran foul of these. In the end I just made sure I was only at the Adobe site and disabled these to get the checkout to work.

Hope this helps to prevent any more problems people have downloading LR6 standalone.

[CatOne]

There has been much confusion forums about not being able to get LR6 as an upgrade or standalone product, so I thought I would post how I did it.

Steps are as follows:

1. Go to www.adobe.com
2. Scroll to very bottom and click on change region if necessary (I'm in Australia so had to) then return to this page.
3. Scroll to the very bottom again and click on Products (right next to change region).
4. Adobe products are listed. Some have Join in the RH column (means CC) and some have Buy (means standalone licence). Click on the "Buy" for LR6. Do NOT click on the text "Photoshop Lightroom 6" as this will take you to the LR6 CC!
5. If you wish to upgrade from an existing standalone licence for LR 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 click on the "I want to buy" dropdown and change it to upgrade. The price will now reflect the upgrade price, not the full price. Then click the "I own" select product dropdown and specify which version you already own. Later it will prompt you for the licence number of the version you already own.
6. Choose how many licences you wish to buy.
7. Click Add to cart
8. Your cart is shown with your intended acquisitions listed. You can edit or remove any items. If it shows the full version I think you can edit it here to change it to upgrade. Again you will have to specify which verison you already have.
9. Click Checkout when you are done and ready to buy. Note that you will need to login to buy. Be careful not to Login to Creative Cloud.

In Australia the full version is Au $186 and the upgrade (from LR5) is Au $99. In the USA they are US $149 and US $79 respectively. In the UK they are 103.88 pounds (couldn't find the pound sign) and 59.09 pounds.

Note: I had some problems at checkout time because I run script blockers (eg NoScript) and privacy extensions (eg Ghostery) on my browser (Firefox and Safari) and the Adobe pages seem to have many bits and pieces from many places which ran foul of these. In the end I just made sure I was only at the Adobe site and disabled these to get the checkout to work.

Hope this helps to prevent any more problems people have downloading LR6 standalone.

One very important thing to note, which bit me. You will be FORCED to sign in to LR the first time you launch it, with an Adobe ID. IF YOU USE an Adobe ID which has a CC subscription (I was in this bucket), you get the whole CC kit and caboodle, regardless of whether you purchased a license or downloaded the standalone version. And then Adobe Application Manager will download the whole Creative Cloud app and installer and the like.

So you need an Adobe ID that is not signed up with CC or there's only one option you have... the CC route.

[GerryinAus]

That does seem an insurmountable problem CatOne.  I did not encounter that as I do not have CC membership (but see below).

However, I can provide a bit more information about what happened with me re this upgrade/purchase:

After the checkout I was able to download LR6 (dmg as I'm on a mac). But there were actually two downloads on offer, one for perpetual and the other for CC. Do not choose the CC one!

The download worked fine and the install worked fine. At startup the splash screen shows Lr Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6 Version 6.0. It says nothing about CC. The friendly people at Adobe chat support assure me that this means I have the perpetual licence version.

I was looking for my LR6 upgrade email confirmation notice when I received instead a Welcome to Creative Cloud email (and a Welcome to LR email). However, I am certain I did nothing to join CC.

I went to my Adobe Account management page to see what it said and to exit/cancel from CC. It says I have a free 30 day membership trial. There was no option to exit/cancel for this trial. So I contacted Adobe support (via chat) and they confirmed it is just a free trial, will expire in 30 days if I do nothing and cannot be cancelled by me.

Interestingly, my LR order confirmation emails (two of them) arrived a few minutes after the Welcome to CC email and they were placed in my Junk folder by my mac mail. The two welcome emails arrived at my normal inbox!

[Phil Indeblanc]

Is anyone else having trouble checking out, or is it a Firefox issue?  When I click on Checkout nothing happens.

[Deardorff]

Waiting for the CD version as my work computer never, ever goes online. I will most likely have to call Adobe to get it working right and get a special number or some such to activate it properly as I won't be hooking up to the internet. Had to do that with Photoshop when I moved to a newer work computer.

[GerryinAus]

That is what happened to me Phil.  I think it was my script blockers, tracking prevention etc that was causing this.  When I disabled these it worked ok.

[Rajan Parrikar]

http://pindelski.org/Photography/2015/04/22/lightroom-6/

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

That is what happened to me Phil.  I think it was my script blockers, tracking prevention etc that was causing this.  When I disabled these it worked ok.

Indeed, very likely one of the causes. There is apparently also some other monitoring going on. I have no idea what info gets sent to these other companies, but it might require attention when using ad-blockers.

Cheers,
Bart

[Cem]

http://pindelski.org/Photography/2015/04/22/lightroom-6/

That's a great link Rajan, thanks for that.

[Ian Matthews]

I still haven't been able to buy the LR6 standalone upgrade. When I select upgrade from the buy option the add to basket button is greyed out. It will only allow me to add the full version to the basket?

[DaHen]

Thanks Gerry,

Followed your instructions and had no trouble upgrading. After v6.0 was installed and running, I then uninstalled v5.

[Deardorff]

I'll just wait another week or two until the upgrade CD is available and buy it from B&H.

[GerryinAus]

I am not entirely sure that my instructions above to buy Lr6 standalone (perpetual) are sufficiently complete.  I have encountered some issues which you can read about here - response 2 (Adobe Communities):

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1830346#

[Cem]

I am not entirely sure that my instructions above to buy Lr6 standalone (perpetual) are sufficiently complete.  I have encountered some issues which you can read about here - response 2 (Adobe Communities):

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1830346#

What a fine mess Adobe have created with the stand-alone LR6. Mainly because of the impossibility to upgrade from LR5 to LR6. I have followed the same route as Gerry and have encountered the same problems. LR6 will simply not run without a CC login at the beginning of every session. Also because LR6/CC refuses to use my GPU. There are many reports to be found on this issue, especially from Windows/ATI GPU users. I have eventually given up hope and uninstalled the LR6/CC. I am using other programs for HDR (such as SNS-HDR Pro) and for panos (such as PT GUI and PT Assembler). Since the GPU also doesn't work, there is no real advantage -in my case- to using LR6 instead of LR 5.7. As long as I don't buy any new cameras, LR 5.7 will serve me just fine. And when I eventually buy a new camera, I'll start using Capture One (which I also own) unless Adobe fixes these problems by then. I certainly hope that they will. LR is a great DAM platform and raw converter which I have been using from version 1 onwards. It would be a shame if it would end this way.

[Simon Garrett]

Also because LR6/CC refuses to use my GPU. There are many reports to be found on this issue, especially from Windows/ATI GPU users.

I guess you've tried checking for updated graphics drivers?  This is a common cause of failure of LR6 to use the graphics processor.  

I have eventually given up hope and uninstalled the LR6/CC. I am using other programs for HDR (such as SNS-HDR Pro) and for panos (such as PT GUI and PT Assembler).

HDR and pano are hardly unique features of LR6, and they're not especially flexible - fewer controls to alter than many packages - but easy to use, and might be useful.  

Since the GPU also doesn't work, there is no real advantage -in my case- to using LR6 instead of LR 5.7.

Eric Chan says that there are other performance enhancements - not just as a result of the GPU.  See his comments about use of the graphics processor at https://forums.adobe.com/message/7480830#7480830.  And in another post (on Lula - http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=99719.0) he said: "There were some speed improvements made to Library as well, but these are not GPU-based."

[Box Brownie]

The one question I would ideally like an answer to is will there be the retail package of the LR upgrade edition?

Amazon UK already show the Full version as being available in approx. 2-4 weeks.

I used the Adobe chat on the purchase page and it was 15 mins of my life I will never get back because firstly the agent kept trying to steer me to CC and when I pushed for the answer he admitted he was sales and had no idea whether the retail packs were being made let alone where they will be available for sale!  When LR5 came out I remember downloading the trial and ordering the upgrade retail edition that came from Amazon within 3 weeks i.e. I used the license to make the trial 'complete'.

Adobe may have made a promise to maintain the perpetual license model but they do not make it easy!

[Cem]

I guess you've tried checking for updated graphics drivers?  This is a common cause of failure of LR6 to use the graphics processor.  

HDR and pano are hardly unique features of LR6, and they're not especially flexible - fewer controls to alter than many packages - but easy to use, and might be useful.  

Eric Chan says that there are other performance enhancements - not just as a result of the GPU.  See his comments about use of the graphics processor at https://forums.adobe.com/message/7480830#7480830.  And in another post (on Lula - http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=99719.0) he said: "There were some speed improvements made to Library as well, but these are not GPU-based."

Hi Simon,

Yes indeed, I am using the latest graphic drivers. Thanks for the link to Eric Chan's discussion.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Simon,

Yes indeed, I am using the latest graphic drivers. Thanks for the link to Eric Chan's discussion.

Hi Cem,

There are sometimes (temporary) regressions that make a prior version work, and a later version fail (until again fixed with a newer version). I tend to have very few issues with the nVidia cards I almost always use, although the latest driver version does cause some issues with my Capture One(!) installation (fixable by switching display acceleration off for now).

It's a bit frustrating, but apparently the GPU acceleration is not that simple to implement on all sorts of hardware combinations, and something that did work before can break later...

Of course, if LR doesn't recognize the card's GPUs at all, and other applications happily do, then it's something at Adobe's end that needs fixing.

Reading the about the flurry of real (not RTFM) issues with Lightroom 6, and keeping in mind that the people with issues are more vocal than those without them, it does seem like Adobe has 'some work' left to do before it becomes a stable enough version that might be worthwhile to upgrade to.

Cheers,
Bart

[Simon Garrett]

There are sometimes (temporary) regressions that make a prior version work, and a later version fail (until again fixed with a newer version). I tend to have very few issues with the nVidia cards I almost always use, although the latest driver version does cause some issues with my Capture One(!) installation (fixable by switching display acceleration off for now).

One other issue I've had with a Dell Nvidia-based graphic card: only the Dell driver would work properly.  Windows would offer to upgrade it with the latest Nvidia driver, or you could download the driver from Nvidia, but neither worked properly, resulting in mysterious errors with some software.  It had to be the Dell driver. 

[luxborealis]

There has been much confusion forums about not being able to get LR6 as an upgrade or standalone product, so I thought I would post how I did it.

Steps are as follows:

1. Go to www.adobe.com
2. Scroll to very bottom and click on change region if necessary (I'm in Australia so had to) then return to this page.
3. Scroll to the very bottom again and click on Products (right next to change region).
4. Adobe products are listed. Some have Join in the RH column (means CC) and some have Buy (means standalone licence). Click on the "Buy" for LR6. Do NOT click on the text "Photoshop Lightroom 6" as this will take you to the LR6 CC!
5. If you wish to upgrade from an existing standalone licence for LR 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 click on the "I want to buy" dropdown and change it to upgrade. The price will now reflect the upgrade price, not the full price. Then click the "I own" select product dropdown and specify which version you already own. Later it will prompt you for the licence number of the version you already own.
6. Choose how many licences you wish to buy.
7. Click Add to cart
8. Your cart is shown with your intended acquisitions listed. You can edit or remove any items. If it shows the full version I think you can edit it here to change it to upgrade. Again you will have to specify which verison you already have.
9. Click Checkout when you are done and ready to buy. Note that you will need to login to buy. Be careful not to Login to Creative Cloud.

Hope this helps to prevent any more problems people have downloading LR6 standalone.

Worked perfectly - thanks! Upgrading to LR6 is otherwise nearly impossible. Adobe must be really desperate (or money-grubbing) to get us sucked into CC as the LR6 option is not available when upgrading from within LR itself!

UPDATE - Well, not quite perfectly. Upon installing, I successfully signed in to Adobe.com, but still had to enter a serial number. Then the installer "couldn't find a qualifying product on my computer" (duh, I only use LR 5.7 everyday!), so I copied the serial directly from my Adobe.com account.

This is what is so annoying about these supposedly tech-savvy companies. Why have me sign into my Adobe.com account in the first place then tell me they need me to enter serial numbers which are right in my account. If the left hand can't figure out what the right hand is doing in a simple process of upgrading (never mind not being able to choose my upgrade path), then what is Adobe doing with their right hand?!?