Adobe Lightroom vs Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop are both image editing software. Adobe Lightroom is a commercial product from Adobe Inc. Adobe Photoshop is a commercial product from Adobe Inc.
Which to pick
- Pick Adobe Lightroom when
- You shoot many photos and want to organise and edit them in one place, often bundled with Photoshop.
- Pick Adobe Photoshop when
- You do professional photo retouching or compositing, or need to exchange PSD files with other professionals.
Side by side
Photo library management and non-destructive RAW editing, with cloud sync across desktop and mobile.
The standard raster image editor for retouching, compositing and graphics, with generative fill and other AI tools.
Subscription only, and cloud storage tiers cost more as libraries grow.
Subscription only, and the full Creative Cloud bundle is expensive.
Production-ready (both)
Desktop app, mobile app and cloud service
Desktop app, cloud service and mobile app
Not published (both)
Closed source, sold by Adobe Inc. (both)
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code. (both)
3.4k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
11k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Other comparisons
More image editors
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.