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Adobe accidentally leaks Nimbus Mac & Windows apps, offering ‘Lightroom in the cloud’

Adobe last year teased a new Mac and Windows photo editor, with the project known as Nimbus. The app appeared to borrow heavily from the simplified iPad version of Lightroom, with a key feature being that both images and edits are stored in the cloud. The idea was that users should be able to switch back and forth between desktop and mobile editing.

The company promised a beta version sometime this year, and it appears that we may now be getting close as Adobe accidentally made a download available to some Creative Cloud customers …

French site MacG got their hands on it, and shared some details – including a healthy boost to the included cloud storage to facilitate the ‘edit anywhere’ goal.

This leak tells us something new: Nimbus users have 1TB of storage in the cloud. This is much more than the 20 GB usually offered to Creative Cloud subscribers.

The app is also designed to automate the tedious business of keywording for stock photography.

Adobe highlights the search engine that is able to automatically recognize the content of images. No need to manually tag each of its shots. The development version does not include French, but the English searches give good results.

Nimbus is not intended to fully replace Lightroom, but to act as a supplement to it. For example, it dispenses with the separate modules (Library, Develop, Slideshow, etc) that reflect the typical workflow of a professional photographer, providing a simplified interface that aims to put all the most frequently-used features in one place.

Adobe last week updated Lightroom for iOS with support for the Apple Pencil. The app is a free download from the App Store, but you need to a paid Creative Cloud subscription to get access to all the features.

You can see some screengrabs in the gallery below.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Lightroom for your iPad, check out our review of Affinity Photo below.


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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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