canon Lee

Hi everyone. I have LR3 and would like to update to the latest LR. My question is do I have to purchase a new edition or can I update my LR3?

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

You will need to purchase an upgrade to LR5. Once you have 5, all the updates to 5.x have been free. When (if ?) LR6 comes I suspect that upgrade will cost $ no matter what prior version you are using.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

You will have to pay. Adobe offers some "update" pricing, but sale pricing for a complete new package can be cheaper. Regardless of which price option you choose, LR3 will be completely replaced by LR5, but your catalog should stay intact.

The current price for the upgrade through B&H is $77. In the fine print it says, "To be eligible for this upgrade, you must currently own a previous version of Photoshop Lightroom: 1, 2, 3 or 4."

When I upgraded from 4 to 5 it looked for the old version and its serial number. I think if you install 5 on a new computer it will ask you to fill in the old serial number and the new one.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

When you start to use LR5 it will take your old LR3 catalog and update it to LR5. The LR3 catalog will remain and all your photos and edits will be in it. The LR5 catalog will also have all your photos and edits.

Once you import a few photos into LR5 they will go into the new LR5 catalog. The LR5 catalog will not be compatible with LR3, but that won't matter since all your older photos will be in there. If you ever wanted to go back and use LR3 for some reason, you could only use the old catalog with photos imported up to the date you switched.

I don't know why someone might want to go back to LR3, but IMHO you might as well archive the old catalog since you won't be using it again in LR5. (If you have other catalogs from earlier LR versions, LR5 will update them if you load them).