A problem with the Adobe Lightroom for Samsung app’s Premium subscription system has been fixed after many in the U.K. (and possibly other regions too) found it impossible to sign up for the app to take advantage of the special two-month trial offer.
After contacting Adobe and Samsung, the payment issue has been resolved, and anyone who couldn’t sign up before should now be able to do so.
Adobe told Digital Trends:
“As we announced in February 2023, the Samsung Galaxy S23 series is using Adobe Lightroom as the exclusive default photo editor for RAW photos taken with the Expert RAW app. With the purchase of new Samsung Galaxy S23 devices, users receive a two-month free trial of Lightroom. Some customers in the U.K. were experiencing payment errors within the Galaxy Store when signing up for Lightroom through the two-month promotion. Samsung has resolved the Galaxy Store payment issue for the subscription promotion.”
Is it worth it?
Now that you can sign up for Lightroom for Samsung on your new Galaxy S23 Ultra, is it worth doing so, and do you have to be an expert to use the tools? This was my concern, but I needn’t have worried, as after trying out the app and editing my own RAW images, I found you don’t have to be an expert to get a lot from Lightroom. I wrote about my Lightroom experience, and while the app is great at guiding you through the editing process, it does also encourage you to learn and experiment. It means that while you don’t have to start as an expert, you may find you want to become one.
To get started, you will need two apps. ExpertRAW is downloaded from Samsung’s Galaxy App Store, and it lets you take photos with the S23 Ultra (and some older Galaxy phones too) in RAW format. In the app, when you go to edit an image, it directs you to download the Adobe Lightroom for Samsung app, which is installed separately from the same app store. To really bring out the visual goodness held inside a RAW image, you need some of the in-depth editing tools in Lightroom, which are only available when you subscribe to the Premium level.
This costs $5 in the U.S. and 3.79 British pounds in the U.K., and if you’ve bought a Galaxy S23 Ultra, it comes with an extended two-month free trial — which is more than enough time to really give the app a workout and see if it’s for you or not. It was at this stage that the problem that Adobe and Samsung have now fixed first arose.
What was the problem?
When I reviewed the Galaxy S23 Ultra, I stumbled across the payment issue myself. Having taken a lot of RAW images, I wanted to edit them and see how easy it is for an amateur to use the pro-level tools in the Lightroom app. Except, when I went to subscribe in the Lightroom app, it failed at the last second during the payment process. A message stated the app couldn’t complete the purchase.
I wasn’t the only one, as there were a growing number of negative reviews for the Lightroom app on the Galaxy App Store, with many people mentioning that they couldn’t subscribe to Premium either. Digital Trends’ Mobile Editor Joe Maring tried to replicate the problem in the U.S., but was able to subscribe to Lightroom Premium as expected and to take advantage of the two-month extended trial.
However, the problem has been confirmed as solved by Adobe, and it may have been an issue with the Galaxy App Store’s payment system and certain banks. If you tried to subscribe to Lightroom for Samsung, but found it impossible, have another go now. It’s worth the wait.
