Adobe Lightroom 4 floats into the Creative Cloud

Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom 4 has joined the Adobe Creative Cloud, meaning users of the subscription-based software rental service can now add the tool to their portfolio. Released to the Mac App Store last month as a standalone purchase for $149, Lightroom 4's addition to Creative Cloud means you could be using it today for as little as $29.99 per month.

That's if you're already a CS3, CS4, CS5 or CS5.5 individual customer; for everyone else, membership of Creative Cloud is priced at $49.99 per month based on an annual contract, or $74.99 on a month-to-month basis. Your money also gets you access to all the Creative Suite 6 apps, including Photoshop CS6 Extended and Premiere Pro CS6.

Creative Cloud also works as a cloud backup and sync service, with 20GB of space included in each membership. That can be accessed from the desktop, from mobile devices, and through a browser-based login for offsite work, and there's the option to host up to five sites too.

If the price doesn't appeal, then, the synchronization tools might sway you over to the cloud option instead. Adobe promises to continue adding to its subscription service, which already includes Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Muse.