Adobe rolls out Lightroom updates
Adobe has rolled out a suite of new Lightroom Classic and Lightroom updates, timed with the company's annual 3-day MAX conference that's currently underway.
As well as the new technical updates for Lightroom, a series of community-led initiatives promise to enhance education and sharing within the image editing and sorting programme. Here are the new features that will be most of interest to photographers.
Advanced Masking
Lightroom's Selective Adjustment tools have been entirely 're-envisioned', and are now all accessible with one click on a newly named masking button. The functionality will allow the creation of more complex and accurate selections with multiple masks, including utilising color and luminance masks. All devices, including Lightroom mobile, will see the addition of this new functionality.
New Presets
Lightroom now incorporates presets that can be created and shared by the entire Lightroom community. Lightroom uses AI to suggest a selection of presets that scan an image and match the subject with the presets that will 'improve' the shot.
New preset packs have been added to the Premium Presets in Lightroom, following what Adobe describes as a positive response after Lightroom launched its initial seven Premium Preset packs in June.
This new set of Premium Presets includes eight new categories: Black & White, Food, Landscape, Urban Architecture, Lifestyle, Retro, Travel II, and Cinematic II.
Community Remix
Community Remix is a new feature that lets users engage with the Lightroom community through sharing edits and letting others try alternative edits. Adobe says Community Remix will allow users to explore versions of different landscapes 'far away from your home, experiment with varying subjects of photography, or even other camera lenses.'
Community Remix is available on Lightroom Mac & Windows now, and is expected to come to other platforms shortly.
Crop Overlays
Lightroom users can now fine-tune the photograph’s framing through smart cropping. With this update, Adobe now lets users choose new crop overlays for different aspect ratios, such as Golden Ratio and Golden Spiral.
Lightroom Academy
Lightroom Academy is a new resource for photographers that teaches essential photographic concepts and improving editing skills, regardless of experience or equipment.
Topics are broken down into short-form articles featuring succinct text, images from the Lightroom community, interactive illustrations, quiz-like challenges, and numerous “On Your Own” exercises that encourage learning by doing.
Lightroom Academy is free, with Adobe promising to continue to update it with new classes and resources throughout 2022.
All of the new Lightroom Classic and Lightroom updates and software compatibility are available to view on Adobe’s blog.