2016 – A Busy Year for Lightroom

2016 is nearly over, and it’s been a busy year for Adobe and for my Lightroom Queen blog, so I thought we’d end the year with a highlights post.

 

Blog Post Series

In my reader survey earlier in the year, you told me you really enjoyed when there is a series of posts on a specific topic, so I’ve run 3 series this year, one of which will roll over into next year.

Lightroom Performance

• The Complete Series on Optimizing Lightroom’s Speed
• Debunking Myths
• What Computer Hardware Do I Need?
• General System Maintenance
• Preferences & Catalog Settings
• Previews & Caches
• Workflow Tweaks
• What’s Slow?

Lightroom Gadgets

• Can they speed up your workflow?
• Contour Shuttle Pro & Wacom Tablet
• Motibodo
• PFixer (Mac only)
• LrControl
• Rest of the Field
• My Conclusions

Lightroom Catalogs & File Management

• Lightroom Catalogs – Top 10 Misunderstandings
• What is a Lightroom catalog?
• Should you have one catalog or multiple catalogs?
• Where should you store your photos?
• Why not organize photos into folders by topic?
• …series continues in 2017!

 

Blog Post FAQ’s

In addition to the multi-part series of blog posts, I’ve also written a number of blog posts answering frequently asked questions. Did you miss any?

• Catalog corruption – how does it happen and can it be prevented?
• Standard Lightroom Troubleshooting Steps
• How do I find and move or rename my catalog?
• How do I use my Lightroom catalog on multiple computers?
• Should I store my presets with my catalog?
• Oooops, how do I undo?
• How do I restore some of the photos from my backup catalog?
• The Dangers of Synchronize Folder
• The cat walked over my keyboard and now Lightroom…
• How do I send a bug report or feature request to Adobe?

 

Free eBooks

In 2016, I’ve also released another free eBook, which follows on from the Performance blog post series. And I updated the free Quick Start eBook too. If you don’t have these eBooks, just enter your name and email address below and I’ll send you the links. (If you’re already subscribed, the link will appear below the form when you submit.)

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Lightroom Updates

The Lightroom team have been busy this year, publishing 5 major dot releases (and a few double-dots too). There was new camera and lens support for everyone, and a number of new features for CC users too.

Lightroom CC 2015.4 added the Panorama Merge Boundary Warp feature, filling in the gaps around the edge of panoramas.

Lightroom CC 2015.5 added the ability to remove spots in batches, when merging the photos into panoramas.

Lightroom CC 2015.6 added the new Guided Upright tool, allows you to correct perspective by drawing lines on the image.

Lightroom CC 2015.7 / 6.7 added a simple checkbox, which allows you to use Smart Previews to speed up the Develop module – and not just for CC users!

Lightroom CC 2015.8 added a new Reference View, which allows you to keep a second photo on screen while editing in the Develop module.

There have been other new features and improvements in these releases, all noted in the individual blog posts. And of course, I’ve updated the Members Area and PDF version of my Lightroom CC/6 book for all these changes as they’ve been released.

 

Lightroom Mobile/Web Updates

The iOS app made massive progress this year, including:

• 2.2 – Full resolution output, where full resolution files are available.
• 2.3 – Edit photos without first having to import them.
• 2.4 – Import, edit and sync proprietary raw files, including those captured using a DSLR or mirrorless camera.
• 2.4 – Linear and Radial Selection tools.
• 2.5 – Capture photos in raw DNG format on devices with a 12MP sensor on iOS 10.
• 2.5 – Display P3 Wide Gamut color space support.
• 2.6 – New interface for the iPhone version, including basic metadata editing and a one-handed Edit mode.
• 2.6 – Manual camera controls for the built-in camera.
• An Apple TV app was also released, allowing viewing of photos on your big screens.

The Android app has also made huge strides, including:

• 2.0 – New built-in camera, including raw capture in DNG format and shoot-through presets.
• 2.0 – Added Dehaze, Split Toning, Targeted Adjustment Tool and Point Curve.
• 2.1 – Manual camera controls for the built-in camera.
• 2.2 – Import, edit and sync proprietary raw files, including those captured using a DSLR or mirrorless camera.

Lightroom Web introduced the concept of Technology Previews, with the first preview being an image-analysis search technology. They’ve since added an intelligent crop feature too. The web interface has also added header graphics, sections and text to shared collections.

 

A Glimpse of the Future

At the Adobe Max conference in November, we were given a brief glimpse of a new cloud-native photography service that Adobe are working on. I can’t say much more at this point, beyond the details already listed in the blog post, but I’m confident that 2017 will be an exciting year.