What’s New in Lightroom Classic 15.5, Mobile & Desktop (August 2026)?

Lightroom Classic 15.5, Lightroom Desktop 9.5 and Lightroom Mobile 11.5 have all been released today. There are some useful feature updates in all versions of Lightroom, along with bug fixes and new lens support.

Premium Classic Members of our website, click here for even more details on the changes to Lightroom Classic (you will need to be logged in to access the link).

Premium Cloud Members of our website, click here for even more details on the changes to Lightroom Ecosystem (you will need to be logged in to access the link).

New bugs…

• [Classic] Video Files Issues (Windows)
• [Classic] Import Fails Silently after Update
• [Classic] Clicking GPS badge displays wrong location after LR restart
• [Classic] Moving AI masks “Feather” or “Edge” sliders records a history step EVEN when no change is done
• [Classic] Content Credentials causes exports to skip
• [Desktop] Open As Layers in Photoshop throws error under certain conditions
• [LrM] (Android) Snapping behavior in cropping adjustments after 11.5 update

AI Mask refinement (Classic & Desktop)

There are new Feather and Edge sliders to refine AI-generated masks, creating smoother transitions and precise edge adjustments.

Generative Expand (Desktop, iPhone & Android)

Generative Expand has arrived on Lightroom Desktop (not Classic) and iPhone/Android! It uses AI to extend an image beyond its original boundaries by creating realistic content to fill the expanded area. This allows you to change the composition after the photo has been taken, whether you need to adapt it to a different aspect ratio, add breathing room around the subject, or fill transparent areas created by Geometry adjustments.

Flatten AI Edits (Classic & Desktop)

The Update AI dialog now includes a new Flattened AI Edits section after using Generative Expand. But why?

For most AI edits, if a later edit invalidates an earlier one, you can simply click Update to regenerate the AI. Generative Expand works a little differently. Before it creates the new pixels, Lightroom flattens any existing AI edits into the image and uses that as the starting point for the expansion.

The advantage is that Lightroom doesn’t have to regenerate all of the AI content every time you tweak an earlier edit, helping to conserve your Generative Credits. The trade-off is that those earlier AI edits can no longer be edited individually. If you need to change one, you’ll either need to return to an earlier Version or Snapshot and redo the expansion, or remove the flattened AI edits and start again. It’s a small departure from Lightroom’s usual non-destructive workflow, but a practical compromise.

Render to DNG (Classic & Desktop)

If you right-click on a photo, there’s a new Render to DNG option. This creates a new file with all of your current edits baked in and places it alongside the original photo. Beware! Despite the DNG extension, the new file is not a raw file. It’s a TIFF in a DNG wrapper. The main advantage is that it’s considerably smaller than an equivalent TIFF, but it has the same limitations as any other rendered file. For example, you can no longer recover additional highlight or shadow detail from the original raw data.

It’s primarily designed for features like Generative Expand. For example, if you’ve cropped away distracting objects around the edge of a photo, you can choose Render to DNG and then use Generative Expand to extend the newly cropped composition.

Crop Improvements (Classic)

There are some useful little changes in the Crop tool. Rotate and Flip are now recorded in the History panel. You may ask, “surely the correct orientation is obvious?”, and for a normal subject, that’s true. But if you’re photographing the night sky, you try to figure out which way is up!

Two new menu commands have appeared in the Photo menu, with very self-explanatory names: Reset to Camera Orientation and Restore Orientation from Metadata.

While in the Crop tool, you can also now right-click and under Crop Mask, select 100%, 80%, 50%, 20%, or Off. No more having to go into Lights Out mode to hide distractions!

Crop Panel Updates (Desktop, iPhone & Android)

With the introduction of Generative Expand, the Crop panel has been renamed to Crop & Expand, and the Constrain Crop for Transparency button has moved from the Geometry panel to the top of the Crop panel.

In-App lrcat-data Recovery (Classic)

The *.lrcat-data folder/file next to your catalog’s *.lrcat is an essential part of your catalog. It contains a variety of pixel-based data, including AI masks, Generative Remove repairs, and Denoise/Super Resolution data. If that data is deleted, Lightroom must regenerate it, and the results can be quite different, especially for Generative AI.

This data store can become corrupted, just like the catalog itself. Usually, this is due to storing the catalog in a cloud sync folder (such as OneDrive, iCloud, or Dropbox), but it can also be caused by third-party plug-ins that update its contents or by an abnormal program exit (e.g., if you force-quit).

Lightroom now checks the lrcat-data content on startup and, if any corruption is found, offers to attempt repair. During the repair, it takes a backup of the existing lrcat-data and then offers to delete it once recovery completes successfully.

Photo to Video (iOS & Android)

To add some movement to a photo, there’s a new Animate tool that creates a short video clip, a little like a Live Photo (iOS) / Motion Photo (Android). Like many third-party AI models, Animate costs Generative Credits, with the number required shown beneath the button. The results can be surprisingly interesting. In my tests, it added movement to the water in the foreground of one photo, slowly zoomed in on a panoramic image, and made the clouds drift across the sky in another.

Denoise (iPad)

Denoise is now available on the iPad! You’ll need an iPad Pro or iPad Air with an M1 chip or later. The standard iPad and iPad mini won’t work, as they use Apple’s A-series chips. You’ll find the switch in the Detail panel, just like it is on the desktop, although it will obviously be a bit slower.

Other Changes

• Desktop
  • As usual, there are performance improvements. In this release, they’re focused on Windows and include smoother updates when scrolling the grid, resizing the app window, or updating the user interface.

New camera support:

• GoPro
  • GoPro Mission 1
  • GoPro MISSION PRO
•  Sony
  • Sony RX10 V (DSC-RX10M5) *
• Click to view the full list of supported cameras

* Preliminary support

New lens profiles:

• Canon
  • Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5 L FISHEYE STM *
• DJI
  • DJI Mavic 4 Pro FC9284
  • DJI Mavic 4 Pro DJIFC9287
• GoPro
  • GoPro MISSION 1
  • GoPro MISSION 1 Pro
• Laowa
  • Laowa 65mm F2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO
  • Laowa 90mm F2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO
• Sigma
  • SIGMA 85mm F1.2 DG A026
• Click here for the full list of available Adobe Lens Profiles

* Updated to include distortion correction

Tether support update  (Classic only)

• There are no new cameras with tether support, but the following Canon cameras have been updated to use PTP Support:
  • Canon EOS 1D Mark II
  • Canon EOS 20D
  • Canon EOS 30D
  • Canon EOS 350D Digital
  • Canon EOS 4D Digital
  • Canon EOS 5D
  • Canon EOS 5D MARK IV
  • Canon EOS C50
  • Canon EOS Digital Rebel Xti
  • Canon EOS R5C
  • Canon EOS R6 V
  • Canon Ixus 132
  • Canon Powershot G1
  • Canon Powershot G1X Mark III
  • Canon Powershot G7X Mark II
  • Canon Powershot V1

Click to view the full list of cameras supported for tethering.