The Lightroom cloud ecosystem has been updated today, with updates for Windows & Mac (6.0), iOS & Android (8.0) and Web. (Lightroom Classic has also been updated.)
New bugs…
- TIFF files exported from PNG with Transparency lose transparency and are saved on White Background
- iOS – If an album contains videos and is set to Store Locally, sync gets stuck.
- iOS – Ultrawide lens switches to JPEG to work around an OS bug.
System Requirements
As usually happens with the Adobe Max releases, the minimum system requirements have been updated.
- Windows 10 requires v20H2 or later, or Windows 11.
- macOS now requires macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later.
Masking Updates (Desktop)
The headline at Max last year was the introduction of Masking. This year the headline is also Masking – massive enhancements to Masking! Currently Desktop-only, but hopefully coming to mobile soon.
In addition to the one-click Sky and Subject selection, there’s now also a Background selection. It effectively excludes the main subject, so saves the step of selecting the Subject and then Inverting it.
There’s also a new Object selection, where you can paint over or draw a box around an object and AI makes the selection for you.
And perhaps the biggest one of all is the new People selection mode. It uses AI to automatically select people in the photo, and even their facial skin, body skin, hair, eyes, teeth etc. It’s a real time-saver for editing portraits. Better still, if you save the mask as a Preset, you can apply your favorite skin softening or teeth-whitening settings to other photos with a single click.
Adobe has included a new set of portrait Adaptive Presets to get you started.
The Mask Amount slider, which was already available on Lightroom Classic, is now available on Desktop, but not yet on mobile. It fades or amplifies the effect of each mask.
Healing Tool (Desktop/Mobile)
The Spot Removal tool has been renamed to Healing, signifying that it’s now capable of doing far more than just retouching spots. In addition to the Heal and Clone modes, there’s a new Content-Aware Remove mode. It uses Photoshop’s Patch Match technology to analyze the surrounding area to repair distracting areas in your images.
Like all AI, it’s not perfect, but it works surprisingly well, especially on areas of natural detail such as the sky, foliage, stone, etc. In my experience, it doesn’t work quite so well on areas with lots of straight edges, such as removing a person on a bridge. Give it a try and see what you can now repair without having to hop over to Photoshop!
On mobile, the entire Healing tool interface has been re-designed.
Compare view
On the Desktop, Compare view lets you see two images on-screen at the same time. But now you can also edit them in Compare view, like Reference view in Lightroom Classic.
Other Improvements
- Desktop – Compare view – you can now change the background color.
- Desktop – if you’ve applied a preset before creating a Named Version, Lightroom autofills the preset name as the version name.
- Desktop – when you float over the White Balance presets, they now preview on the main image.
- Desktop – Copy / Paste edit settings are now available in the Grid right-click menu.
- Desktop – GPU acceleration is now used to speed up Export functions.
- Mobile – Sky and Subject presets are now available.
- iOS – The Amount slider can now be used to amplify/fade presets on videos as well as on photos.
- Android – low specification devices that would otherwise be unable to use AI-based masks, now have the masks calculated in the cloud and synced to the device.
- Various performance enhancements.
New Camera Support
- Apple
- Apple iPad 14
- Apple iPhone 14 Front Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Ultrawide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Wide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Plus Front Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Plus Ultrawide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Plus Wide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Front Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Telephoto Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Ultrawide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Wide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Front Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Telephoto Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Ultrawide Camera
- Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Wide Camera
- Apple
- Google Pixel
- Google Pixel 7 Front Camera
- Google Pixel 7 Ultrawide Camera
- Google Pixel 7 Wide Camera
- Google Pixel 7 Pro Front Camera
- Google Pixel 7 Pro Telephoto Camera
- Google Pixel 7 Pro Ultrawide Camera
- Google Pixel 7 Pro Wide Camera
- Panasonic
- LUMIX DC-TX2D (DC-TZ200D, DC-TZ202D, DC-TZ220D, DC-ZS200D, DC-ZS220D)
- Sony
- Sony Xperia 5 IV Telephoto Camera
- Sony Xperia 5 IV Ultrawide Camera
- Sony Xperia 5 IV Wide Camera
- Click to view the full list of supported cameras
New Lens Profiles
Many compact and mirrorless cameras have built-in lens profiles, but other cameras use lens profiles to correct for lens defects such as barrel/pincushion distortion and vignetting. New profiles are added with each Lightroom release. Click here for the full list of available Adobe Lens Profiles.
Bug Fixes
This is a major update, so a lot of work was put into the new features, but it did also include some bug fixes. Adobe only publishes the bugs that were reported by users:
- [Desktop] Dutch localization issue.
- [Desktop] Some thumbnail previews missing in the Grid.
- [Desktop] Filmstrip can be hidden and disabled in Compare view.
- [Desktop] Adding a long Custom name shifts the Watermark icon to extreme right in Export Panel.
- [Desktop] Presets: Beachball first time used if there are a lot of presets.
- [Mobile] iOS16: Launching camera in landscape breaks the viewfinder orientation.
- [Mobile] iPhone 14: Missing Technology Previews.
If you find a bug, click here to learn how to report it to Adobe.
How do I update?
To update on the desktop, go to Help menu > Updates or click the Update button in the CC app. The update servers take a while to push the updates around the world, to avoid overloading the servers. You can also open the Creative Cloud app, click the … icon (top right) and select Check for Updates to give it a nudge. To update on mobile, visit the App Store (iOS) / Play Store (Android).
Is the book updated?
The eBooks for Adobe Lightroom – Edit Like a Pro are not only updated, but all the previous changes since 2020 are now included in the main text of the book. The latest release of the book is the 3rd Edition, released today. The book can be downloaded immediately after purchasing. If you already have a current Lightroom Edit Like a Pro Premium Membership, the updated eBooks are available for download in your Members Area.
I am still on LR Classic but with a large amount of my library in collections sync’d to the cloud. I also import and edit while traveling. This mostly works, but its kludgy enough to give me ongoing grief. The best reference I have found anywhere between LR Classic and LR Cloud is your Most Excellent feature comparison and I drop in on a semi-regular basis to check the status of my “no sale” items in the Cloud column: it’s getting close. I have 2 questions:
1. Your summary of the latest LR Cloud release above mentions covers changes to the Compare view: does this mean your Feature Comparison will change to Yes for Compare View in LR Cloud?
2. You use “cloudy” in several places: from context, I’m guessing this is to refer to cloud features in LR Classic?
We’re glad the comparison is helpful. We’ve updated the Compare feature on it. “cloudy” – we’re referring to the Lightroom (cloud ecosystem), not Classic.
ACR has added an HDR feature that significantly expands the dynamic range of individual images when developing. When I updated my Adobe products, I didn’t see this new feature in Lightroom Classic. I thought these products included the same tools and processing engine. Have you heard if this will be added to LR?
Yes, likely in a future update, I’m not certain exactly when. Same goes for the time curve in masking, they just couldn’t be added to Lightroom in time.
Where does this leave anyone who pay a monthly subscription, but cannot update to the new minimum requirements such as Big Sur…
You remain on the latest version your OS will support (so if it’s Catalina, then 11.5). Adobe follow the same pattern as Apple in supporting the last three OS. When Ventura is out, then Catalina support will end.
But with less features…
Agreed. But the same is true of the OS too. Adobe can’t support an OS that Apple don’t support (or very shortly won’t).