The Lightroom CC ecosystem has been updated today, with updates for Windows & Mac (1.5). The iOS (3.4) and Android (3.6) updates will ship within a few weeks. (Lightroom Classic CC has also been updated.) And there’s some even bigger news… my Lightroom CC book is finally finished!
Store Album Locally (Windows/Mac)
If you know you’re going to be offline, you can now right-click on an album and choose to store that album’s originals locally, just as you can on the mobile apps. Unchecking it reverts to automatic cache management.
Album Membership (Windows/Mac)
At the bottom of the Info panel, you can now see which albums include the selected photo, and if you click on one of the tokens, Lightroom opens the selected album.
Improved Filtering (Windows/Mac/iOS)
On Windows/Mac, there’s additional search functionality for the text search field, so you can narrow down your search by the type of metadata, such as extension:cr2. There’s a full list of search tokens in my new book.
On iOS, the Filter menu is being updated to include the Camera, Location, Keywords and Edit Status filters that are already available on the desktop.
New Organize View (iOS – coming soon)
The iOS Organize view is having a bit of facelift. It’s being split into two tabs – My Photos and Shared Albums – just like the web interface. This gives you easy access to the albums you’ve shared with others, as well as your full album hierarchy.
There are also new LR Camera Photos and Recently Added smart albums, as these photos can quickly get lost in All Photos.
Other Features (iOS/Android – coming soon)
In the Grid view on iOS, the multi-select mode is changing to match the Android behavior, so you long-press on a photo to enter selection mode and then choose to copy/move/remove/delete/share photos, rather than selecting the action and then the photos. It makes sense when you try it!
On iOS, you’ll soon be able to export more than 15 photos at a time, which is a much-requested feature.
On iOS, HDR/Long Exposure files will be up to 2/3rds smaller without visual quality loss, thanks to some clever compression.
The Remove Chromatic Aberrations checkbox and lens profile pop-ups are now available in the Optics panel on the Android apps (but are not yet available on iOS).
Tech Previews (iOS/Android – coming soon)
Coming soon to iOS, there’s a new Depth Map Support tech preview. To create the depth mask, use the Portrait mode in the iOS camera or the new Depth Capture mode in Lightroom’s camera (HEIC format only). When you go to Selective Editing mode, you can select the existing depth mask, adjust the range and then further edit the mask using the brush and sliders. This allows you to create fake depth of field, darken backgrounds, and more.
Already available on Lightroom Web as a tech preview, and coming soon to the Android app is the Best Photos feature. It uses Adobe Sensei artificial intelligence as well as edits that you’ve made to your photos to automatically select the photos it thinks have the highest potential, quickly and easily.
These are both disabled by default, but can be enabled in Settings > Technology Previews.
HEIF Support (Windows & Android)
With the release of iOS 11, Apple announced that its newest devices would default to a new photo file format/container called HEIF, which stands for High Efficiency Image Format. It uses a more modern compression method than JPEG, so the file sizes are smaller.
In the last release, Adobe added support on macOS 10.13 and iOS11+, but those files are now also supported on Windows, and will shortly be supported on Android too. HEVC videos are not currently supported.
New Camera Support (All Versions)
When a new camera is released, standardized formats such as JPEG, TIFF and DNG are supported immediately. Proprietary raw file formats are not standardized, so they must be individually added in a Lightroom release. Most cameras are supported within 2-3 months of their release. Raw file format support has been added in this release for:
- Parrot Anafi
- Sony DSC-RX100M5A
- Sony DSC-RX100M6
- Click to view the full list of supported cameras.
New Lens Profiles (All Versions)
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.
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 crashing 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.
Lightroom CC book now available!
Now the big news… my brand new Lightroom CC book is available to download right now! It covers the whole Lightroom CC ecosystem, whether you’re using Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Apple TV or the web interface (but not Lightroom Classic, except migrating). You can read all about it here. (And if you’re already subscribed to my newsletter, look out for an email in the next 24 hours with a special gift!)
Most Lightroom CC books are out of date before they even ship, but I’m including a year’s eBook updates with your purchase, and you can extend your access at a low cost, so you always have the latest information.
The book already includes today’s new desktop features, and there will be an update for the new mobile features when they ship in a few weeks. The paperback versions are expected to ship early in September, complete with those new mobile features.
The free Lightroom CC Quick Start eBook has also been updated today, and updated download links are being emailed out to everyone who previously requested that eBook.
Hi Victoria, congrats to your great new book, love it!!! 🙂
I have the LR classic one as well, but for sure the whole new LR ecosystem deserves a book on it’s own!
It’s always good to give something back – so here’s my tip: it’s possible to define the thumbnail sizes in the mobile app, – at least on iOS – by using the two finger zoom gesture in the grid view: quite handy to adjust the overview in case you need more or less pics on one page…
Thanks Thomas. The two finger resize is disappearing in the next release, but there will be a new way of doing it which is included in the next update.
And the two finger resize did make the final iOS release after all, so I’ll add that back into the next book update.
I waited a few days to install this release and did it today. Unfortunately it created problems with my develop presets and export preset sets. I run LR on a MacBook Pro and a Windows 10 Desktop (both with current OS updates) and now the current version of LR Classic based on the release of last week. Interestingly my commercially purchased develop presets and my own presets are there but any of the LR default presets are gone. Also all of my custom export presets are gone. I had avoided all of the previous problems with presents in previous versions of Classic but they finally seem to have got me. I did some web searching but the age of answers and the conflicting answers caused me to stop and post here before I start trying to trouble shoot and create more problems. Any suggestions? Thanks
Hi Craig
Export presets went missing? That almost sounds like the Store Presets with This Catalog checkbox got toggled in Preferences > Presets.
They have hidden some of the legacy default presets in this release, and I’ve just done a blog post on how to bring them back: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/missing-default-presets-75/
So I just got a new PC, installed and logged into Lightroom and tada! My photos are all there: great right?! Wrong! It seems to not only have stored my photos but also every picture that has ever been on my phone, mostly memes sent via whatsapp. I cannot figure out how they got there, I have never imported these to lightroom, they don’t back up to my google drive, so how to get rid of them because it’ll be a lot of time-wasting deleting otherwise :'(
That means on your phone, you’ve got Auto Add enabled (which is a good thing), but you’ve got WhatsApp set to save the all chat photos to your camera roll (which is a pain!).
In WhatsApp settings, go to Chats > Save to Camera Roll and turn it off so it doesn’t happen in future. Trying to find the existing ones is going to be a bit of a pain though. I’m racking my brains but I can’t think of a quick way of doing that right now.
in lightroom you could filter for camera is “unknown camera”, thats what my WhatsApp photos are shown as.
Yep, there isn’t an unknown camera option in the CC app but I agree it would be really useful!
Have been eagerly awaiting the August 2018 Lightroom Updates, hoping Adobe would stick with their consistent launch update schedule though didn’t know if they would delay and wait for the Mojave release next month incase anything breaks before the final release.
Bit surprised by the very limited number of Mac/Window CC updates. Being able store Albums is nice though one could have already choose which images to save locally. Album membership is also a plus but something along the lines of things I imagined we’d see added after all the deal breaker missing features were first added.
The lack of all the advanced search filters in CC vs Classic is certainly one of those major missing features, so I’m excited to see that and if it were full/near search filter feature parity that along would make it a significant update. However, just updated and looking at the search filter options and not seeing anything new other than maybe an icon for video/filter. Perhaps they are all there now but hidden via search terms rather than exposing them via search bar, so will have to investigate more. Otherwise perhaps we will see another update when Mojave is released with more significant tent pole updates such as ability to rename files and apply presets on import, full meta support, full export support, face tagging, ability to compare images, Mac Portrait Mode and Mac Live Photos full support, and such.
Still overall good news to see the consistent updates even if more minor on desktop than those hoping for CC to catch up to Classic sooner than later.
A smaller release usually means they’re working on a bigger one, and with Adobe Max in 2 months time, I think there’s a good chance there could be some good things to come… the release cycle is pretty short though, so I wouldn’t set your expectations tooooooo high.
Hi Victoria.
FYI. I’m running iOS 11 on iPhone and MacOS Sierra (not High Sierra). The 1.5 LR CC update now doesn’t support the new Apple HEIF in this combo. LR CC requests the you upgrade to High Sierra to display iPhone images. 1.4 did work with HEIF in this combo. Debating upgrading the OS or downgrading LR CC.
Follow a number of LR and photo blogs and no one detailed this. Guess because your all running the latest OS on all devices.
Thought you all should know.
Graham.
Interesting, 1.4 wasn’t supposed to support HEIF on Sierra either. Were they definitely still HEIF files, and not getting converted to JPEG by the iOS app? Thanks for the info.
Personally I’d upgrade to High Sierra. It’s pretty stable at this point, and Mojave will be out soon, so late in the cycle is the best time to upgrade IMHO.
Wow, gorgeous graphics! I just reviewed the Lightroom Family Workflow page, and it’s so simple to understand. I have had LR for years, and now LR CC, and I see in one page that I am NOT making use of it to solve photo problems I have! I am a great reader, but to read the “long version” of things now feels slow. I just learned what is possible, thank you. I bought one of your books many years ago. I’m in again.
Thanks Jen, I had fun hunting down all of those little 3d men. Have a lovely time reading, and I’d love to get your feedback when you’ve had chance to read it through.
Thanks as ever for the updates, Victoria, and congratulations on the new book! I’ve already taken advantage of your very generous introductory discount – the book looks excellent.
Thank you Christopher, I’d love to hear what you think when you’ve had chance to read it, as it’s a completely new style for me.