The Lightroom CC ecosystem has been updated today, with updates for Windows (2.0.1), Mac (2.0) and iOS & Android (4.0). (Lightroom Classic CC has also been updated.)
People View (Windows/Mac/iOS/Android)
The big news in this release is facial recognition, and if you’ve used Lightroom Classic’s tools, you’ll be pleased to know this works much better! All of the indexing is done automatically in the cloud, and photos of the same person are grouped into a cluster, ready for you to add their name.
(If you’re using Lightroom CC mobile apps with Lightroom Classic, note that the People tagging does NOT sync back to Lightroom Classic.)
Migrate from Apple Photos (Mac only)
If you’ve been using Apple Photos and you’re now ready to upgrade to Lightroom CC, there’s a migration tool that can transfer your organization and metadata edits over automatically. If you previously used iPhoto or Aperture, these older libraries can also be updated to the Photos Library format and then migrated into Lightroom CC.
Since they’re from two different companies, there are some provisos and file formats that can’t fully migrate, but I’ve provided all the information you need in Adobe Lightroom CC – Edit Like a Pro, so you can get off to the best start.
Target Album (Windows/Mac)
If you’re scrolling through your photos, looking for ones to add to a specific album, then dragging them over to the Albums panel can be slow. Now you can set an album as the “target album” and simply press the T key to add the selected photo(s) to that album. Such a time saver!
Search Autocomplete (Windows/Mac/iOS/Android)
As you start typing in the search field, Lightroom now offers a number of suggestions, just like Google or Amazon.
Metadata Filters (Android)
The Metadata Filters are now available on Android. They’re already available on Windows, Mac and iOS.
Color Picker (Windows/Mac)
The Color Picker is now available in the selective editing tools on the desktop. It was previously only available on mobile.
Sharing Web Galleries (Windows/Mac)
There are new Sharing & Shared to Web panels in the desktop app, which makes it quick and easy to find the albums you’ve shared, without having to hunt through your folders of albums.
Ad-Hoc Shares (Windows/Mac)
You can now share groups of photos in a temporary album, rather than cluttering your Albums panel with single-use albums. These are stored in the Photos section of the new Shared to Web panel.
Connecting to Other Services (Windows/Mac)
There’s a new Connections section in the new Sharing panel. So far, there’s only an Adobe Portfolio connection available, but this is just a start. There’s potential to link to many different companies, for example, to order prints, calendars and other photo gifts online, design photo books from your chosen company, create advanced slideshows, publish photos on other social media/ photo sharing/stock websites or integrate with your own website.
These additional options are simply waiting on companies building these connections using Adobe’s API. If you want to see your favorite photo lab or website supported, you may want to send them an email to encourage their developers to start work on the integration.
Shared Web Gallery Display Options (Web)
The new Display tab in the Web Interface allows you to see your shared web galleries in the same layout your viewers will see, and it’s now much easier to add text to tell a story.
Process Version 5
The Process Version has been updated (behind the scenes) in order to improve Dehaze and purple noise. Moving Dehaze to the left could have some unexpected results in earlier versions, like the strange yellow shown below, and high ISO photos could turn purple in the shadows in some circumstances, but these issues are fixed in PV5. You don’t need to do anything, as it’s automatically applied to new photos as they’re imported, and existing photos are automatically updated if/when you edit them.
[twenty20 img1=”21199″ img2=”21198″ width=”300px” offset=”0.5″ before=”PV4″ after=”PV5″]
HEVC Video Support
HEVC format videos (Apple’s new format) is now supported, but only on macOS 10.13 High Sierra and macOS 10.14 Mojave, and on iOS 11/12. It’s not yet supported on Windows or Android.
Other Small Improvements
- A file type badge now shows on thumbnails on Windows/Mac (it was already possible on iOS/Android)
- The Auto & B&W buttons have moved to the top of the Edit panel on Windows/Mac
- Compact slider mode available on Windows/Mac if you’re using a small screen such as a laptop
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:
- Canon EOS R
- Fujifilm X-T3
- Nikon COOLPIX P1000 (preliminary support)
- Nikon Z7
- Panasonic LUMIX DC-LX100 II
- 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 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 CC – Edit Like a Pro are already updated for these changes, and available for download in the Members Area for current CC Premium Members.
Could I be so bold to ask you to update your wonderful Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic page, so it now includes everything? From what I can tell, all the Develop features are now there. This was the first time I was prepared to try out CC, having only been using Classic for the last 2 years, but it still disappointed and was not enough reason for me to move.
Here’s just a few features I still need:
* Watermarks using images/logos
* HDR built in, as I take a lot of internal/external shots so it’s much easier to do it in bulk, see the results and decide which ones to then keep, vs sending it all to Photoshop and spending ages doing it
* The “People” view doesn’t seem to always recognise people and I cannot see any way of manually adding it
* I would have mentioned 3rd party services like Flickr, but they do seem to have started to add support for it with APIs. And now Flickr has gone rogue on us and wants to charge for everything, so I’ll look elsewhere.
* Agreed with Floris on naming conventions, as it’s very useful. Also 100% agreed on search working offline – a complete showstopper for me. Companies that think we’re always connected is insane and have never left a city in the developed world.
* Apply presets on import – I always want to ensure Lens Corrections and Chromatic Aberration is ticked by default on all imports.
Updated for the features in this release. I’ll look at extending the list to cover even more features, but that would be a very very long list!
For your missing features, go to https://feedback.photoshop.com and search for the requests. I’m sure they’ve all been requested already, but adding your vote to the ones that are most important to you fives them a shot at moving up the priority list.
I just bought a Lumix G9 and used the camera profiles in Lightroom Classic. However, when I tried editing the same photo in Lightroom Mobile I got a message saying that the profile wasn’t available and would switch to an Adobe profile. The Lumix profiles are available on both Classic and Mobile when I use my Lumix GX8.
I’m guessing that at the moment there aren’t any Lumix G9 camera profiles available for Lightroom Mobile. Is this correct and if so do you have any idea how long before they become available?
Thanks. Your website is a great source of help 🙂
That’s an odd one. I don’t have a G9 file to test, but if you report it at the Official Feature Request/Bug Report Forum at https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/new/add_details?topic%5B then someone can take a look and make sure the default profiles are available to mobile.
OK. I’ll do that now. Thank you!
Is there a roadmap for Lightroom CC from Adobe? I am a 100% OK with using new tools as an early-adopter but I am extremely bothered by Adobe’s silence on what features from Lightroom Classic will eventually appear in Lightroom CC. I assume at some point far into the future Lightroom CC will replace Lightroom Classic, but even that hasn’t been communicated by Adobe as far as I know.
Some key features that are missing for my use case:
– Survey view (I find it extremely difficult to pick the best image from a batch without it). This is a feature that seems ill-suited for mobile devices, which is why it might not be there, but on desktop it should be there. Feature parity between desktop-mobile should be 80-20%, not a 100%. On mobile Adobe sensei could pick the best out of a set (e.g. use stacks for this) looking for smiles, eyes opened, sharpness, composition, correct exposure etc. A two-image splitscreen would already be good enough.
– Batch renaming (even when Lightroom CC manages files, I like to keep everything in my own template for consistency), or at least a default setting where I can specify how to name images at import e.g. YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.extension
– Info overlays (I hate it that when I want to view metadata, it closes the Library panel) so I never can see both at the same time
– Smart albums
– Open with… to any other application on my computer instead of photoshop which doesn’t come with the 1TB lightroom CC plan
– Local search (search doesn’t work when offline), and advanced search parameters like AND / OR
– Process recipes
– Both the filmstrip and the thumbnails have quite a small maximum size on high resolution screens
– Keyboard shortcuts are lacking
– Why is there a increase/decreasing flag status but not for rating (which makes much more sense as a step up / step down vs the flag)
– A catalog trash similar to Apple Photos or Google Photos with a 30 day window to recover deleted files. Currently there is no failsafe in place for erroneous deletions (e.g. think cat stepping on the keyboard or just a brainfart… these things happen in the real world)
– Color tags (are these scrapped by design or not implemented yet?)
– Ability to have multiple catalogs tied to my account (I don’t like to mix phone/compact snapshots with my professional camera rawfiles)
– The new connector feature is promising but is it going to be open to everyone? Adobe talks about buying photo products and such but I am thinking about publishing services e.g. Smug Mug similar to how Classic does this.
It would be extremely helpful if Adobe would be more forward coming to the community (and early adopters willing to invest in their latest experiments) and at least show us a vision of where the products heading, as well as some clarity about missing features (e.g. are they not implemented or was it a design choice to scrap them).
Hope you can use your influence/connections to pass this on to the right people at Adobe (or that they’re reading here and listening to feedback).
p.s. I am happy with the new features, but also a bit disappointed that a 2.0 update still lacks some of the elementary features one would expect like local offline search, smart albums and survey view.
I wouldn’t set too much store on the 2.0 moniker. In these days of subscription software, the numbers don’t mean much, other than being useful for tech support.
Adobe doesn’t give specific information on their plans. There’s a few reasons for that. For one, they’re a publicly traded company so there are legal limits on what they can say, because it can affect share prices. Also, the greatest plans don’t always come to fruition or can hit bumps in the road that can turn promised features into vaporware, then people would be even more mad! And technology moves fast, so committing to a roadmap publicly doesn’t leave them the flexibility they need to change direction based on customer needs and outside developments.
They’re good requests, and I’m sure some will happen sooner than later. They’re trying not to rush features out half-done, but taking the time to build the foundation properly, which is a good thing for us, even if it does take a bit longer that way. Too many things got half done in Classic, and it’s come back to bite us.
> I hate it that when I want to view metadata, it closes the Library panel
That one I can help with! Go to Preferences > Interface and set Panel Tracks to manual.
> The new connector feature is promising but is it going to be open to everyone?
Yes, that’s the intention. It’s waiting on those companies contacting Adobe and working with them to build those integrations. It has enormous potential for connections to all sorts of different websites – far more than Classic ever did.
If you look at where they’re going so far, they’re clearly focused on adding necessary photo organization and editing tools, and at the same time, also leveraging the strengths of cloud sync, so using Adobe Sensei for all sorts of clever AI stuff and connecting to external services.
Most of their choices are based on user feedback, and one of the best places to give that feedback is https://feedback.photoshop.com They’re also taking a closer look at what problems an old feature was trying to solve, because there may now be a better way of solving that issue, rather than just replicating exactly the same feature. So when you add your requests (or vote on existing ones, because many of the above are already on there), make sure you explain WHY you need a specific feature. All of the votes there are taken into account when making decisions on new features.
Thanks Victoria. I started submitting feedback on the forums. I also bought your book, and so far it has proven to be extremely useful, also the extra material provided. I hope that the most critical features (export, smart albums, and “open with…” other than Photoshop) will be added otherwise I seriously have to reassess my investment. For now, I am willing to give Adobe the benefit of the doubt since I think these features are necessary for people to migrate over.
With regards to your comments about Adobe being a publicly traded company: a lot of big software companies that are publicly traded do their software development on Github, including Microsoft, and they are very open and transparent about what they are working on. If a feature fails, you can just communicate that (See recent Windows 10 features). I think this unproductive secrecy has more to do with Adobe’s culture, then with the fact that they are publicly traded. Users are spending their precious time to contribute feedback to Adobe, but they hardly get any feedback. I find this disrespectful towards users, and it is not how software development is and should be done in 2018.
Openness and bi-directional communication always wins in the end, and it would make Adobe much less hated if they would open up more towards the community. Even the “double down on secrecy” Apple is giving hints nowadays about roadmaps and future products. A lot of the anger around Lightroom Classic CC is the anxiety because people don’t know where Adobe is heading, and they have been through the hoops with Apple Aperture before.
Thanks Gerrit, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the book and I’m updating it for the new features as they’re added.
I would love it if Adobe would be more open. I miss the old days of the public betas.
Great update !
About this great feature “Migrate from Apple Photos (Mac only)”
Still having my Aperture library, I would love to use it… but :
Does this migration tool from Apple Photos or Aperture also handles the edit ?
If so, is that a non-destructive workflow ?
Thanks !
If you open your Aperture Library into Photos, the tool can migrate all of your organization and metadata, but not the edits. You can, of course, export a JPEG of each edited file from Aperture and add those to Lightroom in addition to the originals. If you find any tools that promise non-destructive transfer of edits between software from different companies, beware, as I have yet to see an automated conversion that actually looks good.
Thank you for the rundown! This was a concise but full recap of the update. It’s very useful.
Along with updates is excellent new video editing app RUSH.
I miss possibility to open a video saved in LRCC in RUSH.
Hmm, just wanted to try the People View, but this view is empty. Is there a way to start the face recognition process?
They’re still busy indexing all of uploaded photos, so it should update itself before too long.
Strange, almost 3 weeks gone and still nothing in the people view…
Last I heard, there was only a small percentage of accounts left to go, so if you haven’t already, post on this thread: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-cc-i-do-not-see-my-people-view-populated
Thanks for all your hard work, informing us of the latest news.
“These additional [Connections] options are simply waiting on companies building these connections using Adobe’s API.”
Hmm, I can’t find any mention of this at . As far as I can tell, there haven’t been any changes to the Creative Cloud SDK for a year. Do you know if Adobe is making the Connections API available privately to select companies?
I knew I’d forgotten something! They want companies to email them at lightroomconnectors@adobe.com to discuss it.