Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop | April 2023

The latest updates to Camera Raw (15.3), Lightroom Classic (12.3) and Lightroom Desktop (6.3) have been released to customers. These updates include new camera and lens support along with bug fixes. There is one major new feature along with other minor features and enhancements that I’ll discuss below.

AI-powered Denoise [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

With these latest updates, Adobe is introducing AI-powered Denoise!

Using artificial intelligence, Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop can now remove noise from your photos. Better still, the noise is removed whilst preserving fine detail, far more effectively than the legacy noise reduction controls.

At present, Denoise will only work with Bayer and X-trans raw files. It won’t work on files such as JPEG, HEIC, ProRAW, sRaw, etc. However, Adobe plan to expand support for other file types in future versions.

Lightroom Classic Denoise

Denoise Workflow and File Management

The process of denoising your photos is very simple.

First, Adobe recommend that photos are denoised before editing, especially healing and masking as they can be affected by noise. Edits such as Highlights, Shadows, Dehaze and Clarity can also look different in denoised photos.

Denoise can be accessed via Photo > Enhance menu, or via the ‘Denoise…’ button in the Detail panel (see above screenshot).

Adobe Denoise analyses each photo dynamically to find the optimum range, but the default ‘Amount’ value (50) is always halfway between least and full denoising. In other words, the meaning of ‘full denoising’ varies with the photo, based on the analysis.

In the Enhance dialog, you can press-and-hold anywhere within the preview image to see the photo without Denoise applied. This provides a simple way to make before/after comparisons, especially when fine-tuning the Amount setting.

As with previous Enhance features, any adjustments you may already have made to the original photo will automatically be carried over to the enhanced DNG, although denoising first is recommended for the reasons mentioned above. Any legacy luminance or colour noise adjustments are ignored, and set to zero in the new DNG file. You can edit the new DNG file just like any other raw photo, apply your favourite presets, etc.

The zoom level used in the Enhance Preview panel is 200%, which is a tad high for normal resolution displays but is fine for 4K and higher.

The Denoise process produces a new derivative DNG file with ‘Enhanced-NR’ appended to the filename. Making the result of Denoise into a DNG has all the advantages that normal raw files do, and is similar to other features that produce a DNG. These include, Merge to Panorama and Merge to HDR. However, in the case of Denoise, like the other Enhance features, the resulting DNG also contains a copy of the original mosaic data, so nothing is lost. That being said, Denoise can’t yet be applied on an already enhanced image (Super Resolution or Denoised).

To make the task of finding files that have had ‘Denoise’ applied, the engineering team have provided an option to automatically add keywords to ‘Enhanced’ images. This option can be found under File Handling tab in Preferences dialog as shown in screenshot below.

The new keyword is added to each file based on the enhance workflow you have selected.

  • Raw Details
  • Super Resolution
  • Denoise

A new badge    has also be added to Grid thumbnail and filmstrip. Apparently, the keywords and badges are to make Denoised file easier to find. Personally, I think the engineering time would have been more usefully spent in providing a ‘filter’.

No doubt, there will be numerous comparisons between Adobe Denoise and third party offerings such as those from DxO and Topaz. Each will have areas where they perform well and others where they perform less well. By way of example, some of the third party products may excel at removing all traces of noise without human intervention whereas Adobe’s Denoise at it’s default setting of 50 tends to leave a little residual noise. However, this should not be seen a shortcoming, especially since a small movement of the Amount slider is all that’s needed to remove the noise. Another example, Some 3rd party applications apply global sharpening whilst Adobe Denoise does not. Personally, I prefer to have some control over the amount of noise reduction and sharpening applied to photos, but other users prefer that the process be a single click.

A comprehensive explanation of Denoise written by Eric Chan from the Camera Raw team can be found here.

Masking

Masking continues to be improved with new tools and UI tweaks. I’ve highlighted some of the new features and UI tweaks below.

Curves [Lightroom Classic and Desktop]

A ‘Curves’ panel has been added to to Masks in Lightroom Classic and Desktop. This brings both versions of Lightroom into line with Camera Raw.

Other Curve enhancements include:

  • Indicators (dots) have also added to Tone Curve and Masking Curves panel to indicate if that Curve has active settings. See above screenshot.
  • Support has also been added for Renaming and Deleting Curve Presets through the UI. The option is only available for User Created Presets.
  • The Histogram shown in local curve will be displayed for the selected mask, and not of the entire image. See above screenshot.

Select People [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop]

Two new attributes for the People mask.

  • Facial Hair
  • Clothes

Also, the People mask attribute ‘Face Skin is now renamed to ‘Facial Skin’.

History Step [Lightroom Classic]

The Mask Name would now be added to History step when its settings, like Exposure, Contrast, etc., are changed.

Adaptive Presets [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop]

The Portrait Group of ‘Adaptive’ Presets has been expanded to include

  • Polished Portrait
  • Darken Beard

Library Enhancements [Lightroom Classic]

The Lightroom Classic engineering team have spent some time working to improve Scrolling and Walk Performance. However, at this time these improvements are limited to macOS systems.

For example, many Library module views now leverage native macOS capabilities for drawing/rendering of Images. This should help in optimising overall scrolling performance.

With these changes, you should experience better performance in the following views in macOS.

  • Improved / smoother Publish Grid scrolling and People View Scrolling.
  • Improved/ smoother scrolling experience in Import Grid , Import Loupe.
  • Faster walking in Full Screen.

Other Performance tweaks have been implemented as follows:

  • Keywords – optimised ‘Purge Unused Keywords’ workflow.
  • Map – the embedded browser framework that is used to render web content Classic in Map and Web modules has been updated.

UI Enhancements [Lightroom Classic]

Eyeball icons & Edit indicators

  • Eyeball icons replace the ‘switches’ and are now visible by default for all Edit panels and Healing, Redeye, and Masking tools. They can be clicked and held to temporarily hide settings of that panel. However, should you wish to switch a panel off, then press and hold Option/Alt key to convert Eyeball icons to  a Panel Switch.
  • Edit Indicators are also available in the toolbar. For the Global Panels, Eyeball icons also act as edit indicators.

Edit in Photoshop > Select Photoshop Version

Lightroom Classic now includes an option to select Photoshop version from all the different Photoshop versions installed on your system for your ‘Edit in Photoshop’ workflows. You can select the preferred Photoshop version from ‘Photoshop version’ dropdown in Preference > External Editing tab > Edit in Adobe Photoshop section. By default, latest version of Photoshop installed is selected. Once the Photoshop version is selected, it can be used for all the Edit-In Photoshop workflows.

Open as Smart Object Layers in Photoshop

A new option  has been added to open selected images as Smart Object Layers in Photoshop.

Feature Enhancements [Lightroom Desktop]

In addition to the headline feature mentioned above, Lightroom Desktop receives the following enhancements.

  • Video Improvements (Auto – B&W – Extract frame – Export frame – Trimming improvements (Timeline, Numeric in Crop))
  • Batch Editing -Already have it, just more discoverable -Copy -Paste -X to clear current settings -Gear to specify what gets copied
  • Resize Filmstrip
  • Preference to turn off Tool Tips
  • Performance Improvements: Crop, Scrolling, Pan and Zoom
  • [Beta] Content Authenticity feature via Export (opt in) -File or Cloud – Credentials to include -Verification site – https://verify.contentauthenticity.or -See list of creators, tools, what was done -See original (See original and edit side).

New Camera Support

Details of new camera support added since the last release can be found here

New Lens Correction Support

Details of new lens support added since the last release can be found here

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.

Rocky Mountain Gold 2022

 I’ve uploaded a gallery of images from a photo tour to the US in September and October 2022. The trip had originally been planned for 2020, but due to the COVID-19 Pandemic travel was too risky. So, 2022 it was, and six of us headed to the US in the hope of capturing the fall colours in the national and state parks bordering the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

Steam Vents, Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park

The trip was to follow a similar to a route that I’d travelled back in 2011, although we spent most of our time in Yellowstone National and Grand Teton National park.

Schwabacher Landing, Grand Teton National Park

Other stops along the way included the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Maroon Bells National Recreation Area near Aspen, Red Mountain Pass, the Million Dollar Highway, the Silverton and Durango Railroad, Chimney Rock, the Cumbres & Toltec Steam Railroad (Chama, New Mexico), and the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Sheep Creek Overlook, Flaming Gorge, Utah

Mt Sneffels, Colorado

The weather and fall colours were in our favour throughout the trip and many pleasing images were captured.  The full gallery of images from the trip can be viewed here.

 

Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop | February 2023

  The latest updates to Camera Raw (15.2), Lightroom Classic (12.2) and Lightroom Desktop (6.2) have been released to customers. These updates include new camera and lens support along with bug fixes. There are also a few relatively minor features additions in Lightroom Classic that I’ll discuss below.

Develop History [Lightroom Classic]

As supplement to the History context menu a new KBSC has been added to remove history steps. Holding Alt/Option key and clicking on a history step clears all other history steps above it.

Remove History Steps

Keywords [Lightroom Classic]

A new menu option to export Keywords along with the keyword tag options, like – Person, Include on Export, etc.

When this new menu option is selected, LrC will create a ‘.csv‘ file when exporting the keywords.

The following keyword related operations have also been optimised:

  • Keywords Addition
  • Keywords Deletion
  • Keyword Filtering
  • Keywords Export

Sync for Adobe Cloud [Lightroom Classic]

Syncing of files from the Adobe Cloud has received some optimisations. This work should address the long standing issue of sync stalling during the synchronisation process.

Tethered Capture [Lightroom Classic]

When macOS Ventura 13.x was released by Apple it broke tethered capture for users of Canon and Nikon cameras. For Canon users, the issue was fixed in LrC 12.1. Adobe have now fixed the issue of Nikon cameras not getting detected for tethered capture

Map module [Lightroom Classic]

A new option ‘Show more labels’ to show more or less labels on Map view is now available in the Map module toolbar.

By default, LrC will show the ‘Less Labels’ option to ensure that the map doesn’t become overly cluttered.

The ‘Set Time Zone Offset…’ has been renamed as ‘Set Tracklog Time Offset…’ for Tracklog in LrC 12.2 Map module.

Support has also added for minutes in the Tracklog Time Offset dialog. Now, you can enter the time offset in HH:mm format, which is very helpful for location that use timezone offsets less than one hour (e.g. India and Nepal).

 

New Camera Support

Details of new camera support added since the last release can be found here

New Lens Correction Support

Details of new lens support added since the last release can be found here

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.

Lightroom Over The Years

I was doing a bit of housekeeping on my web site recently and came across the reviews I’d written for the original Lightroom Public beta dating back to January 2006. Further digging around turned up reviews for all the versions since. So, for a bit of reminiscing and to make them easier to find, I’ll provide a link to each of the Public Beta’s and major versions below.

A public beta was a significant break in tradition for Adobe in that it was the first time that the company publicly showed a product to potential customers in an unfinished state. Nevertheless, giving customers access to Lightroom at such an early stage in its development worked well and generated such enthusiasm amongst customers that Adobe would later adopt the idea for products such as Photoshop.

So, how much has changed in the intervening 17 years? Well, a good place to start a comparison would be the User Interface.

Library Module – Lightroom Public Beta 1, January 2006

Library Module – Lightroom Classic 12, January 2023

On the face of it, the basic principles and modular layout are broadly similar in appearance. However, the feature set in 2023 far exceeds the customer expectations of 2006. To see what else has changed or been improved upon since see my reviews at below links.

Lightroom Public Beta 1 – January 2006

Lightroom Public Beta 3

Lightroom Public Beta 3 for Windows – Up to this point Lightroom was only available on the Mac Platform.

Lightroom Public Beta 4 – the public aspect of the beta programme finished at this point, but Adobe now started to implement much of the feedback they’d received during the public beta phase.

Lightroom 1.0 – No review but reason explained in 1.1 Update below

Lightroom 1.1 Update

Lightroom 1.3 Update

Lightroom 2

Lightroom 3

Lightroom 4

Lightroom 5

Lightroom 6 (aka CC 2015) – the version where Adobe decided it was time to confuse customers with a new name and fist introduction of subscription.

Lightroom Classic CC – another new name to confuse customers. This is also first of the annual updates also marked the beginning of reduction in number of new features.

Lightroom Classic 8

Lightroom Classic 9

Lightroom Classic 10

Lightroom Classic 11

Lightroom Classic 12

Camera Support in Lightroom Classic

Details of new camera support added since the last release can be found here

Lens Correction Support in Lightroom Classic

Details of new lens support added since the last release can be found here

Disclosure: As an Adobe Community Expert I receive a free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.