Lightroom CC 2015.4 and Lightroom 6.4 are now available on Adobe.com.  The goal of this release is to provide additional camera raw support, lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous releases.

 

In addition to new camera and lens support, this release also includes a new Boundary Warp feature, albeit only for Creative Cloud subscribers.

Boundary Warp

Anyone who has used Photoshop or Lightroom to create panoramas will be familiar with the white non-rectangular boundaries. There are several ways to handle these irregular boundaries; the most common of which is to switch Auto Crop on or apply a rectangular crop. This method is straightforward, but important image details near the edge of the image may be lost due to cropping. An alternative approach is to use Content Aware Fill (in Photoshop) to fill in the transparent areas outside the boundary. While this can be effective with some images it’s very often not appropriate for others. For images where Content Aware Fill can be used it may require multiple attempts to obtain a satisfying (smooth, artifact-free) result. It can also be expensive in terms of processing power, and requires rendering out the panorama to an output-referred (non-raw) format. Boundary Warp is a feature that provides another approach to handling the irregular boundary of panoramas. The feature analyses the boundary and warps the image so that its edges fit a rectangular frame.  Here’s a  Before and After example of the feature in action in Lightroom.

Bugs fixed in Lightroom 6.4

Fixed Bugs

• Auto Sync of some settings failed when using smart previewsLightroom would ignore model-specific custom default settings for some cameras, including some Leica and Sony models.
• Crop resets to image bounds when adjusting rotation via slider
• In Lights Out mode, an image would “disappear” if a customer uses the Undo functionality
• SIGMA 50mm f1.4 ART lens was incorrectly identified as Zeiss Milvus 50mm f1.4
• Soft Proofing RGB readout values differed for same file between 5.7.1 and 6.x
• Import from iPhoto would result in all photos receiving a “pick” flag
• Comments from Lightroom web come in to Lightroom on the desktop as already “read.”
• Lightroom would not display the correct EXIF metadata for some video files generated by Canon, Fuji and Panasonic cameras
• Vertical panoramas created using Merge could appear with the wrong orientation
• The video cache did not respect the maximum size specified in the preferences
• Customers experienced issues importing video files in some scenarios
• Tethering Nikon cameras on Mac OS X 10.11(El Capitan) did not work properly

 

New Camera Support in Lightroom 6.4 and Camera Raw 9.4

• Fujifilm X70
• Fujifilm X-E2S
• Fujifilm X-Pro2
• Leica M (Typ 262)
• Leica X-U (Typ 113)
• Panasonic DMC-ZS60 (DMC-TZ80, DMC-TZ81, DMC-TZ85)
• Phase One IQ150
• Sony ILCA-68 (A68)

Additional Updates in Camera Raw 9.4

• Nikon 1 J4 Camera matching profile support added
• The panorama merging process should complete roughly twice as fast as ACR 6.3
• Improved quality when applying Auto Straighten and Upright “Level” mode.
• Metadata is added to merged panoramas to support Photoshop’s Adaptive Wide Angle filter
• DNG Converter 9.4 now supports HiDPI displays on Mac

 

Bugs Fixed in Camera Raw 9.4

Fixed Bugs and Other Changes:

• Fixed issue where vertical panoramas created using Merge could appear with the wrong orientation.
• Addressed a bug that would ignore model-specific custom default settings for some cameras, including some Leica and Sony models.
• Corrected occasional crash using Crop tool after a Merge operation completed.
• Fixed an issue where state of HSL controls would be rendered incorrectly in GPU mode when applying Contrast or Saturation local control adjustments.
• Addressed the issue of the SIGMA 50mm f1.4 ART lens incorrectly identified as Zeiss Milvus 50mm f1.4.

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