Monthly Archives: October 2018

Adobe Lightroom CC | October 2018

The last major update to Lightroom CC  was back in October 2017 (v 3.0). This latest update (v 4.0) includes several new features that customers have requested over the last 12 months.

So, what’s new in Lightroom CC | October 2018?

People View

(Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS)

People View allows you to quickly find and name people in your photos. It’s powered by Adobe Sensei. Using this machine learning technology from Adobe Lightroom CC automatically tags people in photos and provides you with an easy way to see all the photos the person appears in.

Adobe Sensei-powered People View in Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)

Improved Search

(Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS)

Searching has always been one of the stronger features in Lightroom CC. This is mainly due to the advanced server side technology (Adobe Sensei). Search suggestions are presented as you as soon as you start typing in the Search bar, recommending things like cameras, lenses, shutter speeds, apertures, ISOs, keywords, locations, and more.

Example of autocomplete suggestions when using Search in Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)

For example, you can type ‘car’ in the Search bar to quickly search for all photos that have cars in them. You can also search your photos using ‘facets’. With facet’s you type a name (e.g. ‘camera’) followed by a colon ‘:’ to display a list of camera models used. I’ve included a list of currently supported facets below:

  • keyword:
  • camera:
  • lens:
  • location:
  • rating:
  • flag:
  • flash:
  • orientation:
  • iso:
  • type:
  • f-stop:
  • ss:
  • edited:
  • media:

The Filter UI in Lightroom CC for the Desktop has also received some attention.

Improved ‘Filter’ organisation and layout Lightroom CC Desktop

Additional sharing options for Share to Web

Sharing photos has some useful improvements. For example, you can now choose to only share images that are flagged or have a particular star rating while also providing control over the display theme and appearance.

Display options when sharing collections on web in Lightroom CC for mobile

Guided Tutorials

New guided tutorials for First-Time Adjustments and Healing Brush have been added to iOS and the Android versions now has tutorials for First-Time Adjustments, Target Adjustment Tool, and Guided Upright. The new guided tutorials can be found under Help & Support in Lightroom CC for mobile. If you’re not sure what guided tutorials are or don’t use Lightroom CC on a mobile device, then below screenshot shows how they can be accessed in Lightroom CC (Desktop).

Guided Tutorials on Lightroom CC (Desktop)

HEVC file support on macOS

Lightroom CC now supports Apple’s HEVC video format (High Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265) on macOS High Sierra (10.13) or later.

For more information, see HEVC video files support.

Camera and Lens Support

A full list of cameras and lens profiles supported by Lightroom CC can be found at:

Adobe Lightroom Classic 8.0 | October 2018

Lightroom 8.0 is an unusual release in so far as it’s the first full update that doesn’t include many major new features. Furthermore, and unlike every previous full version update, it doesn’t  upgrade your catalog. So, rolling back to any version between 7.0 and 7.5 is relatively straightforward.

As implied above, new features and enhancements won’t jump out at you. In fact, some may be of little, if any use to a sizeable number of Lightroom users.

Depth Range Mask

OK, so here’s an example of a new feature that Adobe will make a big deal off, yet it’s only available to customers capturing photos with Apple iPhones such as the 7 plus, 8 plus, X and later when using portrait mode with the built-in camera. The files must also have been captured be using the HEIC file format.

How does it work?

Depth Range Mask works in a similar way to Luminance Range Mask (has range and smoothness sliders) present in local adjustments tools (i.e. brush, graduated filter and radial filter). However, instead of the selection being based on a range of Luminance values, it selects based on a range of depth values. You can also use the eye dropper tool to sample a point or an area.

The “Show Range Mask” checkbox allows you to view the depth map of the image in black and white representation as demonstrated in below example.

Image courtesy of Adobe Inc.

Red denotes the actual area masked which is an intersection of depth and local adjustment applied. A similar feature has also been added to Luminance Range Mask.

Single Step HDR Panorama Merge

The Single Step HDR Panorama feature will allow you to select a sequence of exposure brackets and merge them to an HDR Panorama in a single step.

Single-step HDR Panorama Merge

New Tether for Canon

With this version, Adobe have improved speed and stability when tethering supported Canon camera models. There are now two menu items for tethering:

  • Tethered Capture for Canon
  • Tethered Capture for Nikon & Other

You can also now select the shutter speed, aperture, ISO and white balance from the Tether control bar.

Over time we can expect to see similar enhancements being added for Nikon and other camera vendors.

A full list of cameras tether support in Lightroom Classic 8.0 can be found at Tethered Camera Support

Process Version Improvements

Lightroom Classic CC 8.0 includes a new Process Version (Process Version 5). Process Version 5 includes the following imaging updates:

  1. Improved Negative DehazeThis update improves the usability of the minus/left range (from 0) of the Dehaze slider, making it much more perceptually uniform, and providing a more useful range, especially for HDR images.
  2. Improvements to image quality behaviour for high ISO raw filesThe improvements manifest as reduced purple/magenta color cast in the shadows, and improved shadow detail.

Video and Slideshow Library

Adobe have updated have the Video library for Lightroom Classic 8.0. This will impact any workflow related to Videos and all of Slideshow module. In addition, AVI movie files are no longer supported on macOS.

HEVC file support (macOS)

Beginning with this release, Lightroom Classic supports Apple’s HEVC video format (High Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265) on macOS High Sierra v10.13 or later.

For further information, see HEIC and HEVC media files support in Lightroom and Camera Raw.

Updated System Requirements

With version 8.0 Adobe has also updated the system requirements. For some customers these new requirements may present a problem, but Adobe need to make these changes now to facilitate future plans and to avoid issues resulting from Apple and Microsoft deprecating APIs

  • macOS 10.14 Mojave is officially supported in this release.
  • If you use Windows 10, you’ll need version 1703 or later.

Auto Update

As with all of today’s Creative Cloud updates, Adobe has introduced a new Auto-update feature. Therefore, your Creative Cloud apps are now automatically upgraded whenever a new version is available. For Lightroom Classic, you cannot have two versions of the app running simultaneously on your computer. Your existing app preferences and settings are migrated to the latest version. However, you can manage the update preferences using the Creative Cloud desktop app as described in Manage auto-update for individual apps

Support for new cameras and lenses

For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles, see these resources: