Monthly Archives: March 2021

Lightroom Classic & Lightroom Desktop | March 2021

The latest updates Lightroom Classic (10.2) and the Lightroom Desktop (4,2) were released to customers today (15 March). These updates are primarily to provide new camera, tethering, and lens support along with bug fixes. There are also some performance tweaks that should benefit macOS customers. More details are provided below.

Additional Camera Tethering Support (Lr Classic)

Camera tethering support has been expanded to include additional Canon cameras, which includes the EOS R5 and R6.  Additionally, the EOS R5 and R6 benefit from the  ‘Live View’ feature first seen in version 10. This feature is particularly useful for studio portraiture and product photography.

Live View Tethering with Canon EOS R5

When Live View is on, you will also see Focus control buttons, including Auto- Focus  button in the Tether bar. However, the focus controls are enabled only if the lens is in Auto Focus mode.

For Nikon customers, Adobe has also included beta support for tethering, albeit not yet for the Z-series cameras.

More details on Tethered Capture and Live View can be found here.

Library – Performance

macOS users who have been experiencing significant performance issues in the Library module since Lr Classic 10 was first introduced will be pleased to read that the issues have been fixed. The Library leverages the GPU for drawing of Images, which should help in optimising the Grid, Loupe, Survey and Compare views in Library along with Filmstrip. Therefore, you should experience better performance in in the following on both the main and secondary monitors.

  • Improved / smoother Grid scrolling with trackpad scrolling or mouse scrolling as inputs
  • Faster walking in Library Loupe view
  • Faster walking in Compare view

Note that above performance improvements should also be noticeable when using 4K and 5K monitors.

Develop – Walk Performance

The Develop module Walk behaviour on macOS systems has been improved to help with faster navigation through Images in filmstrip.

Additionally, image rendering for Navigator and Detail panel views in Develop has been improved.

Batch Edit Performance

This version also sees some optimisation the of batch edit operations. Improvements in the batch edit operations can be seen in the following workflows:

  • Copy Paste Settings
  • Sync Settings
  • Quick Develop
  • Auto Sync

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

Bug Fixes

Lightroom Classic bug fixes listed here

Lightroom Desktop bug fixes listed here

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

Camera Raw | March 2021

The latest update to Camera Raw, was released to customers today (9 March). This update is primarily to provide new camera and lens support plus bug fixes. However, Camera Raw 13.2 also includes new features and enhancements. One of which  will be of particular benefit to customers with images captured on low Mega Pixel cameras or require significant cropping.

New Features and Enhancements

  • Enhance Super Resolution: doubles image resolution. It’s ideal for large displays and prints. It’s also the second feature in the ‘Enhance’ family, which makes use of Adobe’s Machine Learning technologies.
  • Filter and Sort the Filmstrip: Added ability to filter and sort photos visible in the Filmstrip.
  • Customise Edit panel: Hide, show and reorder Edit panel.
  • Apple ProRaw Profile: Apple ProRaw photos appear closer to the in-camera look.
  • Native support for Arm processors.

Enhance Super Resolution

Super Resolution relies on Machine Learning technologies developed by Adobe. In developing the algorithms, millions of existing images were analysed. The result is feature that allows you to double the size of existing raw images to a much higher quality than previous upscaling tools in Photoshop, Camera Raw or Lightroom. It’s particularly useful for upsizing raw images captured on older DSLRs that were limited to 12MP and lower. However, it’s equally useful for upsizing heavily cropped raw images from more recent DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras.

To use the ‘Enhance Super Resolution’ feature in Camera Raw you right-mouse-click on the image to open the context menu, then choose ‘Enhance’

The Enhance setting dialog will open. Next make sure that you have ‘Super Resolution’ checked. There is also a headless option, which is activated by holding down the Option/Alt key when right-mouse-clicking on ‘Enhance’. Also, note that Enhance Details is automatically applied.

Like ‘Enhanced Details’, Super Resolution uses the GPU in your computer to undertake millions of highly complex calculations for each image. More details on the ‘Super Resolution’ feature can be found in the blog post by Eric Chan

Apple ProRaw

Apple ProRAW combines the information of a standard RAW format along with iPhone image processing, which gives you more flexibility when editing the exposure, colour and white balance in your photo. Unfortunately, until this latest release of Camera Raw it wasn’t possible for Adobe applications to make full use of the format. However, Apple ProRaw images can now imported into Camera Raw using the ProRaw Profile, and will also appear closer to their in-camera look.

Apple M1 and Windows ARM support

Camera Raw 13.2 is natively compatible with Apple devices with M1 processors and Windows machines with ARM processors.

  • Details of Camera Raw bUg Fixes can be found here
  • New camera support can be found here

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