Adobe  ‘Max 2025’ sees the release of Camera Raw 18, Lightroom Classic 15, Lightroom Desktop 9 along with updates to Lightroom Mobile and Web.

Main features in the desktop applications include:

Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Desktop

• (31) New Cameras
• (28) New Lenses
• Distraction Removal – Dust
• Color Variance
• Masking (Landscape: Snow)
• Adaptive Presets (Landscape (8) presets, seasonally tuned)
• HDR Headroom Slider

Lightroom Classic & Lightroom Desktop

• Assisted Culling (EA)
• Auto Stacking

Lightroom Classic

• Zoom while Cropping
• Filter by Likes and Comments

Lightroom Desktop

• Color Labels
• Batch File Renaming
• Subfolders in Local

Distraction Removal [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

You can now automatically remove dust spots from your photos. The Dust option can be found in the Remove panel in the Distraction Removal section.

To use, simply apply checkmark to ‘Apply’ and the AI dust analysis will commence. If no dust is found, then the checkmark will be cleared and a note indicating that no dust could be found is displayed. ‘Visualise Spots’ is also supported, although it’s of limited use.

Color Variance [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

The ‘Color Variance’ tool is used to decrease or increase the color variance within the selected range. It’s available in both Global and Local Point Color.

Color Variance is partricularly useful for balancing out skin tones (by decreasing variance) or enhancing color-based contrast in landscapes (e.g polarised skies).

Masking (Landscape: Snow) [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

A new category ‘Snow’ has been added to the Landscape mask. Additionally,  the models have been updated to provide better results for Landscape features.

Adaptive Presets [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

A new ‘Adaptive Preset Group’: Adaptive: Landscape with following Landscape Masks based presets:

• Spring01
• Spring02
• Summer01
• Summer02
• Autumn01
• Autumn02
• Winter01
• Winter02

These presets use the Landscape mask to create individual masks for each of the seven mask landscape components currently available. In above example, only two masks were created (i.e. Vegetation and Water), the others (Sky, Mountains, Architecture, Artificial Ground and Natural Ground) are empty. This is  because none were found when the image was analysed. Empty masks can be deleted later if you wish to keep the mask stack tidy.

HDR Headroom Slider [Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

An ‘HDR Limit’ slider which supports value from 1.0 to 8.0 has been added. The default value being 2.3. The upper part of the slider range indicates outside of (i.e. beyond) the Current Display Headroom, and is tinted red so that it is easily identifiable. This value is dynamically based on screen brightness, ambient light, etc. Shift+Double-Clicking the slider knob or the label will set its value to ‘Current Display Headroom’. In below example, the slider range is shown as red from 3.7 and higher. This indicates that the display has 3.7 stops of headroom when HDR mode is enabled.

Assisted Culling & Auto Stacking (EA) [Lightroom Classic & Desktop]

‘Assisted Culling’ is the headline feature of Lightroom Classic 15 and Desktop 9. However, unlike previously offered AI-assisted technologies, which are edit-oriented, Assisted Culling is designed to leverage AI in the organisation, rating, and retention of your images either at import or any time afterwards.

• Adobe have provided this helpful document to get you started with  Assisted Culling
• A video demonstrating Assisted Culling

In below screenshots, I’ve shown examples of how Assisted Culling appears in the Import and Library modules, respectively.

The ‘Assisted Culling’ and ‘Culling Scores’ panels in both modules are very similar, albeit they’re split between left and right side panels within the Import module. The attributes that Assisted Culling checks are:

• Subject Focus: This option chooses images with the subject in focus. Dragging the slider left and right sets the selection value with 50 being the default. 
• Eye Focus: This option chooses images with the eyes in focus. Dragging the slider left and right sets the selection value with 50 being the default.
  • Reject photos without people’s eyes: You select the checkbox to reject images that don’t have human eyes.
• Eyes Open: This option chooses images with open eyes. 
  • Reject photos without people’s eyes: You select the checkbox to reject images that don’t have human eyes.

I’ve included two screenshots below showing the Assisted Culling and Culling Score panels in the Library module. In these examples, the sliders for focus are at their default values (i.e. 50). The screenshot on the left shows that the ‘Subject’ and ‘Eyes’ are both in focus whereas the screenshot on the right shows that the eyes in an otherwise in focus image, are out of focus (i.e. score of 49).

Using the screenshot on the right. With a score of less than 50, this image will be flagged for rejection. However, if you’re satisfied that the eyes are sufficiently sharp, then moving the Eye Focus slider to the left will cause the flag to change to select. Other images with a similar Eye Focus score will also now be flagged as Selects. So, be careful to check that you haven’t selected images that have out of focus eyes.

The bottom section of the Assisted Culling panel includes buttons for filtering the images into ‘All’, ‘Rejects’ or ‘Selects’.

There is also button to expose the three ‘Stacking’ options (i.e. ‘Automatic by Capture Time’, ‘Automatic by Visual Similarity’ and Time plus Similarity combined).

Automatic by Capture Time is largely unchanged from previous versions. However, Automatic by Visual Similarity is new to both Lightroom Classic & Desktop. With Visual Similarity, the image assessed as being best is automatically placed at the top of the stack. Fortunately, this can be overridden by the user. Both stacking options can be used independently of Assisted Culling, which should be welcomed by users who choose to not use the culling feature.

The last button opens a panel in which you can select from a range of ‘Batch Actions’.

It’s important to note that this initial release is designated as ‘Early Access’. As such, the AI models currently used are intended primarily for portrait and headshot images. That’s not to say that Assisted Culling doesn’t work with non portrait photos, just that the models tend to be less able to determine whether a non portrait image in focus or not. For example, the models struggle with landscape images where there is no obvious subject or the subject is intentionally soft (e.g slow exposure waterfalls). In other instances, there may be no obvious reason why two near identical images end up with widely differing culling scores. In such cases, you may find yourself having to manually check the images for focus.

Zoom while Cropping [Lightroom Classic]

The ability to zoom into the image while using the Crop tool has been added. This is a long requested feature, and its inclusion should be widely applauded. Use the ‘Z’ key to zoom into cropped image. No doubt some will complain because the Spacebar doesn’t zoom.

Other improvements to the Crop tool include: overall experience should be smoother while cropping (crop angle rotation and crop boundaries ), especially with Soft proofing enabled. Also, image rendering should now be quicker when editing in crop view. These improvements are most noticeable on images with heavy edits.

Color Labels [Lightroom Desktop]

Support for Color Labels, which includes Import/Export, is now available in Lightroom Desktop,

• Searching, Filtering, and Sync.
• Color Labels are now supported in Smart Albums
• Color Labels edited outside of LrD should render correctly,
• Cloud now supports Color Labels, and you should see them syncing properly among supported clients.

The compatibility with other apps varies as summarised below:

• Older (released) versions of LrC – partial compatibility. With the default mapping in LrC, files saved in LrC will be read by LrD. But after LrD modifies a color label in an image, and then LrC overwrites it again, LrD will not read back LrC’s update.
• Newer builds of LrC – With the default mapping in LrC, files should be able to go back and forth between LrD & LrC without issue.

Batch File Renaming [Lightroom Desktop]

The inablity to batch rename files in Lightroom Desktop has frustrated users from the very first version. Finally, we have it, albeit nothing special. The highlights are:

• Single and Batch File renaming in Cloud and Local
• ‘Undo’ support for single file rename
• Support for custom renaming templates with ‘loads of tokens’ (non-syncing)

Subfolders in Local Mode [Lightroom Desktop]

Local mode now has a toggle to see images in subfolders from a top-level folder. While it’s a welcome addition, Grid population is slooooow.

New Camera Support [All Clients]

New Lens Correction Support [All Clients]

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

New Tethered Camera Support [Lightroom Classic]

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