Category Archives: Color Labels

Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic & Desktop | October 2025

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.

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]

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

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

Adobe Lightroom Classic 9.0 | November 2019

Lightroom 9.0 was released in early November and while it doesn’t include many major new features, the few that are present have been on customers ‘ask list’ for a lengthy period. Also, and unlike version 8.0 this new version will upgrade your catalog.

 

Fill Edges

The new Fill Edges feature uses Content-Aware technology to automatically fill the blank edges of your panoramic photos. The feature is available in both Panorama Merge Preview/HDR Panorama Merge Preview dialog.

Panorama Merge – Fill Edges

Fill Edges – Before and After

More details on Panorama Merge in general can be found in this link to an Adobe online tutorial – Create Panoramas and HDR Panoramas

Multi-batch Export

With Multi-batch Export you can perform multiple exports jobs in parallel were each job has it’s own specific combinations of export settings (e.g. resize, rename sharpening, etc.)

  • You can Export with Multiple Presets by selecting the checkboxes in Export Dialog, i.e. multiple exports in single export session.
  • You can select export presets exporting to Hard-Drive for multiple exports in single export session.
  • Export with Multiple Presets is also supported for Export with Previous.
  • Even checking a single preset in Export dialog will work as Export with Multiple Presets. Selecting a preset (highlighting) works as it did in earlier versions.

Batch-export multiple photos

Filter Folders and Collections based on Colour Label

You can now filter your folders, collections, collection sets, and smart collections based on the colour label assigned to them. The procedure is:

  1. In the search bar of at the top of the Folders or Collections panel, click the search button (magnifier)
  2. Choose Color Labels for the drop-down menu and select the colour you want to filter on.

Folder Panel – Filter folders using colour label

Export develop presets and preset groups

Starting with this release, you can now export a custom preset or a custom preset group from Lightroom Classic. 

  1. Navigate to the Develop module.
  2. In the Presets panel, select the preset or preset group that you want to export.
  3. Do one of the following:
    • Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (macOS) the preset and choose Export.
    • Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (macOS) the preset group and choose Export Group.
  4. Specify the file name and click Save.

Export Preset or Group of Presets

Other Changes and Enhancements

Crop

With GPU acceleration enabled, the post-crop vignette effect will be live previewed while cropping.

Clear history above selected step

With this release, there is an option to clear the history above the selected step in the History panel. To clear history above a particular step, do the following:

  1. Select the step in the History panel above which you want to clear the history.
  2. Right-click (Win) or Control-click (macOS) the selected step and select Clear History Above This Step.

Process Version

With Lightroom Classic 9.0, when you perform any edit on an image with an older Process Version (3 or 4), its process version will be updated to Process Version 5 (current) automatically.

Remove Photos

With this release, you can remove multiple selected images in Loupe view in Library/Develop module using SHIFT + DELETE.

Keyword performance improvements

With this release, you should see improved performance with Keyword List and Keywording panel, specially at launch and when selecting multiple images.

System Requirements

macOS

macOS Sierra (10.12.x) is no longer supported. The minimum macOS version supported is now macOS High Sierra (10.13.0).

  • You will not be able to install Lightroom Classic 9.0 or later builds on macOS Sierra (10.12.x).
  • If you are using macOS Sierra (10.12.x), Adiobe recommend that you update your OS to at least macOS High Sierra.

Windows 10

  • Windows 10 v1703 and v1709 are no longer supported. The minimum Windows 10 version supported is now Windows 10 v1607 or v1803 (or later).
  • You will not be able to install Lightroom Classic 9.0 or later builds on Windows 10 v1703 and v1709.
  • If you are using Windows 10 v1703 or v1709, Adobe recommend that you update your OS to at least Windows v1803.

Support for New Cameras & Lenses

For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles for Lightroom desktop and Lightroom for mobile (iOS and Android), see these resources:

Adobe Lightroom Classic 8.4 & Camera Raw 11.4 | August 2019

The latest updates Adobe Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw were released to customers on  13 August. These updates focus on performance, workflow, support for new camera and lenses, and bug fixes.

The headline feature in this update to Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw is Graphics Processor Accelerated Editing. In particular, the ability to take greater advantage of features built into today’s more advanced graphics cards (GPUs) while editing your photos. Other new features to be found in Lightroom Classic 8.4 are: support for PNG export, colour labels in collections, batch merge of stacks for HDR, Panoramas and HDR Panoramas

Adobe Camera Raw 11.4

GPU Accelerated Editing

Adobe are advising customers that GPU support now includes the ability to improve interactive performance while processing photos. Hmm, I seem to recall reading something similar with Lightroom 6 then again with Lightroom 7. So, what’s new?

In previous versions, the GPU was used to accelerate the drawing or ‘display’ of pixels processed by the CPU, although many users felt that it fell short of doing so. With Lightroom Classic 8.4/ Camera Raw 11.4 the ‘image’ processing has been to the GPU Compute shaders. This means that the raw photo ‘processing pipe‘ has been ported to the GPU. As such, most of the image adjustments (e.g. Exposure, Contrast, White Balance, Clarity, Dehaze, etc ) can now be computed by the GPU rather than the CPU.

Typically, when ‘full’ acceleration is enabled you will notice that the adjustment sliders in Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw are smoother and more responsive. Additionally, the affects of ‘full’ acceleration will be more  pronounced when using higher resolution displays (i.e. 4k and above).

Update – 14 August 2019

A number of recent messages to Adobes Lightroom Classic User forum have confirmed that eGPUs are supported on the Mac platform, To enable  ‘Full GPU Acceleration’ the monitor needs to be connected to a Thunderbolt 3 port on the eGPU and the OS update to macOS Mojave 10.14.6, although earlier versions of Mojave might also work.

On Windows platform it’s important that the computer is running Windows 10 and that DirectX 12 is operational. Users should also ensure that they’re using the latest GPU driver, especially if its an nVidia card. 

The feature is enabled from within the Preferences dialog under the Performance tab in both Lightroom Classic and with Camera Raw.

When you access the Performance tab, you’ll immediately notice that the Graphic Processor segment now includes 3 dropdown options:

  1. Auto
  2. Custom
  3. Off

With ‘Auto’

Both Lightroom Classic 8.4 and Camera Raw 11.4 check the capabilities of the GPU upon first launch. If the GPU fails the test for any reason then GPU support will be set to Off.

Assuming your graphics card passes the test, is supported (i.e. not on the Adobe GPU Black List) and the operating system meets the minimum requirements, then ‘Auto’ will be enabled. However, the dialog may indicate that only ‘Basic’ acceleration is enabled. This is demonstrated in below screenshot from Camera Raw 11.4.

Camera Raw 11.4 – Performance Tab

This may be due to a number of reasons, but the most common are: the GPU has not been internally tested by Adobe engineers or the photos are ‘Process Version 4’ or earlier, but don’t despair just yet ‘Custom’ might yet come to the rescue.

With the ‘Custom’ option, you can select between the following options:

  1. Use GPU for display visualisation, which is same as GPU acceleration ‘ON as in earlier versions of Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw.
  2. Use GPU for image processing.

If you have ‘Use Graphics Processor set to ‘Auto’ and the text under the GPU name indicates ‘Your system automatically supports basic acceleration’ then, follow the following steps to enable Full Acceleration:

  1. Preferences > Performance Tab
  2. Select ‘Custom’ from ‘Use Graphics Processor’
  3. Check ‘Use GPU for image processing’ checkbox.

If your GPU supports full image processing, then the text under the GPU name will indicate ‘Full graphics acceleration is enabled’. This is demonstrated in below screenshot from Lightroom Classic 8.4

Lightroom Class – Performance Tab

If the text indicates that your GPU doesn’t support ‘full’ graphics acceleration, then at least you can still take advantage of  basic acceleration.

More information on GPU support in Lightroom Classic can be found at GPU Troubleshooting and FAQ

Colour Labels for Collections

Support for colour labels in folders was first introduced June 2018. With version 8.4 colour labels have been added to Collections, Smart Collections and Collection Sets.

Lightroom Classic 8.4 – Coloured Labels for Collections

  • To apply a Colour Label to a Collection, a Smart Collection, or a Collection Set, a new option has been added in the context menu as ‘Add Colour Label’.

Add Coloured Labels to Collection

  • To remove a colour label, select ‘None’ from the ‘Add Colour Label’ option.
  • Colour Labels now can also be added to Published Collections and collections inside Publish Services.
  • You can can also filter the Labeled Collections in the same way as Labeled Folders.

Filter Coloured Labels in Collection

Photo Merge – Support for merging multiple stacks

Photo merge now supports merging multiple selected stacks.

When you select multiple stacks for a merge operation (HDR/Pano/HDR-Pano), each stack will be merged individually with the selected merge operation. For example, if one selects 10 stacks for HDR merge operation, Lightroom Classic will initiate 10 HDR merge operations – one for each stack.

Photo Merge Multiple Stacks

Note:

  •  The same merge operation will be performed on all the stacks.
  • No preview will be shown if more than one stack is detected. Previous settings will be used as in case of a headless merge.
  • Non-stacked images will be ignored if stacks are detected in input images

Other Enhancements

Folder Enumeration Performance Improvements

With this build, Adobe have worked on the improving time taken for folder enumeration when Lightroom Classic is launched. This particular performance improvement depends on complexity of folder structure, but in most cases users should see a very obvious reduction in time taken to display the number of photos in a folder compared to that taken in previous versions.

Cloud Sync – Diagnostic Report

You are now able to generate a detailed Diagnostic Report for Sync in Lightroom Classic. This report is saved to a zip file with the catalog info, sync data and diagnostic logs required for Adobe QE to establish the cause of the sync issue.

To generate Diagnostic Report, in Preferences go to Lightroom Sync tab and press ALT/OPTIONkey to see “Generate Diagnostic Report” button

Cloud Sync Diagnostics Report

Filmstrip Index Number

It’s now possible to display the Index Number of a photo in the Filmstrip. This works like Index Numbers in Library Grid. On a scale of usefulness, I rate this about 100 (negative), but some users obviously thought it worthy of a feature request.

Filmstrip Index Number

In the flesh, the Index Number appears as shown in below screenshot. However, as the strip size is reduce there is a point at which the index number and the badges disappear.  Contrary to what some have claimed in the past, this is not a bug. It’s giving priority to the thumbnail (i.e. the photo) rather that some superfluous information that’s of little real value. Is it obvious that I think this feature was a waste of time?

Index Number in Filmstrip

Export as PNG

With this build, Adobe have added ability to Export as PNG. Save Transparency is always on.

Support for New Cameras & Lenses

For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles for Lightroom desktop and Lightroom for mobile (iOS and Android), see these resources: