Lightroom Classic 9.2 was released today 10 February. New Camera defaults and settings UI, PSB file support, Secondary Display Selection, and improvements in Auto-Sync workflow. In addition, this update delivers some minor performance improvements, bug fixes and new camera support / new lens support.
Lightroom Classic 9.2
Default by Camera Settings
Many Lightroom Classic customers will already be familiar with the Camera Raw Defaults feature that’s been around since the early days of Lightroom. However, useful as it was, it lacks a UI, and doesn’t include support the camera profiles and presets introduced in Lightroom Classic 7.3. Additionally, photographers often take advantage of the picture styles or profiles settings within their cameras. Unfortunately, when importing into Lightroom Classic with the default set to Adobe Color, the image will often look quite different from the camera preview and will require time to adjust it back to the desired look.
The above shortcomings have now been addressed by a new dialog in which you can choose to apply Raw Default Settings preferences globally or a camera model by camera model basis. With the new raw default settings dialog, you can now use Camera Settings as the default to preserve the ‘as shot’ look and reduce your edit time. The new UI can be found in the Lightroom Preferences dialog under Presets tab.
Camera Default Settings
The Master setting applies to raw files from all cameras.
Adobe Defaults means the default settings that Adobe provides (this option matches legacy behaviour from previous versions of Lightroom Classic).
Camera Settings is an attempt to match the in-camera settings. However, behaviour varies from camera to camera depending on the degree of support. For many popular cameras, this option simply selects the appropriate Camera Matching colour profile. Therefore, if you have a Canon 5D MkIV and use Picture Style = Landscape in the camera, then this would default to using the Camera Landscape colour profile. For some recent models such as the Nikon Z series, there are even more detailed settings that more closely approximate the in-camera settings (i.e. choosing Camera Settings will not only affect the colour profile, but also other settings in the Basic and Detail panels).
Preset means you can just choose whichever preset you want. For example, you can make a preset that picks your favorite profile (e.g. Adobe Landscape), increases Sharpening, and turns on a post-crop vignette and make that your default.
Use defaults specific to camera model enablers you to customise (as described above) on a model by model. Therefore, if you have two cameras, say, a Canon EOS 5D MkIV and a Sony A7 III and you want to use different defaults for each, you can do that.
While this new system is much more powerful and flexible than before, the existing Default Develop Settings (from previous versions) are not compatible with it. As such, any previous default settings you’ve already saved in Lightroom Classic will not be carried over to the new system.
A detailed explanation on how this feature works and how to create/apply settings based on ISO can be found in: default settings for importing raw images on Adobe’s Help pages
Note that this feature is also available in Adobe Camera Raw 12.2
Photoshop Large Document (PSB) File Support
Landscape photographers who stitch multiple images to create very large panorama images will be acutely aware of support within Lightroom Classic for Adobe PSB files.
Starting with 9.2 this is no longer the case, you can import, catalog, and edit Large Document Format (.psb) files within Lightroom Classic. However, like all files within Classic, the maximum dimensions are 65,000 pixels on the long edge or 512 megapixels.
Additional GPU Accelerated Editing
Expanding on GPU support, 9.2 sees the addition of full GPU acceleration for Lens Correction and Transform adjustments.
eGPU Empowered Enhanced Details
Enhance Details now leverages external GPUs on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) for faster processing.
Secondary Display Selection
Another long awaited feature enhancement included in 9.2 is the ability to select which monitor to use as the secondary view when multiple monitors are available. A good example of this is when using three or more displays, opening a second window will now automatically appear in the designated monitor that may have better resolution, colour calibration, etc. for your workflow needs.
Simply, go to Lightroom Preferences dialog and use the Display tab to select the monitor for secondary view. Lightroom will show the secondary view on the selected monitor.
Secondary Display Configuration
Auto-Sync Improvements
One of the most powerful yet poorly understood options in the Develop module is Auto-Sync. With Auto-Sync enabled (multiple images must first have been selected), any adjustments applied to the most selected image will be automatically applied to the other selected images. Unfortunately, this can also work against you in that resetting adjustments applied to an image will also reset any other selected images. By adding a notification overlay and a more visible button, Adobe hope to prevent unintentional batch edits, etc. The notifications can be turned off in the Preferences Interface tab.
Auto-Sync Improvements
Export – Updates
A ‘Done’ button has been added to the Export Dialog.
- Done – Dismiss the Export dialog and remember changes in export settings.
- Cancel – Dismiss the Export dialog without remembering changes in export settings.
- Export – Perform export
New Mainstream Cameras Supported by 9.2
- Canon EOS-1Dx Mark III
- Nikon Coolpix P950
- Nikon D780
- Phase One IQ4 150MP (Preliminary)
Camera & Lens Support
For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles for Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic, and Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem see these resources: