Lightroom CC Update Brings Improved Search, Depth Range Masking & More

Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic have seen continuous updates from Adobe and now we're heading into Adobe MAX, even more features have been added to the two Adobe products. 

To help you find photos more quickly, a 'People View' has been added to the Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS) versions of Lightroom CC. With this feature, Lightroom CC automatically tags people in photos and provides you with an easy way to see all the photos the person appears in.

As well as making it easier to find people, the general search function has been improved with automatic search suggestions appearing as you type in the search box. This includes suggestions for metadata like cameras, lenses, aperture, ISO, locations, keywords, and more.

If you like to make panoramas from multiple shots then you'll be happy to hear it's no longer a multi-step process as with today's update, you can go from a large set of bracketed exposures to a single HDR Panorama DNG in a single step, using the new “HDR Panorama” option in the Photo Merge menu (available in Lightroom Classic CC and Camera RAW). There's also a Depth Range Masking option added to the Range Masking tool (Lightroom Classic CC and Camera RAW) which enables you to leverage the depth information to make precise selections and isolate subjects faster than ever before. Please note: this feature is only available for use with photos that contain Depth Masks, such as Portrait Mode photos captured on recent iPhone cameras.

Tethered capture is an integral part of many photographers' workflows and Adobe has received many requests to improve Lightroom Classic's support of tethered capture and in today's update to Lightroom Classic, you’ll see a big increase in both speed and stability. If you're a Canon camera owner, you should expect to see a 1.5-2x improvement in transfer time. Adobe is also working hard to expand the functionality to Nikon tethered capture in a future release.

There's a new Share tab that makes it easier to browse and access shared albums and images that you made through lightroom.adobe.com and, as part of this new tab, you can also share albums directly to your portfolio hosted on Adobe Portfolio from within Lightroom CC using the new Connector feature. Adobe is also working on the Connector service to give it a full menu of third-party services (like photo labs, photo book printers, and others).

Also over on lightroom.adobe.com, the new Display view lets you see a preview of the page, exactly how your viewers will see it and while in the Display view, you can control the layout and background colour while inserting breaks between images and text to help tell the story that accompanies your photos. When you’re done setting up the layout, you can then share the album using the controls under Sharing.

Those who use iOS and Android can now only choose to share images that are flagged or that have a certain star rating or higher, while controlling the display theme, directly from Lightroom CC (when sharing your albums to Lightroom Web) and Mac/Windows users can use the new Apple Photos Migrator to easily migrate your Apple Photos library into Lightroom CC on your desktop.

As well as updates to Lightroom, Adobe has also introduced new features to Photoshop CC which will also be available, in full, on the iPad in 2019. 

Pricing

There are several subscription options available but the most cost-effective one is the Photography plan which gives you access to Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC and cloud storage from £9.98 a month (20GB cloud storage).