Lightroom Classic CC 8.1 Update Has Arrived

Following on from October's 8.0 release, Adobe has updated Lightroom Class CC again, this time bringing new features and enhancements such as customisation of the Develop Panel, an 'Add to Collection' option in auto-import settings and a Grid Snap option in the book module.

As you would expect, there are also other bug fixes, a few more minor enhancements and support for new cameras/lenses. 

Photo Merge Enhancements

Sometimes, this feature didn't work quite right and it resulted in merger failures but Adobe has worked on the problems found in earlier versions of Lightroom Classic CC so this won't happen any more. You can even merge images with differing dimensions, focal lengths, and orientation. Plus, you can now, also, perform single-step panorama HDR merge using smart previews. 

To improve performance when using this feature, Adobe has made it so previews are now cached which should improve user experience. 

Customise The Order Of The Develop Panels

You can now adjust the Develop Panels so they appear in an order you want to see them in. To do this, you need to follow these steps:

1. Right-click (Win) / Control-click (Mac) on the header of any panel.
2. Select 'Customise Develop Panel' from the context menu that opens. 
3. In the Customise Develop Panel dialogue box that opens, drag the panel names in the desired order.
4. Click Save. To restore the default order, click Default Order before Save. 
5. Relaunch Lightroom Classic to see the Develop panels in the new order in the Confirm dialogue that opens.

Add Photos From A Watched Folder To A Collection With Auto Import

In the Auto Import settings, you can now use the 'Add To Collection' option to directly pull photos from a watched folder into a specified Collection. 

To add photos from a watched folder to a Collection, you need to: 

1. Go to File > Auto Import > Auto Import Settings.
2. In the Auto Import Settings dialogue box, set up a watched folder and select the 'Enable Auto Import' option.
3. In the Destination area of the dialogue box, select the Add to Collection check box. Lightroom Classic now displays a list of all your Collections. 
4. Select any Collection as your destination for auto-import. 
5. Optionally, you can also click Create Collection to create a new collection and select it as the destination for import.
6. Click OK.

Use Grid Snap Guides To Align Photos In A Book Layout

If you create photo books in Lightroom, you can now use a 'Grid Snap' option, found in the 'Guides' section, to easily align photos. You can either choose 'Cells' to align the cells of two photos or 'Grid' to align photos using the grid guidelines. 

Duplicate Preset Handling

If you try to make a preset with the same name as an existing one under the same group, a new 'Duplicate Preset Name' dialogue box opens up with the following options: 'Replace', 'Duplicate' and 'Rename'. 

Show Partially Compatible Presets

When you open a photo in the Loupe view in the Develop module, you might not see some Presets in the Presets panel as they're not compatible with the selected photo. For example, some camera profiles may not be applicable to the current photo or some Presets only apply to RAW files. The non-compatible presets are shown as faded and in Italics style in the Presets panel in Develop but to see all Presets, even if they are not compatible with the current photo, you can now do the following: 

1. Open a photo in Loupe view and click Edit.
2. Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
3. Select Presets under the Preferences panel.
4. In the Visibility section, select/deselect Show Partially Compatible Develop Presets to show/hide partially compatible develop presets.

Performance Enhancements

As well as the above, Adobe has improved the sync reliability and stability of the software, the overall performance while doing batch operations such as import, preview generation, DNG conversion, and export has been worked on, grid scrolling on Hi-DPI displays is better and when switching between the Develop and Library Loupe, it's now smoother/quicker. 

Other Enhancements

A message will pop up when you're exiting Lightroom to make sure you really do want to quit the software, you can add colour labels to offline folders, and 2019 catalogues from Photoshop Elements can now be imported into Lightroom Classic CC. 

To find out which cameras and lenses are now supported, visit the Adobe website.