Adobe have just released the latest version of Lightroom: Lightroom Classic 16 to correspond with Adobe Max, which is currently ongoing, and it’s a major new update with a ton of new features. These include a new Vectorscope tool, A Glow Effect, AI Depth masks and many more. I recorded a walkthrough video where I show you the new features and how to use them. There are also corresponding releases across Adobe’s photography lineup released today too, but for this post, I’m just concentrating on what is in the update to Lightroom Classic
This is actually one of the biggest releases for Lightroom Classic in a long time. For a while now, Adobe have been adding new features to Camera RAW that haven’t been in Lightroom Classic, and even Lightroom Desktop has been getting features not in Classic. This update addresses many (although not all) of these.
Some of the new features in Lightroom Classic 16 are as follows:
Glow: A new Glow effect allows you to simulate various types of glow, from diffusion to bloom to motion streaks. It’s actually pretty good and better than I was expecting
Vectorscope: Based on the video tool, this allows you to visualise where the colours are on the spectrum in your image
Colour Grading in the mask tool: You can now finally use the three-way colour corrector with masks.
Autofocus Point Overlay: This allows you to see where your focus point was when you took the photograph. Only some cameras are supported.
Import Filter: You can now filter your images on import by things like star rating.
Depth Range Masking: Another finally, as this has been in Camera RAW for ages. You can now create a mask based on an AI-generated depth map of the image
Projection: Helps fix the “stretchy people” effect when shooting with wide-angle lenses
Blemish Removal: A new addition to the remove tool, which lets you remove skin blemishes in one click (Well, one click plus a bunch of waiting while it calculates)
There’s also a bunch of behind-the-scenes improvements, bug fixes and new camera support. To see the full list of what’s new, you can see the release notes here on Adobe’s website.
By the way, I’ve recently started a new newsletter where you can get updates by email. You can find it here on Substack.