Lightroom February 2019 Updates

Pano photo © 99jon

Adobe brings Panorama and HDR merge to Lightroom CC. Scroll down to see all new features in the February updates.

Lightroom CC 2.2

Pano, HDR & HDR Pano With Bracketed Sets

Select two or more photos and use the menu:

Photo >> Photo Merge

The options are also available when right-clicking and choosing from the context menu.

On completion, the resulting merged DNG file will be badged and stacked with the original selections.

Target Adjustment Tool

Selecting this (crosshair tool) in the color mixer panel enables adjustments from directly within the image. Click on the color area to be adjusted and a slider will appear. Dragging left or right will change the selected color. An overlay at the bottom of the image lets you choose the values to be adjusted e.g. hue, saturation, and luminosity.

A similar crosshair targeted adjustment tool is also available in the curves panel. Dragging directly within the image will automatically change the curve. The overlay lets you select individual color channels or all colors. The overlay buttons can also be used to quickly switch between curves and color mixer. 

 

Clipping Indicators

Two new triangle icons are available in the edit panel – top left & right of the histogram – which can be clicked to reveal clipping in the main image. Blown out highlight areas are shown in red and areas that are too dark are shown in blue. 

Click to enlarge

Sharing with a Web Link (URL)

When right-clicking an album and choosing Share to Web it is now possible to set the display settings from within the desktop app. Select the Customize button and set parameters in the display tab and settings tab.

Search With Facets

Facets have been available for a while but Adobe has added album to the current list of facets used for search. Simply type into the search box the word album followed by a hyphen, and do not press return; thus

album:

This is useful for searching individual albums or across multiple albums together with other facets.

For example I have two albums from my trip to the US, New York and Washington DC. Using facets I can select both sources and also using the facet rating: I can filter for all images with three stars or higher.

I’m now searching my summer vacation pics from the Greek Islands and want to pick out those taken at f8 with a high iso. Using the iso: and shutter speed: facets I can see that some were taken at iso 3200 and I can find those quickly.

One neat trick when using album: it is possible to scroll to the bottom of the list and choose all files not in any album.

N.B. facets shutter speed: or f-stop: will both work. A full list of facets can be found at the following link.

Search & Organize 

People View

If you have no need for facial recognition it is now possible to disable this feature in preferences.

Lightroom Classic 8.2

New Feature - Enhance Details

Adobe says Enhance Details provides state-of-the-art de-mosaic quality for Bayer and X-Trans raw mosaic files. Its primary benefits include higher resolution and more accurate rendition of fine details, better preservation of small colors, and reduced moiré patterns and false colors.

Enhance Details requires macOS 10.13 (or later) or, Windows 10 (Oct 2018 Release). This is computationally intensive and may take a bit of time to run for each image. This performs best with a fast GPU.

Using Enhance Details will create a new DNG file next to the original file on disk and the file name will be appended with -enhanced for identification.

The new enhanced DNG image will include all the metadata and develop settings as that of the original raw image.

My own limited experience with this feature suggests it works best with specialized images. I can see small enhancements when magnified in foliage, notably fine plant hairs, pollen grains and spots. See image at the bottom which shows original and enhanced files in compare mode. Perhaps those who shoot macro or make fine art prints will find best value.

The preview is substantially magnified (long press click and hold to see with or without enhance) and can be used to decide whether to render the enhanced de-mosaiced DNG file. Note these files are quite large as they contain the original raw data and the enhanced RGB data.

Batch conversion is possible (Ctrl+Alt+i) or (Control+Optn+i) and rendering will start immediately without any preview.

Whether or not you wish to devote time to pixel-peeping, it’s good to see Adobe taking another step along the path of artificial intelligence by exploiting the neural networks of machine learning. I’m sure there must be great potential. Maybe on export combined with output sharpening, a kind of Lightroom smart sharpen? Or for automatic noise reduction, or removal of dust spots! Stay tuned for future developments.

 Compare Mode

I guess at the end of the day we need to decide what is being enhanced and this can only be properly undertaken on an image by image basis with a special purpose in mind. Enhanced blemishes may not be wanted unless there are more important features in the same image, but if I wished to apply output sharpening prior to making a special print of the wings of a peacock, I would surely choose the enhanced DNG for export. 

So I think that’s the way to view this feature. Use it selectively on your 5 star images that may be suitable subjects for large scale printing and framing. 

My sample images have been significantly compressed and converted to jpeg to enable fast page loading on this blog; so try it for yourself if you have suitable subjects.

 

 

Opening in PS as layers and using a difference blend mode produced a black result but adding a levels adjustment layer and pushing the middle pointer to the left does exaggerate the changes.

 

  

 

The Enhance Details option can be accessed by right-click (control-click) on a selection (single or batch) in Library/Develop Loupe, Grid, or Film Strip and selecting Enhance Details from the context menu. 

 

Enhance Details is also available in Photo menu for Library and Develop panel. 

 

When a single image is selected, a Preview dialog box will be shown. 

 

It is possible to zoom in/out in the preview dialog box to scroll around the image as in navigator, in order to zoom to a different part of the image.

 

This feature is applicable to most raw file formats but not to JPEGs, TIFFs, HEICs or De-mosaiced images.

Enhance Details is also available in Lightroom CC 2.2

 

OTHER UPDATES in Lightroom Classic 8.2

 

Tether SDK Upgrade

Nikon SDK for the following cameras has been updated in this build.

Nikon Z 6

Nikon Z 7

New Lens Support

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR + 1.4x

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR + 1.7x

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR + 2.0x 

Tethering Performance Improvement

This version should display the images captured much faster.

You also shouldn’t see crashes while connecting and disconnecting cameras. 

Unified Tether Bar

There is only one Tethered Capture menu.

Select File >> Tethered Capture.

Adobe has also added the “Disable Auto Advance” feature in the Tether settings window. 

Camera settings option

Now, you can control the camera settings by changing the Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. 

Mobile Devices

Updated mobile versions are also available – iOS 4.2 and Android 4.2 

The iOS version includes ad-hoc sharing. So if you don’t wish to share an entire album it is now possible to generate a link for a bunch of selected photos. The Android version will now display all presets by default, including partially compatible presets, but users have the ability to hide the latter if preferred.