Don't Miss the Best New Features in Lightroom's Latest Update

It's easy enough to keep using software the same old way even after an update, especially if you choose to auto-update the software you use most. Colin Smith makes sure you don't miss Lightroom's coolest new features in its recent update with this video at PhotoshopCAFE

Smith breaks down seven new features in Lightroom and shows us how to use each one. The nice part about these features is that most of them are a one-time selection, and they'll continue to work for you going forward. For instance, you can now customize the order of the panels in the Develop module, allowing you to put the ones you use most toward the top to save yourself time scrolling past the ones you don't use. Once you reorder them, the program will restart, and they'll appear in that order for future use. 

Likewise, you can now choose to snap images to the grid in the Book module, auto-import images directly to collections, skip the dialog box when quitting the program, show presets that normally aren't fully compatible, and update a preset by naming a new one the same thing and choosing "replace" in the dialog box (or alternatively, you can duplicate the name or rename your new preset).

Smith takes viewers quickly through each feature and shows how to do each one. He also notes that the update has fixed some issues Lightroom was having with HDR panorama merges, and he gives some bonus advice on auto-updating Lightroom (and other Creative Cloud products). 

Which feature stands out to you as the most useful? Drop a comment below and let us know. 

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Brian Pernicone grew up admiring the coastal waters of New England and that influence is evident in much of his work, which focuses primarily on coastal landscapes, boats, New England wildlife, and water sports.

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7 Comments

WARNING TO CANON EOS R USERS: This update effed up white balance on edited CR3 RAW files from my EOS R. There's a thread on Adobe's support forum here:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/10815409#10815409

Speed? Is speed one of the latest updates? No? Didn't think so. Glad I stuck with LR6 and not paying monthly.

I love those guys who think they can judge about something they don't have used...

Except that they don't say speed was a major improvement lol. No need to judge if they don't say it themselves. It would be the first their bullet point.

Did you watch the video? Performance improvements were mentioned in the first 45 seconds...

Bless Bridge, ACR and a functioning brain. I can do all of this and not have to put up with Lightroom's insane overbuild that adds work but not value.

If you have a firewall app, you can see a shitload of apps that are phoning home every time you start up the recent versions of LR. One in particular that has me wondering was something called the "dynamiclinkmediaserver". LR would NOT work and just hang if I didn't allow that app to phone home. I can find no explanation what this app is about. "Adobe crash reporter" also wants to phone home, along with Node JS.

You have to wonder why so many apps insist on phoning home every time you want to use LR.