Photography at Adobe MAX 2022: New features for Adobe Lightroom and more
Photo by Tomás Karmelo Amaya, Adobe MAX 2022 Luminary and Lightroom Ambassador
Today we’re unveiling new additions to the Lightroom suite of products that make it easier than ever to use masking workflows, remove unwanted elements from your images, and apply presets with AI masks on mobile. These changes are designed to save you time and reduce tedium in your workflow.
In this article
- More Advanced AI-Powered Masking
- Healing with Content-Aware Remove
- Additional updates by surface
The latest updates will be rolling out to Lightroom on Win/Mac, Lightroom Classic, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), iOS, Android, iPadOS, ChromeOS, and Web starting today and will become available for everyone over the course of the week.
More Advanced AI-Powered Masking
Select People, Select Objects, Select Background
Lightroom for Win/Mac, Lightroom Classic, ACR
In October 2021, we debuted our re-envisioned selective adjustment tools with Select Sky and Select Subject. Today, we expand upon this new era of AI masking in Lightroom with the all-new Select People, Select Objects, and one-click Select Background.
Less brushing and faster edits with Select People
Editing and retouching portraits is now easier than ever with the new Select People. Powered by Adobe Sensei (our AI and machine learning technology), Select People can detect and generate high-quality masks for individuals or groups in any portrait. Specific body parts like face skin, body skin, eyes, teeth, lips, hair, and more can also be selected. Our expanded interface for Select People allows you to quickly create all the necessary selections with fewer clicks and brush strokes.
Target all or specific individuals with Select People.
Select People can detect and create masks for specific parts of a portrait. Photo by Tomás Karmelo Amaya in Lightroom.
Precise selections with Select Objects
Select Objects is now the quickest and most flexible way to mask objects in Lightroom that will help you make targeted edits seamlessly. Simply paint over the desired object with Brush Select or draw a rectangle around it with Rectangle Select, and our AI will automatically refine the edges to create a precise mask.
Before / after painting over the flower with Brush Select.
Before / after drawing a rectangle over the climber with Rectangle Select.
Before / after painting over the Chinese characters on the sign with Brush Select.
Before / after drawing a rectangle around the fisherman with Rectangle Select.
One-Click Select Background
Previously you could select the background by inverting a mask of the subject. Now our AI can directly generate a mask for the background with a single click.
Select Background in Lightroom.
Select Background in Lightroom Classic.
Adaptive Presets, now for Portraits
Lightroom for Win/Mac, Lightroom Classic, ACR, iOS, iPadOS
In June 2022, we introduced a new class of presets on desktop that allows you to access the power of AI masking with the ease of a single click. Today, we are bringing the same AI-powered preset capability to portraits, now available for both desktop and mobile.
You can now use this class of Adaptive Presets to quickly enhance an entire portrait, or target specific features with presets like Enhance Eyes, Whiten Teeth, Darken Eyebrows, and more with a single click or tap.
Enhance portraits with one-tap on Lightroom mobile
Adaptive Presets for Sky and Subject for mobile
You can now access the power of AI masks for Sky and Subject on mobile through Adaptive Presets. With one tap, Lightroom can detect and create an adaptive mask based on the contents of the image.
Enhance the sky with one-tap on Lightroom mobile.
Mask Amount Slider for Lightroom on Win/Mac
Adjust the intensity of the edits applied to your local adjustments.
Masking support for more Android devices
We are also bringing the power of AI masking to more mobile devices than ever with the introduction of server-side support for Android devices. Now all Android users, no matter their device capabilities (e.g. less than 6GB of RAM), can take advantage of subject and sky masking in the cloud.
Healing with Content-Aware Remove
Lightroom for Win/Mac, Lightroom Classic, ACR, iOS, iPadOS, Android
Healing or removing distractions is easier than ever in Lightroom with the addition of Content-Aware Remove. Utilising the same Content-Aware technology as Photoshop, Lightroom will adaptively fill in removed blemishes based on surrounding content. This feature also includes a Refresh option and the ability to pick the sampled area with keyboard commands for finer healing control.
Before / after removing the leash.
Before / after removing the trees behind the tiger’s head and rear.
Additional updates by surface
Lightroom on Win/Mac
Compare while editing
Access full edit functionality while in Compare mode to easily edit images side by side.
Easily make adjustments while comparing images in Lightroom.
Performance updates
Images now load faster when switching from one image to the next, and export times are now much shorter with the help of GPU acceleration.
Lightroom Classic
Left-Right Panel Swap
Customise your Lightroom Classic workspace to fit your workflow needs with the new ability to swap the left and right panels for all modules or just for Develop.
Swapped panels for Develop in Lightroom Classic.
Faster import from portable devices (Windows)
Experience faster preview loading and importing on Windows machines from connected portable devices such as phones, tablets, etc.
Adobe Camera Raw
Masking Curves
Achieve the perfect tones for your edits with the added ability to adjust Curves for your local selections. Now available in Camera Raw today and will be coming to Lightroom in the future.
Before/after curve adjustments applied.
HDR Support for Displays (Tech Preview)
Make the most of the highlights in your images with new HDR support. Enabling HDR will allow you to visualise and edit your highlights in even greater detail on your HDR-compatible display. Now available as a Tech Preview in Adobe Camera Raw.
See the extended highlights in your histogram with HDR support in Camera Raw.
Lightroom Academy
Last MAX we launched Lightroom Academy, which helps you on your photography and photo-editing journey by offering unique, well-curated interactive and video content to engage, educate, and inspire the Lightroom community. There is now new content to explore for food, travel, and night photography as well as a fresh layout to make it easier than ever to find your topics of interest.
In the coming months, additional articles will be released, including: Lightroom Essentials, Lightroom in Black & White, From Still to Motion with Lightroom, The Business of Photography, Photographic Essentials, and Visual Literacy.
Lightroom on Web
Video Editing
The same edit controls you use for your images can now be used for your videos. Now available for Lightroom on the web wherever you go.
Preset Amount Slider
Adjust the intensity of a preset to your liking to achieve the perfect look for each image.
Full description of new features
For more information on updates and improvements to each Lightroom product, please see the What’s New pages below.
Lightroom for Mac, Windows, iOS, iPadOS, Android, and ChromeOS
Don’t forget to join us this week for Adobe MAX for great workshops and sessions on photography. See an overview of all the photography sessions at MAX here.
Photos contributed by Arjun Haarith G, Benjamin Warde, Eric Chan, Jojo Giltsoff, Katrin Eismann, Lisa Ngo, Pavan Tavrekere, Tomás Karmelo Amaya, and Venkatesh Penjuri.