New Features of Lightroom Classic Ver.15

It is customary for Adobe to release updates for its major software packages in the last quarter of the year. This year was not an exception, and Adobe introduced many significant enhancements. In this article, we will explore how the popular Lightroom Classic (or just LrC hereafter for brevity) has been improved. It was also given a new major release designation - Version 15.

- Ashok Kandimalla

The enhancements can be divided into two groups - improvements to existing features, and new features. Altogether, there are more than a dozen enhancements, but due to lack of space we will deal only with the important ones. Please treat this as an overview of the new features rather than a user guide or deep dive.

First, the performance improvements may not be apparent but are nevertheless very important. In brief these are:

• Quicker response when cursor is hovered over Presets, History, and Profiles.

• Less jerkiness when cropping, when using the Remove tool, and any of the sliders in the Basic edit group.

• More economical use of memory.

• Faster image loading when navigating the filmstrip.

Some of the existing features have been updated. A partial list is given below.

• Improved reflection removal.

• Enhanced detection of object - now there is no need to paint over the shadows of the object.

• Eight more landscape adaptive presets were added.

Next, let us look at the new features.

Indication of missing folders: If you rename or move an existing folder outside LrC’s Library module (say through a file manager), the catalogue will not be able to find it and will mark it as a missing folder. This indication is not new—LrC displays a question mark “?” next to the folder name (Picture 1, green arrow), and you will not be able to develop any images in that folder. What is new is that now even the parent folder (or folders, if there are multiple levels) will be marked with an alert icon “!” (Picture 1, yellow arrows), making it much easier to locate missing folders.