More on Lightroom 5 release!

As I noted yesterday.  the final version of Lightroom 5 is out and ready to go! Most of the new features were in the beta version but they were a few tweaks that are worth noting. They included numerous little “bug” fixes. The automatic levels and straightening functions are greatly improved. Based on feedback from the beta testers they increased the feathering on the new radial tool.

Lightroom 5 has all of your favorite features from Lightroom 5 beta including the Advanced Healing Brush, Upright, Radial Filter, Smart Previews, improved photo book creation, and slideshows that mix video and still images. From what I’ve seen the performance has been excellent.

When you upgrade your catalog, Lightroom will check the original files to add additional information to the catalog - Image Bit Depth (i.e. 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit), Color Mode (i.e. RGB, Greyscale, CMYK, etc.) and Color Profile (i.e. sRGB, Adobe RGB, etc.) – and that can take a while if you have a large catalog or your images are stored on a NAS or slow external especially.

Camera raw file support has been added for a few more cameras

Hasselblad H5D-60

Olympus PEN E-P5 & E-PL6

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G6 & DMC-LF1

Phase One IQ260*

Ricoh GR

Tethered support for the Nikon D600

They also added some new lenses to the profiles

My private classes and classes with Arizona Highways Photo Workshops, Southwest Perspectives and BobbieGoodrich  will be incorporating these great new advancements.  Although many of my students will still be working in Lightroom 4, the interface has changed very little and we can easily work on both versions.

LR5 is HERE!!!!

After just finishing a great week in Sedona at Photofest teaching Lightroom 4 and giving a snaek peak into Lightroon 5...This morning Adobe released the final version!!!!! Great timing.

I will be posting more in the next couple of days.  My classes will now also incorporate the changes in Lightroom as photographers start to upgrade.

The software is available for both Mac and Windows computers. Adobe has given the option of buying the software with a standalone license as well as a part of the Creative Cloud. For previous Lightroom customers, the software can be upgraded for $79. For those who are new to the editing tool, the software will be available for $149. The Lightroom 5 is available as a free update to members of the Adobe Creative Cloud service.

The major enhancements in the new version of the photo management and editing software are:

• Advanced Healing Brush: The advanced healing brush on the Lightroom 5 works similar to the clone tool on Photoshop, however this one is both easier and quicker to use. Adobe'sdemonstration video shows how quick it is to remove an object or features such as wrinkles in a photograph using the new healing tool. You first choose the area that you need to 'heal' and then replace it with a 'source'.
• Smart Preview: When dealing with high resolution photographs, editing can be time consuming. In order to save both memory and time, Lightroom 5 comes with an option with creating a smart preview of an image on to your system. The smart preview for the image will have only 5% of the original file size. So, you can use the smart preview to make any changes that you wish to add to the original file. Once the source of the original file is connected to your computer, Lightroom syncs all the metadata to the original file as well.
• Upright: The upright feature on the Lightroom 5 fixes all the tilted images. While the same result can be achieved by rotating and cropping an image, the process on Lightroom 5 takes just the click of a button. If desired, the scaling and fixing can be done manually as well by adjusting certain levels.
• Radial Filter: The Radial Gradient tool lets you create off-center vignette effects, or multiple vignetted areas within a single image. This feature can be used for focusing on certain parts of an image.
• Video Slide Shows: The new Lightroom also lets you combine still images and video clips alongside music to create HD videos. This feature can be used to create video slideshows of your work.