Photographers these days are dabbling more and more in video, and so Adobe’s latest update for its Lightroom software is likely to be warmly welcomed.
Announced on Tuesday, June 14, Adobe is adding a new feature to Lightroom that will let you color grade video. Besides adding adjustments via sliders, the new box of tricks also lets you copy and paste edit settings between photos and videos to ensure that a project using stills and video retains the same look. Presets such as Premium Presets and Lightroom’s A.I.-powered Recommended Presets can be utilized.
The update, which is being rolled out this week for Lightroom on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android — though not Lightroom Classic — also adds the ability to trim the start and end of a piece of footage.
While Lightroom remains overwhelmingly a photo-based offering, the new video tool will come in handy for photographers already familiar with Lightroom color grading tools and who occasionally work with short video clips. It’ll also be useful for those occasions when only a few basic adjustments are required, eliminating the need to fire up dedicated video editing software.
Other new features landing with this week’s update include a new red-eye removal tool for Lightroom on Mac and Windows, which, by selecting auto-correct on the interface, deploys Adobe’s A.I. smarts to automatically locate the eyes and make the change instead of waiting for you to circle the eyes manually.
You’ll also find new preset features for Lightroom, among them a Preset Amount slider (Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Mac/Windows, iOS, Android, web) that lets you adjust the intensity of a preset that you apply to a photo or video, and Adaptive Presets (Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Mac/Windows), which let you apply a preset that automatically targets a particular part of the image. The first two sets of Adaptive Presets are designed to make skies look more dramatic and to make the subject of your photo “really pop,” according to Adobe.
You’ll also find five new packs of Premium Presets (Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Mac/Windows, iOS, Android, web), designed by top photographers selected by Adobe.
Lightroom launched 15 years ago for desktop before bringing it to mobile in 2017. While it lacks the powerful editing capabilities of Photoshop, the software has become an important tool for professionals and enthusiastic amateurs who use it to organize and edit their imagery.
Adobe’s Lightroom starts at $10 a month in a package that also includes Photoshop. Similar software by competitors that requires a one-off payment rather than a subscription, or costs nothing at all, is also available.
