Fall 2022 Adobe Updates

As one would expect at this time of year, Adobe MAXX is on or just past and there have been updates to most of the Adobe Creative Suite. For photographers, this typically means those on the photographer’s subscription plan.

If you hate subscriptions, I respect that, but Adobe is all about subscriptions, so reaching out to tell me you hate subscriptions may make you feel better, but I guarantee that I can do nothing about it, so please save ourselves some time.

The Photographer’s Bundle.

The bundle includes Photoshop V24, Photoshop Lightroom Classic, Photoshop Express and Photoshop Lightroom. I still wish that Adobe would stop futzing about with product names and make it clearer that Lightroom Classic is the rich full featured Lightroom that you install locally and that Lightroom is the web version that uses different names for the same things as Lightroom Classic. I swear that the two product groups have never even talked to each other.

Photoshop

Photoshop now at version 24 is the pixel level editor that we have become familiar with over the years. I’d like to say that the learning curve has flattened but it has not. There are improvements in the latest release of Photoshop but be aware that your computer must be on the latest versions of your OS particularly if you use Macintosh. If your machine is not running Monterey or at least Big Sur, you cannot install Photoshop v24.

For this release, Adobe has put more work into the selection tools for cleaner, more accurate and faster selections than ever before. They have also added Delete and Fill where you make a selection and when you delete it, content aware fill replaces the deleted area all in a single click. You can also now share a photoshop document with others for editing and in the beta, you can even share for review. Also in the beta is a new Neural filter for photo restoration. I have a colleague who is a professional restoration artist and while I do not think that this is at her level of expertise, for creatives who want to bring back old photos without diving into the deep end of the Marianas Trench, this new tool may get you going. Also in beta are live gradients and a new backdrop creation neural filter that uses your guidance to build a background. As usual the AI buzzword is thrown around a lot and while I won’t call it AI myself, I will say that these are pretty powerful tools.

Lightroom Classic

Lightroom Classic is the version that I use and that I teach so I will focus on it rather than the Lightroom that Adobe yaks about which is the web version. I don’t use it myself, so my thoughts on it would be rather pointless.

:Lightroom Classic got masking last year and this year, the masking tools get a big boost. Adding to Select Sky and Select Subject there is now Select Background. There is also a new Object Selection where you draw around the object that you wish to select and AI (not really AI) makes the selection cleanly for you. While this AI will probably not come to wipe out humanity, it is pretty darn useful. What some see as the coolest new feature is the people selection option, where Lightroom Classic can be told to select people to create masks where you can apply your people editing skills. Finally after years of telling users that if you want real healing you had to go to Photoshop, the Spot Removal tool is now replaced by the Healing tool. I have not tested this deeply at this point, and cannot offer a good comparison to Photoshop yet since the applications take very different core approaches, but if it delivers half of what is promised it should reduce the turnaround on portrait edits substantially, plus you can save your standard corrections as presets.

There is of course support added for a number of new cameras, particularly in the smart device category. Do note however that the upgrade will require that your catalog be upgraded to work with the new Lightroom. I have personally never had an issue with this process, but I know that some people are very nervous about it, so if you are one of those folks, when you install the upgrade clear the checkbox to remove old versions of the application.

Lightroom and Photoshop Express

There are enhancements to both of these offerings, but listing them would be mostly pointless since I do not use either of them. Be assured that there are videos and posts about them out in the internet.

Thanks as always for reading. Please subscribe to be notified when new content is posted. Until next time, peace.