This morning, Adobe announced updates to the Lightroom ecosystem across desktop, mobile and web applications. The cloud-based Lightroom application now supports basic video editing functions like color grading and trimming of files, while Lightroom and Lightroom Classic see improvements to presets and tweaks to masking tools.

Video comes to Lightroom

While Lightroom Classic has offered basic video editing features for a while, the functionality was missing from the cloud-based Lightroom application. This is a great option for those who might not be comfortable in Premiere Pro, as it allows you to edit videos with the same tools you would for photos.

The video implementation features the ability to work with presets, batch editing and trimming of clips. It takes advantage of a machine’s GPU, and works on all devices, including phones and tablets.

A new Preset Amount slider, plus Adaptive Presets

Change the intensity of a preset

One of the most commonly requested features to presets has been the ability to dial down the intensity of the preset. Now, it’s easy to dial down (or up) the intensity a preset has on a photograph, with the Preset Amount slider.

The slider ranges between 0 and 200, with 100 being the default level of intensity. The Preset Amount slider is available on all devices, for both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. In Lightroom Classic, the Preset Amount slider is persistent, right above the preset browser. In Lightroom for desktop, the slider appears after you select the preset you’re working with.

Selectively target your photos with Adaptive Presets

Adaptive presets have also been added, allowing users to use artificial intelligence to target a particular part of a photo. The first two sets of Adaptive Presets include presets for making skies dramatic, and for making your subject pop.

Five new Premium Preset packs have also been added:

  • Portraits: Black & White — a beautiful set of presets for black and white portraiture, created by Ayesha Kazim.
  • Portraits: Edgy — these presets created by Jessy J. will take your portraits to the next level.
  • Portraits: Group — these presets are specially crafted by Chelsi LeBarre to make your group shots standout, so that your friends and family always look their best.
  • Subject: Concerts — your photos of concerts and other live performances will look incredible with these presets from Megan Sumpton.
  • Video: Creative — to go along with Lightroom’s fantastic new video features, these stylish and creative presets, created by Stu Maschwitz, are specially optimized to work well with videos.

Batch copy and paste of AI masks

The Select Sky and Select Subject masks, powered by AI, can now be copied and pasted to other photos. The masks will be recomputed automatically, with no need to manually apply the new masks to each photo. This allows you to incorporate these powerful AI features into your batch editing workflow.

It’s also now possible to invert mask groups, helping to simplify targeting edits to particular parts of a photo.

AI-powered Red Eye Removal

The cloud-based Lightroom for desktop app, as well as Adobe Camera Raw, get a new Red Eye Removal option. Lightroom will automatically find the impacted eyes in a photograph without any extra clicks from you, thanks to an Auto Correct button.

Compare View

The cloud-based Lightroom app gets a side-by-side Compare View, which should look familiar to anyone who’s used it in Lightroom Classic. This lets you view photos next to each other, to help you pick out your best image.

Enhanced Community features

The Community part of the cloud-based Lightroom app has received a few updates, including the ability to search by topic, photographers and friends that you’d like to follow.

Community Remix has now been added to Lightroom for mobile devices and the web, letting you engage with the Lightroom community in a new way. Share your unique edit with the community, let others try alternative edits, and share their artistic vision with the image. 

Other updates

Forward/back buttons

Lightroom on the desktop now includes forward and back buttons which easily let you navigate through Lightroom, much like the forward/back buttons in a web browser.

Local storage management

Lightroom now provides more control over how much of your hard drive is used for photo storage, and allows you to purge the cache in order to free up space on your computer.