What’s New in Adobe Lightroom CC

by Margaret Penney | December 21, 2017

In October 2017, Adobe announced the release of a revamped and streamlined Lightroom CC. If you’re not familiar with Lightroom it’s an Adobe application for fine-tuned photo editing, processing, and organization. Lightroom is an organizational tool for photographs and an environment in which photographers can professionally edit and enhance image collections.

In an unusual move for Adobe, two versions of Lightroom are now available. The original desktop-oriented Lightroom software remains available as Lightroom Classic. The new Lightroom CC differs from the original in that it is available online and includes a number of new features that give it more capabilities to edit and retouch images as one would in Photoshop. For some photographers and digital artists this potentially makes Lightroom somewhat more useful as an almost all-in-one app for image production.

So, what can you find in the new Lightroom CC? Well, it has a number of editing tools now under the Edit button. These tools include Light, Color, Effects, Optics, and Geometry. Within these tools’ sub-menus you can find much of what you would need to edit your images.

Dehaze Tool

The are some examples of new and truly useful features, such as the Dehaze tool for restoring image contrast and the Geometry panel for fixing perspective (which is useful for scenic photographs in particular). A Linear Gradient tool is accessible for creating shadows in images or toning down bright areas.

The new Lightroom CC does have some differences and potential drawbacks compared to Lightroom Classic. The Camera Calibration panel is less robust and some of the more fine-tuned adjustment tools are just not available. Many features that professional photographers find to be essential in the Classic version of the software are either not available or work differently.

Still, one of the benefits of this new Lightroom app is that one can store photo libraries either on the desktop or on the Cloud with 1TB free storage space offered by Adobe. For photographers and digital artists on-the-go, this makes the tool more adaptable for a mobile creatives’ work process.

Adobe Lightroom CC is available on its own or as part of a new Photography Plan that includes Photoshop as well and is only $9.99 a month. Combining the two apps into one plan makes it easy for creatives to produce beautiful imagery at every stage of the production process.

To learn more about the new Lightroom CC and the Photography Plan visit the Adobe website for more information.

Margaret Penney is the Managing Editor of Notes on Design. Margaret is a teacher, designer, writer and new media artist and founder of Hello Creative Co.

Are you interested in stretching your photography skills? Sessions College offers a wide range of online photography courses as well as digital photography degree and certificate programs. Contact Admissions for more information.

This blog is powered by Sessions College, the leading online school of visual arts.