Adobe has just released its latest update to Lightroom. Highlights include the addition of new editing tools, an advanced healing brush, as well as an updated process for sharing stills and video.
Press Release from Adobe:
Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the availability of Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 5 for Mac OS® and Windows®. The product is available as an individual license or as part of Adobe Creative CloudTM. Designed for both photography enthusiasts and professionals alike, Lightroom 5 adds critical photo editing capabilities and creates groundbreaking workflows. Lightroom 5 was initially released as a free, public beta in April 2013.
“Lightroom was originally conceived through the requests of Adobe customers, and this feedback continues to drive each new iteration,” said Winston Hendrickson, vice president of products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe. “As the digital photography landscape advances and evolves, Lightroom is the best solution for photographers and passionate hobbyists who want to get the most out of their digital images.”
New Features in Lightroom 5
Lightroom 5 adds powerful new editing tools to help photographers create better images faster. The Advanced Healing Brush enables customers to fix irregularly shaped imperfections such as dust spots, splotches, and other distractions with the precision and flexibility of a fine brush. The Upright tool analyses each image to automatically straighten objects such as buildings and level horizons. Radial Gradients offer customers the control to make photo subjects stand out by applying off-centre and multiple vignettes in a single image.
Lightroom 5 also brings extended sharing and publishing capabilities. New video slideshows enable customers to combine still images, video clips and music in a creative HD slideshow that can be viewed on almost any device. Updates to the Book module bring the ability to create, personalise and print elegant photo books from a variety of tailored, easy-to-use templates, as well as create customer-specific templates.
Smart Previews, new in Lightroom 5, enable photographers to make edits to their images offline, without bringing their entire library of original files with them. Edits and metadata changes to Smart Preview files are automatically applied to the original images when they are reconnected.
Lightroom 5 is now available at $186 Aus for the full version, or $99 Aus for those upgrading from a previous version of Lightroom.