Lightroom 5 has been officially launched on Adobe.com. Pricing and updates remain the same as for Lightroom 4 ($149 (for those new to Lightroom) and $79 for an Upgrade from previous versions. Lightroom 5 is the shortest upgrade cycle ever, and while not as rich in ‘big features’, it’s big on performance improvements and JDI (just do it) feature additions. The big features are already there in Lightroom 5 Beta, with the addition of speed improvements, and tonnes of bug fixes.
There’s a whole range of videos up to support it too.
Big features for Lightroom 5 include:
- Smart Previews-Lightweight files that allow offline files to be developed
- PNG Support-Manage PNG files. Transparency is shown in white. Files can be edited as PSD or TIFF in Photoshop
- Full Screen Mode– Shortcut ‘F’ now gives a true full screen mode. Old mode is accessed via ‘Shift F’
- New Grid Overlays-You can now add overlays and customize the grid size and opacity
- HiDPI support-Win support for 150% and 200% resolution
- Additional Smart Collection Critera– Size, Bit Depth, Number of Color Channels, Color Profile, Smart Preview status & PNG file type
- Behance Publish Service-With Adobe now owning Behance, this work portfolio plugin allows you to show current work/work in progress on Behance
- Advanced Healing Brush-You can now paint in spot removal.
- Radial Filter-A radial version of the graduated filter. More control for Vignettes, etc
- Upright-A new automatic lens perspective and straightening tool
- Slideshow with videos-Videos can be added to a slideshow
- Book enhancements-Improved Text, Page Numbers and User Pages
- Aspect Slider in Lens Corrections-You can now compensate for lens corrections changing the shape of things-or slim people!
JDI features include:
- LAB Color Readout– Right click on the Histogram and choose ‘Show LAB Color Values’
- Shift Q to toggle between Clone and Heal in Spot Removal
- ‘Set as Target Collection‘ added to the New Collection dialog box
- Direction-You can add a direction to EXIF data (North, South, East, West, North-West, South-West, North-East and South East)
- Import Focus-You can now choose to have Lightroom stay where you are, rathering than jumping to Current/Previous Import during an Import.
- Lock Zoom Position– You can now have Lightroom remember the last part of a photo you zoomed into (View menu).
- Saved Location improvements-photos can be dragged to Saved Locations and vice versa in Map
- DNG Validation-You can now validate Adobe generated DNG files (but not camera generated ones)
- Soft Proof Before/After-Before After now shows the current photo and the soft proofed version
- Process Version warning change-The Warning to indicate an older Process Version has moved to the Histogram and changed to a lightening bolt.
- Visualize Spots A photo inverting features that makes it easier to see spots. Kinda like my tone curve inverting trick.
There are plenty of more features. As with all Lightroom updates, there are many camera and lens profile additions including the Hasselblad H5D-60, Olympus PEN E-P5, Olympus PEN E-PL6, Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G6, Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LF1, Ricoh GR, and preliminary support for the Phase One IQ260.
