The new Adobe Lightroom 6 will be released on March 25 and cost $205 AUD (Australian Dollars). That’s a rough $155 USD or 148 Euro. The specs are:
- Windows Compatibility: Windows 7, 8, 8.1
- Mac OS Compatibility: Mac OS X v10.8, v10.9 or v10.10
- Designed for both amateur photographers and professionals
- Merge to HDR
- Fusion panoramas
- Performance gains
- Facial recognition
- Sophisticated video slideshows
- Optimized web galleries
- Filter brush
found via Fujirumors.
53 Responses
Wait… Is Adobe rethinking the subscription model? Are they offering software for purchase again?
No, same as before.
Lightroom is also a database for managing pictures. I would never use it, if there isn’t a posibility to purchase it.
Lightroom is available as a one off payment, with free upgrades within the same ‘major’ version (i.e. 6.0, 6.1, 6.2…). Or you can get it as part of an Adobe subscription. Choice is good!
Lightroom 5 is available in two ways, purchase or subscription. So, nothing has changed.
Let the complaining begin:
Isn’t that the mountain in Norway called “Troll Wall” on the package?
Trolltunga (Troll’s tongue)
Doesn’t seem to be a full version update. These new features seem like dot incremental updates. Strange they did not put out a beta 2 months before release like in the past.
I like the weight. It will be my travel-lightroom!
Otherwise it would be called Heavyroom, right? 😉
Not much there for a major update, but what is new is useful (for me).
Hoping for improved video handling, particularly transcoding/export options which are pretty limited today, e.g add a 4k export option, add more control over bit rates….
Sure, it’s Adobe. But facial recognition seems very interesting to me – if it works.
Better video editing would be nice too. The current work-around with applying all processing to one still and copy that to the video is very inconvenient. Why not edit the video itself? I’m not the video guy but being able to edit my video clips fast and easy in the application I’m already used to, makes life very easy. Everyone else is free to use After Effects & Co.
Where to draw the line? Dont think we can expect LR to become an NLE, in the same way LR isnt Photoshop.
> Basic colour grading should be easier, as you point out.
> Previews needs to be much better – I don’t know what engine they’re using but when you watch a video inside LR the playback quality is terrible.
> It needs more export options to prepare videos for distribution – If youre self publishing to your own site you should be able to export several codec/bitrates with one click.
> And exporting for input to NLE, again needs more codecs, bitrate options and pre-processing. For example, high quality oversampling of 4k to 1080p, output at bit-rates above the current 24Mbps max.
None of the above is replace NLE. It’s all about workflow, which is what LR should be doing better for video.
What is a “filter brush”?
I’m assuming it’s a brush which applies a filter.
But that’s not new, is it? My LR4 has a filter brush, so…
You get a little brush for cleaning your lens filters included in the retail packaging.
If you get the creative cloud subscription there’s obviously no physical product so they send a little mexican guy around once a month for you.
LOL. Good one!
But you forgot to point out, that in case of a subscription, you have to give the brush back when you cancel your subscription.
I assume it is this, already available in latest Camera RAW. Makes it possible to “paint out” stuff from a Radial/Graduated filter http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/07/1250-the-graduated-and-radial-filters-new-brush-feature-in-camera-raw-in-photoshop-cc.html
Very useful feature, it has been very many times I have wanted to remove tree/buildings from a graduated filter I have applies to Skyline
The biggest issue for me, and for many others I know, is performance. So, what does “Performance gains” mean? Does Lightroom finally use more than one CPU core?
What bugs me the most is the lack of alternatives in this regard. Lightroom is by far the fastest serious RAW converter, but it is still slow by todays standards.
I cross my fingers, but I have not much hope that this update will increase performance significantly.
Mine too, the one thing I really need for them to improve is performance, integrated HDR would be nice but performance is absolutely necessary.
Finally? It’s used more than one CPU core for quite some time, are you referring to a particular portion of it?
When I’m doing heavy processing in LR it uses all 8 cores in my machine
To be frank, I did not test this explicitely. My experience is that Lightroom gets slower and slower with every release. All on the same 2007 MacPro, which was even upgraded to 8 cores when I switched to LR 5.
My above statement is actually based on the test at SLRLounge:
http://www.slrlounge.com/lightroom-lr5-lr4-hardware-performance-test-review/
“Single vs. Dual CPU Conclusion:
Unfortunately, like Adobe Lightroom 4, Adobe Lightroom 5 is simply not configured to utilize dual CPUs.”
Anyway, what counts is the end result. Even If I (and SLRLounge) am wrong and LR uses multiple cores/CPUs, this feature is implemented poorly.
It looks like that test was based on Lightroom 5.0.0, we’re now on Lightroom 5.7.1. I have no evidence that anything has changed but it would be highly unusual for no performance optimizations through the life cycle of an entire release.
That being said though LR6 will use your GPU as well, so I suspect there could be significant improvements (hope so)
I use the latest LR. I never have experienced any performance gain after upgrading LR. The opposite is the case. Thats why I’m desperately begging for better performance.
By the way, I also used LR 4 on a Core2Duo Mac Mini and the MacPro Quad in parallel for some time. LR was faster on the MacPro, but not by much. Totally different than my experience on many other programs (like Premiere or HandBrake, which both run way faster on the Mac Pro).
Even if it has no new features but significant multi threading improvement and GPU offloading I’ll be satisfied. Currently Lightroom performs about the same on a MacBook Pro as it does on the Mac Pro. Fingers crossed…
Of course, usage of the GPU would be great too. However, it is pretty limited what kind of code can be offloaded into a GPU (filters, image scaling). So, I think the use of multiple CPU cores is much much more important for speeding up everyday tasks like preview rendering, image loading, snappier overall response. They should do the simple things (CPU) first and the sophisticated (GPU) later.
http://petapixel.com/2015/02/19/lightroom-6-leak-shows-gpu-use-for-faster-editing-panorama-and-hdr-creation/
Sounds good!
GREAT NEWS
capture one express for sony raw files = free
upgrade from express to capture one pro 8 = 23€
you cant beat that.
Where did you get that price from? If I try to upgrade it says 69€, at least here in Germany.
Could you please so kindly and post the german link? Thanks in advance…
http://www.phaseone.com/de-DE/Online-Store/PurchaseDetailsPage.aspx
Are they taking only Australian Dollars?
kidding of course 🙂
This could be the last version you don’t have to rent. I will never rent adobe software.
I don’t like renting the software, but I do it. My calculation is simple. Lightroom does a major release every 1-2 years. I use it enough that I would always upgrade immediately. This upgrade, if rumor is correct, will cost about $155 US. The Adobe photography subscription costs $10/mo, so about the same as I would spend anyway, except spread out over the year instead of a lump sum. And, it includes Photoshop, a far more expensive product! I use PS much less often than LR, therefore didn’t always upgrade, but with the subscription I now always have latest, greatest PS, and really don’t spend much more than I would have spent just keeping LR current. So, though the idea of renting is irksome, it really works out to be a much better deal, at least for me.
At least for now.
Let me correct your math there loonsailor. Adobe comes out with a major LR release every two years, at $10 a month that would add up to $200 which is $50 more. It doesn’t matter that it comes with Photoshop since the new versions haven’t gotten any better.
1.0 1/2007
2.0 7/2008
3.0 6/2010
4.0 3/2012
5.0 5/2013
6.0 3/2015 (hopefully)
Not very consistent, but 5 new major versions in 98 months, or about 20 months / release. So, you’re right, I’m wrong about the cost differential. However, I don’t agree with you that PS has stood still. Even if it had, my new Sony cameras can’t be supported with my old CS5, so I would have needed to update, which would have cost a bunch. To me, that’s worth the $50 difference.
I’m not at all trying to advocate for Adobe here. I’m not eager to be renting my software. But the $10 photog deal is fine with me.
Isn’t Lightroom the program that is doing the importing? If you are looking for camera support it seems to me that it would be more important to get the LR update then to get the PS update. PS hasn’t completely stood still but it is a far cry from the updates of the past. For my money I would rather look into companies that still have some innovative ideas like Affinity Photo.
The thing you’re overlooking is that once Adobe has everyone paying the monthly charge, they no longer need to release upgrades to make money. After that point it’s a cash chow that doesn’t need to be improved.
I’m surprised nobody is mentioning panoramas and HDR merge. Those things alone justify a major version update. If they are will implemented, they’ll save me a lot of time that I currently spend exporting groups of images to photomatix and PTGui, then reimporting, making sure the new images are in the right collections and stacks, etc. Not sure how “filter brush” differs from current clone, fill and retuch brushes, but I’m hopeful this will be useful as well. And, if it all goes faster on my MacPro so much the better. All in all, I’m really looking forward to this upgrade!
Why can’t the White and black Slider be used as a Brush or or other local adjustment tool? In PS you could make the global adjustments on layers and just mask them in?
Not to mention the Curve adjustment. This is the number 1 weakness in LR and just cries out for improvement. Instead we get ‘facial recognition’. WTH?
I am Adobe free these days. Capture One does most of what I want and the Gimp is an old friend.
Give my love to Gimp….
The Gnu Image Manipulation Program has been around for a long time. All I really need from it is levels, curves and I crop in the Gimp. I used to do fairly fancy Luminosity Masking in the shop but since I started to use Capture One, I really don’t need to anymore.
As I catalog with Linux, which uses a standard *nix file system, I have no problem with storing and accessing photographs. A file system worked out by smart people to be useful to other smart people. Not at all like the windose dog’s breakfast and definitely better than the bastard son of FreeBSD and Darwin.
Censored. What is it with this place? The most inane nonsense gets posted but anything at all cogent could easily be tossed.
Jesus Christ…. What’s wrong with you? You have no sense of humor???
You said: “Gimp is an old friend”, he replied: Give my love to him….
It’s quite funny actually….
You are touchy, aren’t you?
I had made a somewhat humorous post in reply. That was censored. This place is weird sometimes. I see it is below now.