Lightroom Classic 9.0 has been released today along with several Adobe program updates for 2020. Here are the few new features I noticed. The updates are very incremental, I do hope the performance issue will not be a problem like previous updates.
Fill Edges for Panorama Merge
Previously, any missing edges caused by creating a panoramic photo would need either cropping or use of Boundary Warp. Now there’s an additional option, a checkbox called Fill Edges, which works similarly to the Content Aware Fill in Photoshop. I prefer to use this method along with Boundary Warp and it gives less of a curved look when only Boundary Warp was used (at 100%)
Export Presets
Export dialogue in the older version used to allow only one set of export at a time. Version 9.0 now allows multiple exports at the same time. This is now possible using the checkboxes next to presets in the Export dialogue. You can still, of course, simply click the preset you want and export one set of photos.
To export your photos using multi-batch export, follow the steps below:
- Select photos from the Grid view to export.
- Choose File > Export, or click the Export button in the Library module. Then, choose Export To > Hard Drive in the pop-up menu at the top of the Export dialogue box.
- Choose the presets, in which you want to export your photos, by selecting the checkbox in front of the preset names. Once you select a checkbox for a preset, all the settings in the Export dialogue box panels are disabled.
- If you want to see or update the export settings of a preset, clear all the checkboxes, and click the preset for which you want to update the settings.
Remove Photos Shortcut
To delete all selected photos in Loupe and Develop views, you can use the new shortcut Shift-Delete instead of having to switch back to Grid view.
Additional Filter Options
Folders and Collections can now be filtered by their colour labels (if used). Also, Image has Depth Map has been added to both Metadata Filters and Smart Collection criteria.
Post-Crop Vignette Preview
If GPU acceleration is enabled, the post-crop vignette is visible while cropping.
Develop Presets
The Export command has returned to the right-click menu so you can easily share your presets with others.
Clear History Above Selected History Step
Have you ever experimented on an already-edited photo, and then decided you preferred the earlier version? In 9.0, you can now right-click on a history state and choose Clear History Above This Step to clear the history states of the failed experiment.
Process Version Auto Update
Any photos currently set to PV3 or PV4 will automatically be updated to the current version (PV5 introduced in 8.0) when you start editing to benefit from performance improvements.
Keyword Performance
This has now been improved, especially for photos with lots of keywords applied.
Upgraded catalog
Remember this release upgrades your catalogue format, so you can’t easily roll back to 8.4.1. I suggest you keep the old catalogue, just in case you want to roll back to 8.4.1. Adobe also moved the Sync.lrdata file to sit alongside the relevant catalogue to improve performance and reliability.
Updated System Requirements
On Windows 10, you now need Version 1809 or later. To use GPU acceleration, your graphics card and driver must support DirectX 12.
Windows 7 SP1 64-bit still has limited support, but can’t take advantage of some performance improvements, such as GPU acceleration, or HEIC file format support.
On macOS, you need 10.13 High Sierra or later to run Lightroom 9.0. To benefit from GPU acceleration, you need macOS 10.14.5 or later and a computer that supports Metal.
There is also support to several new cameras which were released since 8.4.1 release. Lens profiles of many cameras are updated along with phones like iPhone 11, HUAWEI Honor 20 Pro and HUAWEI P30 & HUAWEI P30 Pro. You can check this link for further details – Cameras supported by Camera Raw