Software News

Adobe is hoping you’ll take the latest version of its popular Lightroom photography software everywhere. Called, simply, Lightroom CC, the new cloud-based app is designed to let you edit and organize full resolution versions of your images from your mobile phone to your iPad, laptop and desktop computers. (And, if you’re like most photographers these days, you probably have all those devices.)

Adobe announced this morning that final release versions of Lightroom 5.6 and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) 8.6 are now available.

Adobe customers can can get the apps through the update mechanism in Photoshop CC and Photoshop CS6, or through the download links at the bottom of this page. Adobe says these updates correct "issues reported in earlier versions of Lightroom 5 and Camera Raw 8," without being specific about what those issues were.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 caters to the entry-level crowd, but is imbued with several professional-level tools. Even when a feature is not really intended for serious photographers, there is a goldmine of functionality that could save countless hours. The app is celebrating 10 years on the market. Adobe has slowly revised the workflow, and it’s getting much better.

In this version, you’ll first see a start-up screen with two buttons, one for organizing photos and one for editing. It makes more sense to click the button to organize images first, especially if you’re not even sure which images need editing.

When you do, one of the first prompts you’ll see asks how you normally import photos. That’s handy, because even the most experienced pro has to get photos off the camera somehow. You might typically load images onto a network drive, or prefer loading directly off the camera. (An option to scan images seems woefully dated these days.) Whatever option you choose, you can always go back and select a different import default. For now, it just means, when you start Elements 10, the app will automatically look for that specific source.

Mention digital image editing and it’s likely that the first word you’ll hear is Photoshop. It’s become a general term, like Xerox. For many, the full-blown version of Photoshop (currently at CS5) is either overkill, with features that you’ll never need or use, or just too expensive. Adobe realizes this and has produced a more streamlined version for years. This “entry-level” version of Photoshop, named Elements, is priced like a basic editing program, but filled with features you’d expect to pay quite a bit more for. The latest version, Elements 9 has added several new features that photographers have been requesting for years, making this release an even more attractive option, and further blurring the line between CS and Elements features.

What’s New
There are normally a couple of new features in each release that make upgrading an attractive option for current users, and in this regard Elements 9 adds some interesting items in the sharing area, and a major feature that has been requested for years. Let’s take a look at what is new in Version 9.

Don’t you hate it when you straighten a horizon in Photoshop and ended up cutting off important parts of the photo in the process? Well, Adobe has an answer for that with its upcoming Content-Aware Crop feature for Photoshop CC.

Adobe has just announced that final releases of Lightroom 5.7 and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) 8.7 are now available. These updates offer several key features including a new tool to import files from Apple’s now defunct Aperture professional software, and from its current iPhoto consumer imaging software to Ligthroom.

Adobe overhauled its Creative Cloud service this morning with updates to its suite of software products including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, Premiere Pro CC and InDesign CC, along with new mobile apps for iOS and Android.