Lightroom Classic CC Update 7.3
Earlier this week, April 3rd to be exact, Adobe released the 7.3 Update for Lightroom Classic CC as well as an update to Lightroom CC. The big takeaway is that there are now A LOT of profiles that you can choose from to give your image just the look you're after. Now to be clear there were Profiles before but they were pretty well hidden in the Camera Calibration Panel. Now the profiles get first class treatment right at the top of the Basic Panel and there are many more options. There are the 6 standard Adobe Profiles - Adobe Color, Landscape, Neutral, Standard, Portrait and Vivid plus the Monochrome Profile. There are also profiles meant to match the different modes of your camera - for example if your camera has a "vivid" setting you could load that profile - and also Artistic Profiles and BW Profiles, Vintage Profiles and Modern Profiles.
You can find them via the Profile Browser that is accessed by clicking on the four squared grid just to the right of your current Profile. Adobe Color is the new default profile and that will load every time you open a newly imported image. When you do open the Profile Browser you can hover over each profile to see a preview on your active image. If you double click the profile it will activate that profile for your image, or you could click on the Profile and tap the close button to accomplish the same task. There is also an Amount slider which allows you to increase or decrease the effect of the Profile.
You can only have one Profile active at a time but you can switch Profiles whenever you like - being Lightroom it is completely non-destructive, of course. Profiles do not have an effect on your adjustment sliders and the best way to think of them, in my opinion at least, is as the base layer of your image. All the adjustments you make after selecting your Profile - tone, saturation, etc. - will effect that base layer but the base layer does not move your adjustment sliders to accomplish it's appearance. And that is where they are different from Presets. It can be easy to get confused between a Preset and a Profile but if you think of Profiles as that "base layer" then you can think of Presets as a group of "top layers". Presets can include all sorts of adjustments and slider adjustments can certainly be part of a Preset and you can even include a Profile within a Preset.
Now earlier I had mentioned that Adobe updated Lightroom CC as well and I am pretty regular in my complete disregard of Lightroom CC but I feel it needed to be mentioned with this post. And what needs to be mentioned is that Lightroom CC also received the same Profiles as Lightroom Classic CC. It is also worth noting where Adobe placed these Profiles in Lightroom Classic CC - at the very top - as in they really want you to use them! This indicates to me that we are on the road to a singular Lightroom - no more Classic CC/CC confusion. When Lightroom CC was released it seemed basic but has since received the Tone Curve and the same Profiles as Classic CC and it just feels like they are building a bridge between the two. Of course this is just prognosticating on my part - and I could be very wrong - but logical thinking would tell us that that is where we're headed. I hope that Adobe is very careful in moving forward with Lightroom and I hope they don't make it too simple. When people are given the option of just tapping a button to create the image and appearance they want, I feel it takes away from the creative process and I feel the stronger a photographers' creative process the stronger the photograph. But let's move on...
There were a couple other updates to Lightroom Classic CC as well. Of course new Camera and Lens profiles were released but there are a couple more exciting things than that. The Tone Curve seems to be getting some love from Adobe (they must have read our recent blog post and watched our recent Videos as well 😉). It is now larger and more in charger - making adjustments easier and fine tuning is easier with the increased size as well. I am probably more excited about that than I should be. Also, the Dehaze slider makes its major league debut in the Basic Panel with the other Presence Sliders, which is where it belonged all along. If you aren't familiar with Dehaze it is best to think of it as Clarity on steroids. Through Adobe's magic it increases contrast and vibrance (among other things I'm sure) to remove "haze" or decreases contrast and vibrance to add haze to your image. Much like the Clarity slider I would suggest using it sparingly and with a soft touch as it can quickly turn your image a bit garish.
The image on the left has a Dehaze value of -50 while the image on the right has a Dehaze value of +50
Alright guys, that's all I've got for now and as always feel free to leave comments below or post them in the Private Facebook Group! We'll talk to you soon!