Hi everyone. This week Adobe released a new Lightroom update with some new features. Of those, are two that I think you’ll really want to try out. The first is a duplicate finder which is something Lightroom users have been wanting for a long time. Next, isn’t really a new feature, but they’ve improved the Select Subject masking tool, which is something just about everyone uses all the time. And in my experiments, it’s not just a little better, it’s a big improvement. Enjoy!
UPDATE: It looks like Adobe may have pulled the update due to the Duplicate feature removing photos that shouldn’t be removed. I don’t use the feature, and I use Lightroom (not classic) for my perusal photography – so I haven’t rolled back. But you can contact Adobe for help rolling back if you’d like. Alternatively, just don’t use the new feature – you won’t be able to anyway if you rollback to the previous version.
PS: If you see a “You must log in” message, this is on your side, not my website. Click here to read up on it and hopefully this helps. Alternative you can go directly to my YouTube channel to watch.
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Great video Matt.. So many new add on’s… Overwhelming sometimes.
Question regarding remove duplicates in LrC. Does it remove the duplicate from the catalog? Or does it remove it from the hard drive? Thank you!
Hi. It’s both. But it’s also easy enough to just try out. Purposely create a duplicate in your folder, Import it, then use the feature to see what happens. You’ll get a much better idea of exactly what’s happening. Thanks.
LrC version 15.4 wasn’t visible in my app, so further research revealed this statement from The Lightroom Queen that was posted in the Adobe Community:
2026-06-20 – Classic 15.4 is not currently available for download. This is due to the data-loss bug discovered yesterday. The circumstances are very limited: using Photo menu > Delete Rejected Photos while in the new Duplicates view mode causes unrejected photos to be deleted, so if you already have 15.4 installed, just avoid doing that! But Adobe takes any potential data loss very seriously, especially as it affects people’s precious originals, so the release has been temporarily withdrawn while they integrate a fix for this issue.
I’m excited to use the features you’ve described, Matt, once they’re available!
LR has withdrawn 15.4 update because of a bug.
It’s the last update today 15.4.1
I am really happy to see that you can now sync keywords from LrC to Lightroom Mobile. As a power user of Keywords, this will be very helpful. I also love the enhanced Subject detection.
When duplicates are found and one chooses to delete the duplicates, how does Lightroom determine which should be deleted? I have two images flagged as duplicates, the same image but slightly different file names. In this case, one was a more recent edit I did, Which one will Lighroom delete?
My question on duplicates is further confusing because 1 take images as both JPG and NEF. I edit from the NEF in Topaz, which creates a TIFF. When I make any further edits, it;s on the TIFF image and I export that image as a JPG into another folder. So now I am running the duplicate finder on LRC, and I can have 4 images, all with the same file name but a different suffix. When duplicate finder completes it’s work, and I say to delete duplicates, what would be deleted?
I am also disappointed the duplicate option hasn’t been included in Lightroom. One can only hope it will appear some time in the future. Fingers crossed!
thanks Matt for the great video as always.
You’re welcome. I’m sure it’ll make it there one day. As a LR user (not classic) I hope so as well. But I definitely don’t buy in to the conspiracy theory junk about it being a way for Adobe to charge for cloud storage.
Thank you for another excellent update video. I agree with your comments on credits and third party software. If you want it buy it.
Matt, great job, as usual. If I already own Topaz, would I still get charged if I did the AI sharpening as you described? In other words, do I have to do the AI sharpening within Topaz, outside of LrC so I don’t use Adobe credits, or will LrC figure out that I have Topaz and not charge me? Thanks.
Hi Robert. It will not know that you own Topaz and if you do this through Lightroom it will charge your Adobe credits. If you own Topaz, you need to use it as a plug-in. Thanks.
Thank you, Matt, from the wave man that was in your Creative Live class years ago in Seattle. I used to love going to Seattle, but it has really changed for the worse with the mayor’s agenda.
Your videos are fantastic! Thanks again
Hi Johann. Wow… that was a long time ago! I used to love Seattle – was one of my favorite cities to visit and walk around. Hopefully it gets better soon.
My version of LrC is 15.3.1 and I “do not see” this “duplicate” icon in my menu? Is there a newer version? Thank you
Hi Art. This is in version 15.4. You’ll want to try updating or contact Adobe if you have trouble. Thanks.
I have Lightroom Classic ver 15.3.1 and when I hit “Updates…” under the Help tab it doesn’t show any available update for LR. Strange.
I understand that LrC 15.4 has been pulled by Adobe Can you tell us more.
Hi. I saw something about the Remove Duplicate feature deleting extra files. I don’t use the feature so it’s not an issue for me, but if you do you may want to avoid that new feature or rollback to the previous version. You’d want to contact Adobe if you need more help about that though. Thanks.
Excellent video covering important updates! It saved a lot of time trying to catch-up by myself.. Thank-you! The new subject masking is a terrific improvement.
Why on earth would you have duplicates in LrC ? You import once and never not ever copy or move the originals. I assume it doesn’t find virtual copies that would be profoundly stupid. In my workflow i import to the default destination 2026/2026-06/2026-06-18 and on the right add the photos to a collection descriptive of the event. From then on I work exclusively in the collections. The folder names are between LrC and the OS. There is nothing you can do looking at folders that you can’t do with collections. Even looks the same.
Great video, as always! There used to be a technique of doing a sky selection, then doing a second selection that inverted the sky mask and subtracted it from the sky. Worked really well. With the new masking, would you expect sky selection now works successfully on it’s own? Again, appreciate the great video!
Hi. Nothing about the Sky mask has changed. The change I covered was with Select Subject. Thanks.
Matt:
Thanks for the update!
Regarding finding & deleting duplicates…
When I have used a Topaz plug-in (DeNoise, Sharpen, Gigapixel), the original RAW file will be a CR2 or CR3 BUT when I use a plug-in, it comes back to me in Lightroom as a Edit-tif OR if use photo on a few plug-ins, a Edit-Edit-2.tif.
My fear has been that deleting the original or any of the edited versions in the chain will corrupt or no longer be found in my library. Make sense?!
Hi… Not really, but give it a try. You can’t delete anything without choosing to delete it which involves you clicking at least twice. So if it’s not deleting what you want, then don’t do it.
Does the new LRC15.4 update to subject masking improvement also apply to the other masks such as object and sky?
Hi. The update improved the Select Subject mask. Thanks.
I was hoping they added the recent updates they made to ACR.
Thank you for being upfront with regards to using Topaz. I agree that Adobe should have this added. I am very disappointed they have not done so. You are a good person to be honest.
Matt, sorry, the other thing about that duplicate finder is that it appears to default to your entire catalog. Not something I would ever use since it would be nothing but a make work project, especially because I’d have to visit each folder to see why the duplicates exist and since I don’t create unwanted duplicates the whole thing becomes a Department of Redundancy Department activity. 🙂
Hi Matt,
I usually love the new features, and for the most part I do in this update. Regarding the ‘Find Duplicates’, however, I don’t get it. Unless the ‘duplicates’ feature could subset to the dups with their siblings, it won’t work in my world if it is working of pixels and not filenames, because I may have intentionally created it, using a different name or with different keywords etc., to purpose that one differently …like for a publication that wants a specific naming convention or keyword pattern. Absolutely necessary to understand WHY the dup exists, because I have shot events after which different publications and organizations wanted the same image but with different sizes, different pixel densities, different file type, special keywords, special naming convention. I always have those appear back in the catalog so I can better understand the why and how those folks use them. Someone mentioned I could use virtual copies, but since I have to export anyway, I prefer to just export and have that export added back into the catalog.
Regarding histograms, I often drag WITHIN the histogram to do my preliminary edits. That’s been working fine for years.
I still shoot with D800 and D7200 (always raw unless for an event where specific size jpegs are specified …e.g ‘Marathon Photos’ where the upload is live and small jpgs are all they want due to them having back end gear that can take that little jpg up to whatever size the customer wants to purchase. I find the Denoise in LrC now does better than what I was getting in Topaz, and its nice to dispense alien facial insanity that happens to people in the background in Topaz. :).
What’s the new version? I don’t see the duplicate icon and I have just updated to the latest LRD version available to me which is 15.3.1
Same for me. I just check, and it’s at 15.3.1 with no update listed.
Hi. You should contact Adobe for all update issues.
This is such a shame …..
While Lightroom and Lightroom Classic often share many features, Adobe occasionally releases updates that are specific to one platform or the other. In this specific update, the ability to add custom labels to color labels and create custom color labels was introduced as a new feature specifically for the cloud-based Lightroom app (7:37-7:49).
Lightroom Classic did not receive this specific color labeling update in this release.
I have been asking for the feature for years and it is exactly what I need, but why is it not in Lightroom Classic !! ?
Thank you, again.
So frustrating they don’t make the duplicate feature available to Lightroom as well. Strickly a money grab so we pay for storage.
The select subject mask improvement is great – does this improvement also apply to select object? I often find myself selecting various objects not considered the subject, and those with fuzzy edges (e.g. trees) often have problems that have to be fixed. I’ve used some of your tips to improve them, but if it could work like the new select subject, that would be outstanding!
Hi David. Select Subject is the only feature that was improved in this latest version. Thanks.
You compared the old and new select subject feature. How does the new select subject compare to Photoshop? Has it gotten close for fine hair and fur?
I don’t seem to have the “duplicate” icon
The next level of “masking” needs to be Subject (object) extraction.
The difference: an extraction would automatically defringe the edges by subtracting away the color just outside of the object from the pixels that are partly that color and partly the subject color. The result would be a translucent pixel of the subject color. 🙂
I won’t hold my breath, but it’d sure be nice.