Every few months Adobe releases a new update to Lightroom. These updates usually included various camera and lens profiles, performance increases, as well as some new features. In this video, I’ll share the new features like the Edge Fill option in the Panorama window, as well as some other new enhancements.
What’s New in Lightroom (November 2019 Update)
Nov 5, 2019 | Lightroom | 35 comments
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.
I hope this is ok to ask. I have tried to find an answer with no luck, so I am going to ask here. I’m an intermediate user on Lightroom. I just moved to a new Win 10 PC. My old machine was Win 8, so I was running LR 7.5. Running old Windows 8 and the subscription indicated the newer versions of LR were incompatible. I get a new machine running Windows 10. With the creative cloud subscription and Win 10, it will only allow me to install the new LR 3.0 or 3.1. My question is Can I or How do use the catalog from older LR 7.5 to work with LR 3.1 when I can’t get either machine to the current or earlier versions? Can you point me in the right direction? Do I have to rebuild the LR 3.1 catalog? All photos and catalog are on an external drive.
I have been using LR since 2010 and only as a hobbyist. Never have had problems with different OS and different LR versions like this.
I see you have a course Mastering Catalog will this help me with this issue. I have followed you for years and took your class in Colorado Springs years ago.
Thank you in advance for any help with this.
Matt just realized in need to upgrade to LR 9.1 desktop app. I just saw LR and installed thinking it was the desktop app. Of course I see and realize this right after I post this question. Hopefully when I install I can point it to my catalog.
thanks,
Matt, thanks as always. How did you get to that training module? Is it only on the Cloud version (Lightroom) or is it accessible on Lightroom Classic? I couldn’t get to it I am PC not Mac…thanks, Margie
Hi. It isn’t available in the Classic version.
Matt- regarding the export to multiple destinations, how do I get Facebook to show up in the user presets as one of these export destinations?
Hi Bill. It’s not a default preset. I created it. I googled Facebook’s suggested image sizing and made a preset from that.
What about LR catalog backups? After a catalog format change, as the recent update introduced, is there any purpose to keeping catalog backups created with a prior release of LR (Classic)?
They do take up a lot of space. They have saved me a couple of times when some LR folder move operation or the like failed.
I keep XMPs, so I guess I could rebuild _most_ of the catalog, but boy would it be *painful*.
So, when a new catalog format is introduced, should we delete all the old formats, and quickly make several generations of backups? Or is there a way to use them, if _shudder_, needed?
Thanks, Matt!
Probably no sense unless you go in to your creative cloud app and roll back to an earlier version. Or just save yourself the hassle. Back up your catalog right this moment and you’ll never have to worry about going back to an old one again since you’ll have a good one today.
“I keep XMPs, so I guess I could rebuild _most_ of the catalog, but boy would it be *painful*.”
You may already know this (but many don’t). When you import an image into Lr, it reads the .xmp data and adds that information (and the image file location) to its database (catalogue). Now, unless you specifically tell it to do so, Lr keeps all of the metadata changes, keywording, processing steps, etc. ONLY in its catalogue. You can write the metadata out to the files manually (Ctrl-S) or you can go into your preferences and check (auto add changes to .xmp) but there are pros and cons to that. Without your catalogue and without writing out the metadata, your .xmp data is only what you had when you made the image. More here: https://www.wolfnowl.com/2012/01/lightroom-file-management-and-metadata/ – very old, but still relevant).
Mike.
P.S. Raw Files store metadata in sidecar (.xmp) files. Others, including .tif, .dng, .jpg, etc. store the metadata in with the image data in the same file.
Thanks, Mike. That’s a good reference. I do set my catalog to write changes to the XMPs. With a current processor, lots of RAM, catalog and images on an SSD drive–I don’t see any slowdown in performance.
I’ve only had one major and one minor LR catalog problem, but since there’s little/no penalty to doing so, I’ll take the belt and suspenders approach.
Thanks, Matt for telling me I can delete all the catalogs made with prior versions of LR!
So helpful. Thank you! Apologies if you covered this, but do you keep your old Lightroom catalog? It doesn’t take up much space, but is it needed? And I know this post is about Lightroom, but what about the old Photoshop 2019. Should that be uninstalled after upgrading to 2020?
Hi Trenda – I covered that and more questions in the FAQ that’s on the blog here on the site. mattk.com/blog
Hello Matt, I updated to new software backed up previous catalogue and updated to new catalogue as well. However lightroom now doesn’t recognise photos on my memory card. I thought it may be the card but I put another card in with photos – but no I get the message that there are no photos on the card. I’ve also found that I cannot play video photos either. Is this to do with the upgrade. I have. Mac upgraded to Catalina, I can see the photos on the memory card outside of lightroom.
Regards.
Hi. Unfortunately I don’t know how to troubleshoot this one.
Surprised that LR is needing to upgrade my catalogs to use, and they will not be backwards compatible. Do I care about this? ok to “upgrade?”
Hi. You don’t care, nor do you have a choice 😉 And yes it’s safe, although I always make sure I backup my catalog before doing any updates.
perfect. Thanks!
Thanks Matt!
Great info Matt. Thanks for keeping us informed! It appears that the updates are for features. Were any of the compatibility issues with the new mac OS update fixed? i realize that this is mostly an apple fix, but thought I would ask.
Hi Jeff. Best to check on Adobe’s website for that. The compatibility issues were minor to begin with and not very much used features. But I don’t know about how it works now. I haven’t even updated the new Mac OS yet 🙂
Great update presentation (as usual). Thanks so much. However, I got an email from the creator of LRTimelapse with a recommendation NOT to upgrade yet due to the following: “Basically Lightroom 9 ignores any custom export settings that 3rd party export modules set and instead always exports in JPG with default settings, no matter what the Plugin says. That means, if you choose any of the TIFF settings in LRTExport, you will get JPG files, named as TIFF, but still JPG files, which will make the Renderer fail.” Do you know anything about this?
Hi John. I’m not even familiar with that plug-in as I don’t do time-lapse – still photos keep me busy enough 😉 Sounds like they have some work to do though. So if that plug-in is necessary for you then I’d hold off. Ask your plug-in developer how long they think it’ll take them to make their software compatible and hopefully that helps you make your decision.
Thanks!
Thanks Matt, love your update videos! I may not use all the new updates but at least I know they’re there.
As much as I hated moving to Adobe subscription at first, in the long run it is cheaper than the upgrade prices we used to pay – plus one gets more software for one price than one did before (LR, Photoshop, Premier Rush, etc. and Bridge which was included in LR and PS). On the plus side, it is always kept up to date and Adobe does a good job of keeping the products up to date by adding new features, etc – which was not so in the past.
On the minus side – once one quits the subscription service and one looses the photo editor. On the plus side, you cannot beat what you get for $10 a month (or $120 a year if you look at it that way – which is cheaper than annual upgrades).
Thanks much!
Thank you, Matt! As always, you keep us up on all the changes and/or new features that make our post processing much better!
I must admit, I scratch my bald head when I read comments about “renting” software. My personal belief is that as a photographer, I want the most up to date tools available to express my vision through my photography.
I “own” Luminar 3 but cannot even use a paper profile in their software to print a photo. The monthly fee to Adobe is a worthwhile investment.
People have landed where they’re going to land and it’s not my place to sell them. I’m opening up to teaching more software, so I’ll be fine being the guy that teaches photo editing. I have my favorite software, just like I have my favorite camera brand. Be we can all take a great photo with any camera and we can edit a great photo with any software. If I have an Adobe product, I make it known that it is for the subscription version and don’t concentrate on making backward compatibility anymore as those versions are just too out of date. Thanks!
I like your succinct way to update us on the new features in LR. Thank you so much.
Thanks for the ‘don’t watch if’…as I have Lightroom 6, and have made a conscious decision to not ‘rent’ software Matt. So, if/when you make a broader approach which includes all Lightroom choices, please let us know! I tend to use Skylum products much more now, since Adobe has decided to rent their software with their CC versions. I prefer low level upgrade costs, rather than a monthly rental purchase. Thanks.
Appreciate your e-mail updates though, on many products other than just Adobe.
I totally agree with not wanting to rent software. I, too, prefer to pay for upgrades and own the software.
Check your terms of service. You never own any software. And no matter what you buy you’re going to have updates which will cost you money. Luminar is putting out a new version less than a year after the last version came out. The update isn’t free. Capture one 20 is coming out soon, it costs money even if you bought Capture One 12 a month ago. I think it’d be hilarious if Lightroom went back and offered a non monthly Lightroom option for the price they used to charge, which was $150, and just sit back and hear all the people who say they want a one-time payment option cry about the price.
There isn’t be any need for LR 6 videos, it is a dead product, no new updates will ever be added. The subscription model is here to stay. Seems like the last Skylum update was about $80, which they charge for every year. So $9.99 a month for both Photoshop and LightRoom isn’t that much different a cost, not to mention the fact that Adobe sends out feature updates throughout the year. Your choice to remain behind.
THANK YOU!!!!
I understand Dale. Unfortunately I had to give up supporting old legacy software. Lightroom 6 came out almost 5 years ago and in software years that’s very old. Adobe themselves don’t support it. And by only supporting that software, I’m crippling all of the new users with new features from taking advantage of what they pay for. SKylum is good software. They’re basically on a yearly upgrade cycle so whether you want to pay yearly for an upgrade or monthly, they all got ya’. You can call it perpetual if you want, but it’s really a subscription as no company can survive on a one-time $70 payment. But as long as you’re using what works for you, that’s all that counts. Thx!
Thanks Matt! Always useful I love when you do reviews on LR updates. I am curious to know if the multiple exports via presets will send those files to each corresponding export folder!? I will have to try this out! (EX. If my Instagram preset exports images to a specific Instagram folder and my Facebook preset exports to a Facebook folder.)