Lightroom is an indispensable tool for anyone that manages large numbers of photos. I use Lightroom almost exclusively as my go to tool for editing my shots. While I absolutely love Photoshop, I only use it to make the complicated edits that Lightroom wasn’t designed to do. With Lightroom 6, Adobe made several enhancements that not only begin to bridge the gap between Photoshop and Lightroom’s capabilities but also help to streamline our workflows and decrease the time we spend editing and loading our photos. In this tutorial, I will demonstrate several of my favorite new features available in Lightroom 6, and will show you how you can use them to work more efficiently.
HDR Merge
HDR is a term used to describe photos that contain a high dynamic range of tones. The new HDR Merge feature in Lightroom will allow you to merge two raw photos together to create a new image with much more dynamic range that the originals.
In the past, you would need to use Photoshop or another 3rd party application to accomplish this task but in Lightroom 6 you can now create HDR images without having to leave the application.
Additionally, the new HDR Merge feature combines the two images into a DNG file, making Lightroom the first and only raw HDR image creator.
Panorama Merge
Like the HDR Merge feature, the new Panorama Merge feature also combines several images together to create a new raw image. In this case, it allows you to easily combine several photos to create an entirely new panorama, entirely in raw, without having to leave Lightroom.
Facial Recognition
If you take photos of people, this new feature may completely change the way you work in Lightroom. Like Facebook, Lightroom 6 uses facial recognition software to help you tag the photos of the people in your Library. Simply press the (O) key on your keyboard to select the faces icon to enter the People view.
GPU Performance Enhancements
Lightroom 6 includes several performance enhancements to increase the speed in which Lightroom renders your images. So plan to spend less time waiting for Lightroom to render and make edits.
Sign Up
To sign up for a subscription to Lightroom 6, visit Adobe’s website.
Haven’t tried Facial Recognition yet, or the merges. My 2 favs: GPU perf enhances (nice even on older machines) and the Auto button in the cropping tool (wish it had a keyboard shortcut).
It seems like there are other subtle changes that just make my photos look better. And I was able to drop Lr CC into my workflow and jump right in. Best update yet IMHO.
Thank you very much for this tutorial.. i’m a hiker/mountaineer. i shoot landscape in raw. this is a very helpful tool. good thing lightroom add some of these features.. this will help me create a wider view and more dramatic image of the landscape that im shooting using the merge tool.. thank you very much again 😀