Adobe brings updates to Lightroom, Classic and Photoshop on the web

Lightroom update
You can now use Lightroom's presets and editing tools on video (not Lightroom Classic). (Image credit: Adobe)

For a start, Photoshop on the web gets new tools including Curves, Refine Edge, Dodge and Burn and Smart Objects conversion. Never heard of Photoshop on the web? It’s a cut-down browser-based version of Photoshop, currently still in beta, but already looking very interesting.

In this update Photoshop for web also gets mobile browser access for reviewing and commenting, ‘onboarding and learning content for new users and performance and interface improvements.

Photoshop on the web can’t do everything the desktop program can do, but it’s an interesting new direction – it means that you can use Photoshop on any computer without having to install the software. At the moment, browser support is restricted to Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

The desktop version of Photoshop gets a modest update too. Adobe has added a new Photo Restoration Neural Filter for automatically enhancing old and damaged photos.

Adobe is pushing its Lightroom 'community' with the ability to create 'Remixes' of other users' edits and download other users' edits as presets. (Image credit: Adobe)

New features in Lightroom and Lightroom Classic

Lightroom now offers basic video editing tools (though not Lightroom Classic, we understand). You can trim clips by adjusting the start and end points, and it’s now possible to apply regular Lightroom adjustments and presets.

This will enable users to create a consistent “aesthetic” across stills and videos, though at the moment there’s no direct integration with Adobe Rush or Premiere Pro, so Lightroom’s video editing is more for quick adjustments and convenience – it’s by no means an NLE too to rival dedicated video editors.

Lightroom desktop and Classic now come with a small selection of 'Adaptive Presets' which can be applied to your pictures' skies or subjects, not to the whole image. (Image credit: Adobe)

On the subject of presets, Adobe has also made some strides here across both versions of Lightroom and Lightroom Mobile. It will now be possible to apply an ‘Amount’ setting to control the strength of presets, just as you can with Lightroom Profiles, and there are new Premium Presets (also available in Adobe Camera Raw), including Portrait, Concert, Video preset and more.

Even more interesting is Adobe’s new ‘Adaptive Presets’. These use Adobe’s AI sky or subject masking tools to apply presets specifically to these areas, not the whole image (not available on Lightroom mobile).

And if you thought red-eye went out with the eighties, it’s back – or rather red-eye correction is back. This time around it’s automated and powered by Adobe Sensei AI.

These new updates are live now and should be available in the Adobe Creative Cloud app’s Update panel.

Photoshop and all versions of Lightroom are included in the Adobe Photography Plan and Photography Plan 1TB. The Lightroom plan includes only Lightroom, Lightroom mobile and 1TB storage.

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Rod Lawton
Contributor

Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com