The December 2018 and October 2018 releases of Lightroom CC roll out several new features and enhancements that enrich your digital imaging experience. Read on for a quick introduction to these features and links to resources offering more information
Last updated on
Sep 25, 2023
Learn what's new in the 2019 releases of Lightroom CC
Note:
With the new Auto-update feature, your Creative Cloud apps are now automatically upgraded whenever a new version is available. For Lightroom CC, you cannot have two versions of the app running simultaneously on your computer. Your existing app preferences and settings are migrated to the latest version. You can manage the update preferences using the Creative Cloud desktop app. Learn more.
Lightroom CC (desktop)
Lightroom CC (desktop) 2.1 | December 2018 release
This release of Lightroom CC desktop rolls out new features and improvements such as enhancements to People view, search improvements, ability to show all presets, support for new cameras and lenses, and bug fixes.
Enhancement to People view
With this release of Lightroom CC desktop, you can now sort the named People clusters by their first and last names. Also, the load time and scrolling in People view now is now much faster.
To sort named People clusters by their first name or the last name, follow these steps:
- In the My Photos panel at the upper-left side of the screen, select People to go to the People view.
- Click the three-dots icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. In the drop-down list, under Sort By, select one of these sorting options: First Name or Last Name.
For related helpful information, see Sort options in People view.
Search improvements
When you begin searching in the Search bar, Lightroom CC now automatically adds a search facet of the album or the folder you are currently viewing. For example, if you viewing photos from an album named Landscape, a search facet for this album is automatically added in the Search bar as you begin typing your search keyword.
For related helpful information, see Search photos.
Show or hide partially compatible presets
In the Presets panel, Lightroom CC hides presets that reference camera profiles that are not compatible with the current photo you are editing. You can now choose to show those partially compatible presets that are hidden by default.
To show partially compatible presets in the Presets panel, do the following:
- Select a photo in Detail view and open the Edit panel.
- Click Presets at the bottom of the Edit panel.
- Click the three-dots icon at the upper-right corner of the Presets panel.
- Click Hide Partially Compatible Presets from the context menu to hide or reveal available presets.
For related helpful information, see Preview and apply develop presets.
Support for new cameras and lenses
For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles, see these resources:
Lightroom CC (desktop) 2.0 | October 2018 release
People view
Powered by Adobe Sensei
Powered by Adobe Sensei
Find photos of specific people faster now that Lightroom CC uses Adobe Sensei technology to automatically sort your photos based on who’s in them. When you upload and sync photos to the cloud, Lightroom CC detects, recognizes, and groups photos of the same person.
To navigate to the People View, click the My Photos 
icon at the upper-left side of the screen and click People.
For detailed information, see Find and organize photos of people in the People View.
Migrate Apple Photos (Mac only)
You can now easily migrate your Apple Photos Library into Lightroom CC on your desktop. Your photos sync to the cloud so you can access, edit, organize, and share them on all your devices.
For detailed instructions, see Migrate your Apple Photos Library to Lightroom CC.
Easily share your photos to the web
In addition to sharing albums, you can now share any random selection of photos as a web gallery.
To share a selection of photos, do the following:
- Select photos that you want to share from the grid view or the filmstrip.
- Right-click (Win) / Control+click (Mac) over your selection and select Share to Web from the context menu.
- In the Share Settings dialog box that appears, a unique link is generated. You can use this link to share your selected photos. Edit the name of the set of photos being shared under the Title option and specify the sharing Preferences.
- Click Continue. Your set of selected photos is now public.
To view the list of all photos or photo galleries that are public, click the Sharing 
icon to bring up the Sharing panel. Under Shared to Web, click Photos to find all your public photos and photo galleries as a drop-down list.
For detailed information, see Share photos as a web gallery.
Adobe Portfolio integration
Showcase your photos on the web now that you can send them directly to Adobe Portfolio from Lightroom on your desktop.
For detailed information, see Share to Adobe Portfolio.
Improved search
Powered by Adobe Sensei
Powered by Adobe Sensei
Start typing in the search bar, and Lightroom CC automatically offers suggestions to help you quickly find what you need. Search for cameras, locations, and other metadata with ease. Also, your enabled filters are kept neatly organized in the search box. You can even search for a filter using its name (try 'camera:').
For related information, see Search, filter, and sort photos.
Local color toning
You can now apply colors to specific areas of your photo with the Brush and Gradient tools.
When using the Brush, Linear Gradient, or Radial Gradient tools in Lightroom CC, scroll down to the bottom of the adjustment sliders panel to turn on Color.
To learn how to use the Brush and Gradient tools to enhance different parts of a photo, see the following tutorials:
HEVC file support on macOS
Beginning with this release, Lightroom CC supports Apple's HEVC video format (High Efficiency Video Coding, also known as H.265) on macOS High Sierra (10.13) or later.
For more information, see HEVC video files support.
Support for new cameras and lenses
For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles, see these resources:
Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS and Android)
Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS and Android) 4.1 | December 2018 release
Enhancements in People view
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)
Enhanced in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)
- Auto-suggestions to merge people clusters: With this release of Lightroom CC for mobile iOS, you automatically get merge suggestions for people clusters that look similar as you enter People view. For more helpful information on merge operations in People view, see Merge People.
- New sort options in People view: You can now sort people clusters by their first and last name. To sort people clusters, do the following:
- Select Sort by option to bring up the Sort panel.
- Select By First Name or By Last Name in the Sort panel to sort named people clusters in alphabetical order of their first or last names.
- Tap your selection again to toggle between ascending and descending order of the selected sorting option.
For more helpful information on sorting in People view, see Sorting options in People view.
- Set cover photo for a people cluster: To set any photo in a people cluster as its cover photo, do the following:
- In a people cluster, open the desired photo.
- Tap (
) from the top right corner. - Select Organize from the context menu.
- Tap Set as Cover Photo to set the photo as the cover photo of the people cluster.
For more helpful information, see Set cover photo in a people cluster.
New tutorial on Premium Healing Brush
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)
This release of Lightroom CC for mobile iOS introduces a new tutorial under Help & Support on Premium Healing Brush. At the end of the tutorial, a Keep Changes? dialog is displayed giving the user an option to discard or save changes to the photo. In a premium feature tutorial, upgrade your subscription to keep changes to the photo if you are a free user.
What's changed
Enhanced in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS)
- On iPad, added a confirmation text when applying a flag or rating via a keyboard.
- Tapping and holding to show the before state now shows the selected photo without any edits applied. Previously, the before state disabled only the edits applied on the mobile device.
- On scrolling images in an album, the album name or photo count is sticky and stays at the top as you scroll down. Scroll speed is now faster.
- Introduced a new collapsible/de-collapsible menu next to All Photos to show/hide the components in All Photos: Lr Camera Photos, Recently Added, and People.
Ad-hoc photo shares (Premium feature)
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android)
Lightroom CC for mobile (Android) gives you the ability to make a selection of photos public without the need of creating an exclusive album for sharing. To adhoc share and let others see your photos on the web, do the following:
- Long press any photo in the grid to enter multi-select mode.
- Select all the photos that you want to share on the web.
- Tap the () icon from the top right corner of the screen.
- Tap Share to Web option from the context menu.
- In the Share to Web panel that appears next, edit the Title field and turn on Enable Sharing. Select your share preferences based on Sharing Options, Display, View on the Web, and Share link options.
- Tap the (
) icon next to the name of your ad-hoc share and select an option from the context menu:
Move to Albums Choose this option to move the selected ad-hoc share to Albums.
Share to Web Choose this option to go back to the Share to Web context menu.
Rename Choose this option to open Rename Album dialog
Delete Choose this option to delete the selected ad-hoc share. Only the selected ad-hoc share gets deleted and not the photos contained in the shared album.
For more helpful information, see Share photos to Web (ad hoc share).
New Shared Albums tab (Premium feature)
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android)
This release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android) introduces a Shared Albums view which shows all your shared albums and photos under a Shared Albums () tab. You can monitor your adhoc shares under the Photos Shared to Web section in the Share tab.
Additionally, in the Albums view tap the () icon next to a shared album name and select Move to Shared Photos. Your selected shared album now gets added to the Photos Shared to Web container under the Shared tab that lists your ad-hoc shares.
For more helpful information, see Shared Albums view.
Move photos among People clusters
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android)
Lightroom CC for mobile (Android) now lets you manually select and move photos from one people cluster to other if you feel any of the photos don't belong to that cluster. The move operation can be performed for both named and unnamed clusters.
To move photos from one cluster to other, do the following:
- Long press any photo in a People cluster to enter multi-select mode.
- Select the photos you want to move.
- Tap () from the top right corner.
- Tap Move To in the context menu.
- In the Move photos to window that opens, select your destination People cluster and tap (
) at the top right corner.
Duplicate preset handling
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android)
With this release of Lightroom CC mobile (Android), if you attempt to create a duplicate preset with the same name under the same preset group, a Duplicate Preset Name dialog box opens with options to:
- Replace - Select this option to keep only the latest preset with the same name in the group.
- Duplicate - Select this option to append a numeric suffix to the new preset by default. It does not allow creation of the new preset with the same name.
- Rename - Select this option to go back to the Rename dialog and rename the preset.
Show/Hide partially compatible presets
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android)
On opening a photo in the Loupe view, some presets may not appear due to incompatibility with the selected photo, such as camera profiles that are not applicable to the current photo or presets that only apply to raw files.
To see all presets even if they are not compatible with the current photo, do the following:
- Tap to open Presets from the Edit panel
- In the context menu that opens, tap Show Partially Compatible Presets.
- In the Partially Compatible Presets dialog box that is shown, tap Show.
All presets are now visible, with the non-compatible presets shown in Italics in the Presets panel. You can hide the partially compatible presets at any time by deselecting Show Partially Compatible Presets in Presets.
For more helpful information, see Show partially compatible presets.
Wired ethernet support
New in this release of Lightroom CC for mobile (Android)
You can now access the internet via wired ethernet, a feature for running Lightroom CC mobile (Android) on ChromeOS.
Support for new cameras and lenses
For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles, see these resources:
Lightroom CC for mobile (iOS and Android) v4.0 | October 2018 release
People view
Powered by Adobe Sensei
Quickly find the people you care about with the Adobe Sensei-powered People View. Lightroom CC automatically tags people in photos and provides you with an easy way to see all of the photos that person appears in.
For more details, see these Help resources:
Search Improvements
Now search suggestions are presented as you start typing in the Search bar, recommending things like cameras, lenses, shutter speeds, apertures, ISOs, keywords, locations, and more.
For more details, see these Help resources:
Additional sharing options for Share to Web
You can now choose to only share images that are flagged or with a certain star rating or higher, while controlling the display theme and appearance, directly from within Lightroom CC app.
For more details, see these Help resources:
New guided tutorials
The following new guided tutorials have been introduced in this release:
- (iOS) First-Time Adjustments and Healing Brush
- (Android) First-Time Adjustments, Target Adjustment Tool, and Guided Upright
Support for new cameras and lenses
For a full list of supported cameras and lens profiles, see these resources:
Other enhancements
- Improved high-ISO rendering: Raw processing has been further improved to render low-light, high-ISO shots with more natural color.
- (Android only) Improved quality of HDR captures.
Lightroom CC for web (lightroom.adobe.com)
Lightroom CC for web | October 2018 release
The new Display view within lightroom.adobe.com lets you see a preview of the page, exactly how your viewers see it. While in the Display view, you can control the layout and background color while inserting breaks between images and text to help tell the story that accompanies your photos. When you’re done setting up the layout, you can then share the album using the controls under Sharing.
