Subscribers to Adobe Creative Cloud have a new update to Lightroom CC this week. It is quite a significant step forward in what is the most popular photo organisation and editing application for desktops. Lightroom CC is the subscription-based version of the Lightroom many people bought as a stand alone programme in recent years. This and other recent updates are making the switch to subscription worth it.
If you haven't started a subscription yet, my recommendation is to go with Lighroom CC + Photoshop CC bundle, even if you are not a big Photoshop user yet. You get get it for the best price here http://bit.ly/2EtN4e5.
Colour Profiles and Speed
The latest Lightroom CC update 7.3 brings improvements to the speed of image preview rendering during import, which can be painfully slow depending on your preferred preview method. The biggest and a fundamental change is the update to colour profiles. Previously, this was the last option in the Develop module, which many do not use. I personally use this first! Colour profiles are used by Lightroom to decide how to turn the RAW file into the colour image you see and manipulate. Adobe used a standard profile as a good starting point for people to begin working on their RAW files. However, this default did not take account of each camera's differences. As a Canon shooter, I always changed this to one of the Canon colour profiles as my starting point for all editing.
Lightroom CC now brings Colour Profiles right to the top of the Develop module. There are more and improved Adobe standard profiles plus your camera's and some artistic profiles. You can easily preview them without applying them now. One huge advantage now is that you can create and import profiles. These are essentially the same function as using colour lookup tables (LUTs) in Photoshop. What is also very neat is that you can use a slider to control the percentage strength of the profile. This functionality brings a new layer of creativity to Lightroom users, which is more powerful and effective than presets.
Check out this collection of videos and get some examples of how the improved profiles it can be used. Happy editing!
The Adobe Blog post on this update is here
https://theblog.adobe.com/april-lightroom-adobe-camera-raw-releases-new-profiles/