Lightroom 5 Released

The 5th incarnation of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom was released to the general public yesterday (10th June 2013) well ahead expected. The Lightroom 5 beta version doesn’t expire till the 30th June, so I wasn’t expecting a full release of Lightroom 5 till after that date. However, Adobe have been pushing their new cloud base platform software releases, so I guess there was some urgency to add Lightroom 5 to those as soon as possible. 

Lightroom 5 can be rented as part of a cloud based subscription package, but if like me, you want own a stand alone copy, then you can purchase and download your copy from Adobe here. The UK upgrade price is £46.86 plus VAT, however you’ll find that the download source is deemed to be within Ireland so VAT is charged at 23%, resulting in a price of £57.64. The price compares favourably to the US price of $79. Sadly, there does not appear to be any major additions to what was available in the Lightroom 5 beta version, so no surprises. However there were reputedly to be over 400 bugs corrected and some fine tuning from the beta version. The most comprehsive list I’ve found that documents the changes from LR4 is the Whats New in Lightroom 5 Beta? on Victoria Brampton’s website, but the headline features are listed below:

• Advanced Healing Brush – Easily remove objects and fix defects—even those with irregular shapes such as threads or lint—with a single brush stroke. Take precise control over what’s being removed as you make unwanted objects just disappear.
• Upright – Straighten tilted images with a single click. Upright analyzes images and detects skewed horizontal or vertical lines. You choose one of four correction methods, and Upright can even straighten images where the horizon is hidden.
• Radial Gradient – Lead your viewer’s eye through your images with more flexibility and control. The radial gradient tool lets you create off-center vignette effects, or multiple vignette areas within a single image.
• Offline editing with Smart Previews – Easily work with images without bringing your entire library with you. Just generate smaller stand-in files called Smart Previews. Make adjustments or metadata additions to Smart Previews and your changes will be automatically applied to the full-size originals later.
• Video slide show sharing – Easily share your work in elegant video slide shows. Combine still images, video clips, and music in creative HD videos that can be viewed on almost any computer or device.
• Improved photo book creation – Create beautiful photo books from your images. Lightroom includes a variety of easy-to-use book templates, and now you can edit them to create a customized look. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks.

Lightroom 5 Online Resources

You’ll find a pretty comprehensive list of resources for Lightroom 5 on the Adobe Lightroom Journal blog here, so I won’t list any within this posting. I will however show case this video by Adobe’s Lightroom Evangelist, Julieanne Kost, entitled Lightroom 5 – 10 Hidden Gems, which is by far my favourite so far and which provides details on some of the additional, lesser know features of Lightroom 5 that may just not have realised were there. Enjoy.