The Lightroom 9.3 update is here and it brings some very important and useful features that you should be aware of and can now take full advantage of! In this article we will cover the most important updates that you should know.
New Icon
We will start with the new Adobe Lightroom icon. Adobe has recently made branding changes, one of which was the Lightroom icon.
Local Hue Slider
Lightroom 9.3 finally gives us full HSL adjustment (Hue, saturation & Luminance) for selected areas of a photo. We already had Saturation and Luminance but not the Hue when editing a specifically selected area using the Color Range Mask, brush or gradient tools.
This was a requested feature for a long time and we’ve finally got it! This feature can be used to easily change the color of a subject (or part of a subject) in a photo. This could be clothing, hair color or even skin tones. You can read more about the new hue slider adjustment tool and its back story at the adobe blog.
New Cropping Grid
We have a new grid option for the crop tool. This grid is great for achieving symmetrical compositions.
To get to it you just open the crop tool and alternate grids by using the following keyboard shortcut:
Windows: Ctrl + alt + O
Mac: Command + Option + O
Tone Curve
The Tone Curve had a UI makeover. Its panel has been updated and simplified with simple buttons that allow you to switch between a Parametric Curve and Point Curves.
You can now copy and paste values from one point curve to others as the panel now allows you to right click and copy the settings for each. Right clicking within the curve UI will also present you with new options as well.
Multi Batch Export
When exporting multiple photos you can now select multiple export presets and export into multiple file formats each with its own name all in one go. This is of course a big time saving feature for any of us who export in multiple formats for different purposes. We now don’t have to export one by one!
New Default Presets
Lightroom 9.3 now comes with new built-in presets that can be used for camera defaults or simply used as a normal preset.
ISO Adaptive Presets
This cool new feature allows you to apply a custom preset to photos depending on the ISO used in each photo. So it will automatically apply the settings you want for each photograph based on how much ISO was used in each.
This can become very useful when for example we shoot photos with a high ISO setting, which usually results in more noise or grain in your photograph. With ISO Adaptive Presets we can choose to set a certain amount of noise reduction to all photos with a high ISO setting. This then becomes a great time saver!
Video Support
The mac version of Lightroom supports AVI once again while the windows version of Lightroom now supports HVEC format.
Sync Activity
In the new 9.3 update the sync status now has an icon in the module selection bar. This icon changes to reflect the different sync statuses which are the following:
- Synced
- Syncing
- Disconnected
- Paused
Improved Performance
Fortunately the 9.3 update comes with a few different noticeable optimizations.
- The grid scrolling in the Library module is now a lot smoother when scrolling
- The Collection panel now gets cached for faster loading
- Slider adjustments in the Develop module are now smoother as the changes applied to the photo don’t happen simultaneously in the Navigator and Filmstrip panel thumbnails until after it’s applied to the photograph itself.
FREE PHOTO CHALLENGE
Participate in our free photo challenge and improve your photography skills. In this Photo Challenge we will give you 5 photography assignments. By fulfilling the assigments you will improve your photography skills considerably. Maybe you will take photos of subjects you never captured before!