Interested in what Lightroom 6 has to offer? We’re outlining all the details for you right here!

My Lightroom 6 review has finally arrived!  After much speculation and rumors it’s finally here! I’ve jumped in as quick as I could for a real life, no BS, review.  The goal for this Lightroom 6 review is to share with you the major new features, and the ones that I feel are the most practical and valuable. With that said, this article is not going to dive into every minute detail. I’d rather focus on the ones that really are most pertinent to you in determining if Lightroom 6 is a worthy upgrade to you. I will also address some common questions and concerns I’ve gotten from readers.

First, a word about the name…

You may have already noticed that the new Lightroom is sometimes called Lightroom CC and sometimes Lightroom 6. Why is that?

Lightroom CC is the “Creative Cloud” version.

Lightroom 6 is the standalone software.

The two versions are almost the same, although the Creative Cloud (Lightroom CC version) has a couple more bells and whistles.

There are two features that you’ll only get if you are on the Lightroom CC version. There is a mobile Lightroom syncing your images feature using the Lightroom application, and “Lightroom Web,” which lets you more easily share your images with friends or clients.

OK, now that we got that out of the way let’s dive into the features I am most excited about.

Performance

With each and every update, users have always been asking for better performance out of Lightroom.  To edit our photos faster and with less lag time.  Well, we finally have a significant performance boost inside of Lightroom!

It’s rumored that depending on your computer hardware you can get up to 10x the speed with the new Lightroom 6/Lightroom CC. For anyone like me who processes a high volume of images in Lightroom, this alone is worth the upgrade.

To check to see if your computers GPU is being used by Lightroom look under Lightoom preferences and then the performance tab.
Lightroom 6 Peformance

Graduated and Radial Filter Brushes

The graduated filter along with the radial filter has always been one of my favorite tools in the Lightroom toolbox to really enhance your images.  Even though these tools allowed you to adjust only a “portion” of the photo and not the entire photo, there still are times when your adjustments are overlapping into areas of a photo that you don’t want to adjust.  Inside the new Lightroom you now have the ability to “erase” areas of the photo that you don’t want the graduated and radial filter applied. This is awesome!!

Lightroom CC review

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Photo Merge – HDR and Panorama

One of the coolest, most helpful new features is the ability, with ease, to merge multiple photos together to create great looking HDR, and panoramic images.  Up until now, the only way to do so was with added software or Photoshop.  Being able to do this all within Lightroom is yet another massive feature that will have many photographers jumping for joy!

Lightroom CC Panorama Feature

Video Demo/Walk Through

Other Notable New Features

Lightroom CC comes backed with many other features, albeit, the amount of practicality for the masses is debatable compared to the above powerhouse updates.  Nonetheless, here are some fun new things you’ll find inside of Lightroom CC/6!

  • Facial Recognition: Ever thought it would be helpful to search your Lightroom catalog of photos by person? Now you can.
  • New Slideshow Module Features: If you are always creating slideshows to showcase your work you’ll be happy with some of the newest features.
  • Add Photos to Collections at Import: If you utilize collections a lot this can save you an extra step.
  • Tighter Desktop to Mobile App Integration: Share photos easier, view them on mobile or desktop, or even edit on both and have synced to perfection.
  • Improved Web Galleries: With the ease of gorgeous online viewing galleries everywhere you look, I don’t see this is a feature to get excited about. However, if you want the flexibility to create your own, you know have more options available to you.

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Questions/Concerns

Here are a handful of questions that you might have or be wondering about.

Q: Will my presets still work?  
A: YES.  There have been no changes at all to any of the sliders.

Q: I don’t have creative cloud right now, how do I get my catalog into the new version?
A: I didn’t either.  I just made the leap to the cloud version and Lightroom automatically found my catalog and with a single click imported it into the new Lightroom CC version.  I was quite impressed with how easy it was.

Q: How much is it?
A: If you want to stay away from the Lightroom CC version (monthly price), you can get Lightoom 6 for $149.  If you want to get Lightroom CC, you can get Lightroom and Photoshop for only $7.99 a month through this special discounted link.  You’ll not only get the added Lightroom features but you’ll always have the most up to date version of Lightroom as well as Photoshop.  It’s a deal really.

How to Upgrade Without Joining Creative Cloud

Summary

Overall I’d say there aren’t a TON of amazing new features like we saw from Lightroom 4 to Lightroom 5.  However, from just the three biggest feature updates I noted above, Lightroom 6/CC is a much welcomed improvement.  If you already have Lightroom 5 and don’t have performance issues or care much about HDR / Panorama features, then I don’t think you are missing much if you continue without upgrading.  However, if you are on Lightroom 4 or older, I highly recommend upgrading to Lightroom CC or Lightroom 6.  It really is that much better than those older versions and at $7.99 a month it’s only $.26 a day! (when you use the link above). Hope this Lightroom 6 review has been useful for you all!

Chat soon!

Cole

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