Adobe has released a major update to Lightroom Classic (version 15.0) with faster performance, smarter AI tools, and new workflow features. Full details are available on Adobe’s official release notes.
Performance Enhancements
- Faster live previews when hovering over Presets, History, and Snapshots. Hold Shift to pause previews.
- Smoother cropping performance, especially with Soft Proofing enabled.
Color Mixer and Point Color
- Color Mixer: Adjust hue, saturation, and luminance (HSL or Color Tone) for entire color ranges.
- Point Color: Use the eyedropper to target specific tones with Hue, Saturation, Luminance, Variance, and Range controls.
- Visualize Range highlights affected areas for precise color refinement.
Crop and Straighten Updates
- Zoom inside crop boundaries for pixel-level accuracy.
- Stores up to five custom crop ratios automatically.
- Checkerboard transparency overlay (GPU required) makes transparent areas visible.
- Constrain to Image keeps crops within image bounds after lens or transform corrections.
HDR and External Editing
- New HDR Limit slider for fine control over dynamic range.
- Export to Photoshop in 16-bit or 32-bit HDR formats supporting HDR sRGB, Rec.2020, and Display P3.
- Expanded SDR support for Rec.2020 and other custom ICC profiles.
AI Masking and Detection
- Detect Objects now includes shadows and reflections for more accurate removal.
- New Snow option in Landscape Mask isolates snow in winter scenes.
- Improved Reflection Removal for faster, more natural results.
Library Improvements
- Parent folders display alerts when subfolders go missing.
- Capture time metadata now includes millisecond precision.
- Filter by Likes and Comments in Attributes and Smart Collections.
- New filter for stacked vs. non-stacked photos.
Assisted Stacking
- Automatically groups photos by Time or Visual Similarity.
- Lightroom picks the best image as the top of each stack.
Export and Sync
- Export videos and slideshows in 4K quality.
- Notifications for Likes and Comments on shared albums.
Tethered Capture
- Option to use native tethering or dedicated plugins for Fujifilm and Leica cameras.
Other 2025 Enhancements
- Improved Generative Remove and Distracting People Removal tools.
- GPU-accelerated previews for faster edits.
- Custom subsets in Copy-Paste for selective edit duplication.
- Denoise, Raw Details, and Super Resolution now built into the Detail panel.
Feature Summary
| Category | New Features |
|---|---|
| Performance | Faster previews, smoother cropping |
| Editing | Color Mixer, Point Color, Visualize Range |
| Cropping | Zoom crop, transparency overlay |
| HDR/Export | HDR Limit, 16/32-bit HDR export, ICC profiles |
| AI Tools | Snow detection, reflection removal |
| Library | Likes/Comments filters, millisecond timestamps |
| Stacking | Group by time or visual similarity |
| Export/Sync | 4K export, album feedback notifications |
| Tethering | Leica/Fuji plugin support |
| GPU & AI | Faster previews, better object removal |