Adobe Lightroom 5

Adobe fired product salvos on every front today, with a massive set of announcements across its product line. For photographers, the Photo subscription plan has been made permanent at $10/month for Photoshop CC, Lightroom, and mobile apps. Photoshop has also been updated with some cool new tools including Focus-based masking and Path-based blurs – as well as support for Photoshop Mix. You can read more about all of that in my article for Extremetech.com. In the meantime, artists with an iPad will love Adobe’s new Ink & Slide hardware, which I was fortunate enough to be able to use extensively prior to its release.

Adobe continues to push the envelope of what is possible with non-destructive editing – the kind used by Lightroom and by Adobe Camera Raw. It has just published a release candidate of ACR 8.5 that (in addition to more cameras and lenses) supports the ability to use a brush to limit the effects of a Graduated filter.

Adobe has updated its Creative Cloud application with several new features, but t

Adobe has taken Lightroom mobile, announcing a highly simplified version for the iPad that syncs seamlessly with your main computer’s Lightroom collections. It is well-designed and a joy to use. I’ve been working with it for the last week, and have posted my hands-on review on Extremetech. Frankly, the tablet I carry every day isn’t an iPad (it’s a Samsung Note 10.1 2014 Edition), but Lightroom mobile is one of the first apps that’s tempted me to bring an iPad along as well. It’s free to get started for anyone with a Creative Cloud or Photographer Program subscription from Adobe (you will need one of those, unfortunately for folks who’ve been buying Lightroom a la carte).

Clearly its users aren’t lapping up Adobe’s new subscription model the way it wants. It has once again extended its olive branch Photoshop Photography program offer – this time until March 31st. For $120/year you can get Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, and in case you need another web presence, a 20GB cloud account on its Behance service. Further showing its enthusiasm, or desperation, this offer is currently available to anyone, whether or not you have ever owned an Adobe product! To sign up, head to the Program’s web page.