August Updates
This June, Adobe have updated Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 and Lightroom CC. The Lightroom Classic CC release includes new book layouts and paper options you can choose from when working in the Book module. Lightroom CC for mobile users will benefit from new organizational and selection features, plus depth map support for more recent iPhone model cameras.

Adobe Lightroom User Manual

June Updates
This June, Adobe have updated Lightroom Classic CC 7.4 and Lightroom CC 1.4. This release includes user interface refinements to aid folder management in Lightroom Classic CC, support for the HEIF format, and the ability to auto-stack photo merge results. Plus, the ability to manage presets and profiles in Lightroom Classic CC. You can now sync profiles and presets with Lightroom CC, create custom presets, and copy and paste Edit settings. Also, you can read about two new technology previews available in Lightroom CC.

April Updates
This April, Adobe have updated Lightroom Classic CC with a major update to profiles, now making profile looks more prominent. There have also been some essential interface tweaks, plus an update to the face-tagging engine in Lightroom Classic CC.

February Updates
This February, Adobe have updated Lightroom Classic CC to bring you better performance (especially for high-end system users) and the ability to filter folders via the Folders panel. You can filter photos according to whether they have been edited or not, and there is now an easy way to create collections via the Map module.

Download for the Lightroom Classic CC Manual. We’ve had a lot of requests for the most recent Lightroom Classic manual, so as a bonus to this blog post, here’s a link to Adobe PDF download of the Lightroom Classic CC manual: Adobe Lightroom Classic Manual. If you are new to Lightroom and don’t know where to start, or have thought about using it but feel overwhelmed, then please know I feel your pain, and know where you’re coming from. I wrote this Beginner’s Guide to Lightroom to help you, and I wish I would have had something like this when I first got started.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Download

December Updates
This PDF contains information about the latest for the entire Lightroom CC ecosystem, including for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and the web, as well as updates to Lightroom Classic CC. You will find a number of new features, such as full implementation of Auto settings, improvements to Color Range masking, and the addition of Tone Curve and Split Toning controls to Lightroom CC for mobile.

Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC
An introduction to Lightroom Classic CC and the new Lightroom CC, and how to decide which is best for you. When Lightroom first came out, it integrated Camera Raw into a file management and raw processing program. Lightroom CC now takes Lightroom’s evolution a stage further, by offering a cloud-native workflow that can sync your desktop/laptop computer with the Web and all your portable devices.

Picture Package and Custom Package
In addition to having Single Image/Contact Sheet options in the Print module, there are also Picture Package and Custom Package modes with their own sets of configuration panels. This PDF outlines the available options, and shows how you can create different custom print layouts.

Lightroom CC / Lightroom 6 PDFs

Creating a photomerge via Photoshop
Lightroom CC / Lightroom 6 now features a Photo Merge menu in the Library module Photo menu. As I explain in the book, this allows you to generate a panorama stitch saved as a DNG file. However, you can still use the extended editing options available via the Photo > Edit in menu. This PDF explains how.

Processing via Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop
Similarly, you can also now use the Photo Merge menu to generate HDR DNGs directly from bracketed source images in Lightroom. The extended options also allow you to process selected images using the Merge to HDR Pro feature in Photoshop. This PDF shows you the steps you need to follow.

Lightroom 5 PDFs

Lightroom 5.6 update: Aperture Importer plug-in
Adobe has just released an Aperture Importer plug-in that will allow Mac customers who subscribe to the Creative Cloud and are using Aperture or iPhoto to easily migrate their libraries to Lightroom. This PDF explains all, showing the steps required for the migration process.

Lightroom 5.4 update
This PDF contains news about the latest Lightroom 5.4 update. This includes the latest camera and lens profile support, plus information about Lightroom mobile, a brand new app that allows Lightroom users to work on their catalog collections via an iPad 2 (or later) device. To support this, Lightroom 5.4 includes syncing capability and a mechanism for defining collections that are designed for sharing between Lightroom and Lightroom mobile.

Lightroom 5.3 update
This PDF contains news about the latest Camera Raw 5.3 update. This lists the latest camera and lens profile support plus information about the new auto adjustments that are available in the Basic panel.

Lightroom 5.2 update
This PDF contains news about the latest Camera Raw 5.2 update. This describes latest features, including spot removal feathering, adjustment brush duplication, localized adjustment-aware white balancing and new Color Smoothness slider in the Detail panel.

Creating a novelty slideshow template
This extract is taken from the Lightroom 4 book and shows how you can go about creating a novelty slideshow template design for use in the Slideshow module.

Publishing photos to Flickr
This extract is taken from the Lightroom 4 book. I removed this in order to demonstrate a publish services workflow using Behance in Lightroom 5. This PDF therefore shows the subtle differences in workflow when using the Publish Services panel to publish photos to Flickr.

Lightroom 4 PDFs

Geotagging with PhotoLinker for Mac
The Map module in Lighroom 4 has most the controls you need for editing and managing GPS data. It is possible to import a GPS tracklog via the Toolbar and adjust for any time shifts that occur between the camera set time and current time, but this isn’t always so easy to calculate. For the most part I think Lightroom users will be able to work around such limitations and the merging of GPS data and shot files will become easier once you are disciplined in the maintaining of accurate time settings on your cameras. Prior to the introduction of the Map module I was reliant on third party programs to embed the GPS metadata. The instructions in this PDF are mostly redundant now, but Macintosh users might find the advanced controls found in the Photolinker are still worth exploring as an alternative way to geotag their images.

The Lightroom RGB space
Lightroom uses its own special internal RGB space when calculating image adjustments and another special type of RGB viewing space when it renders the images in the Develop module. This PDF goes into detail about why these RGB spaces have been designed the way they are and how they provide better editing and viewing when working in the Develop module.

Lightroom vs. Photoshop curves
Lightroom curves and Photoshop curves adjustments are not quite the same. When you use Photoshop to apply a contrast boosting curve you may see some hue shifts taking place. The Lightroom Tone Curve adjustment is specifically designed so that you shouldn’t see any changes in color when making a Tone Curve adjustment.

Merging two catalogs into one
The most effective way to work in Lightroom is to keep all your files stored in the one catalog. However, there may be valid reasons why you might wish to keep some of your photos archived in separate catalogs. This PDF shows how you might go about merging two catalogs into one and export the edit settings in a merged catalog back to the original catalogs.

Publishing photos via Photoshop.com
Using the Publish Services panel in Lightroom you can easily publish photos to sites like Flickr and Facebook. Although not part of the regular Lightroom install, it is also possible to publish photos to the Photoshop.com publishing service.

Process 2003/2010 image editing
The introduction of Process Version 2012 in Lightroom 4 means that when Process 2012 is applied to an image the Basic panel and localized adjustment controls are now completely different. I believe that Lightroom users will probably want to use this new method of processing from now on. However, it is still possible to apply Process 2003 or 2010 style adjustments to the photos in your catalog. In order to cover this method of operation fully, I have supplied the Process 2003/2010 instructions that were previously published in the Lightroom 3 book as a separate PDF.

Tethered shooting with the Canon EOS Utility
The contents of this PDF were originally included before Lightroom gained the ability to shoot in tethered mode. I have kept these instructions available in order to show an alternative approach to shooting tethered in Lightroom, one that can be adapted perhaps for working with other types of camera import programs.

Why soft proofing may not always work
Soft proofing is an important new feature in Lightroom 4. While it is great that we now have the ability to preview a print or color space change output, it does help to have a basic kind of understanding of how soft proofing is meant to work and how the limitations of the equipment you use may cause soft proofing to appear not to work as expected.