Step BY step Exploring the user interface

A quick overview of the brand-spanking new main lightroom cc interface

01 Importing your Photos

The new My Photos panel (keyboard shortcut P) is split into Albums (which contain photos) and Folders (which contain Albums). We have some Lake District photos, so we’ve made a Lake District Folder with two albums inside: one with cave images, one with landscapes. This makes it easy to find specific photos.

02 the edit Panel

This panel (keyboard shortcut E) provides six sub-panels: Light, Color, Effects, Detail, Optics and Geometry. The tools are unchanged but the interface has unified all the sliders, so moving to the right creates a positive effect and moving to the left produces a negative effect.

03 Batch Processing

The Ellipses panel replaces the batch processing of the Sync button, which synchronised any array of settings to user-selected photos. There’s also Show Original (to flip between edited and unedited versions), Revert to Original, Single-panel Mode and Edit. The most useful is Show Histogram.

04 saving and exporting

Currently there are two options to save photos. Under the Save To… option you can choose from JPEG or Original + Settings. JPEG has three options for the resolution (Small, Full Size and Custom) and where the photos will be saved. The Share… button provides the option of sharing photos straight to Facebook.

05 adobe sensei

Lightroom CC has search options enabling you to pick from star ratings, flags, and GPS location. You can also search for keywords assigned through the metadata. Adobe Sensei uses AI to guess what’s in your photos, and will recall photos based on keyword searches in the box at the top-centre of the screen.

06 lightroom mobile

Lightroom CC works on all platforms, from desktops to mobile devices. It categorises your photos and edits them on your smart device in a similar way to your computer. Thanks to auto-updating cloud sync, your newly added images will appear on any device the moment you log into the software.