Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) v18.5 just added a great new feature: blemish removal. This can easily save you hours of work with portraits, weddings, high school seniors, etc. It uses AI to intelligently find skin blemishes like pimples or patchy skin – while keeping important features like moles, facial hair, tattoos, etc. With just a click or two, you can easily avoid a lot of cloning work.
The workflow is very simple:
Go to the remove tab, open blemishes, and click “apply”
Amount controls how aggressively it goes after problems and you’ll probably leave it at the default 100 much of the time.
Fade controls how much it goes goes after less obvious issues. Sliding less will help preserve details like moles. Sliding right will help more aggressively remove problems that persist even with amount at 100.
Click Refine for more local control:
Restore prevents it from altering areas you brush
Remove lets you target or try harder in areas which weren’t fixed with the global options
As with any AI tool, the goal is to save time. Don’t expect it does 100% of the work every time. In my experience, it will do 80+% of the work for you – and you can use your manual clone / heal brushes in ACR or PS to fix anything it doesn’t fix automatically.
The ACR v18.5 also includes other improvements including options to flatten AI edits or render to DNG (this is not RAW) to help support some generative edit workflows, as well as support for new cameras and lenses.
As is typical, ACR tends to get new features before Lightroom, but this is a very welcome addition and I hope to see blemish removal expanded to all the Adobe RAW processing software in the future.
For those of you who want to leverage the advanced exporting capabilities of Web Sharp Pro (WSP) but frequently work in Lightroom Classic (LRC), WSP now includes a LRC plugin. This lets you start your export from LRC and get perfect results for all your social media platforms – including the full HDR support, image dimensions optimized for each social platform, automatic choice of the best colorspace, high quality sharpening and more. Everything is done the right way automatically. And for those of you who want to take even more control, you can leverage a custom mode as well.
To install the WSP plugin for LRC:
Go to the top-right flyout menu in WSP, select Utilities / Install LRC plugin.
Once installed, you need to restart LRC if it was already open.
This is a one-time setup. If the plugin is updated with a future WSP update, it will automatically notify you and help upgrade the LRC plugin too.
Note: If for any reason you ever wish to uninstall a LRC plugin, go to File / Plugin Manager, click to show in Finder, and delete the lrplugin file (or move it to another folder if you wish to keep a backup) and relaunch LRC.
To use the WSP plugin in LRC:
Select your images and click “Export”
In the top “export to” dropdown, select “Web Sharp Pro“.
Select the platform you are exporting for, optionally choose to enhance to HDR or strip metadata, and your preferred export location options.
Click “Export”
You can of course save your WSP export settings as a template. And if you wish to export to multiple platforms (such as both FaceBook and Instagram), create a saved export for each and then check all of them when using LRC’s export dialog (as you would normally to use multiple saved presets in the LRC export dialog).
The plugin is designed to keep things as simple as possible. Each dropdown preset (such as “Instagram Post”) automatically picks the best settings for the platform and will properly support both SDR and HDR as appropriate (you may use the “enhance SDR to HDR” option to easily take advantage of HDR versions when working from your print-ready SDR edits). Unless you choose the “Custom (use current WSP settings)” option, the active settings you see in WSP are ignored. The custom option is therefore that one you should use if you prefer to add borders, fills, watermarks, grain, etc.
Note: this LRC plugin still requires you have WSP / Photoshop installed, as it is a tool for automating it. WSP performs numerous advanced optimizations on each image and therefore relies significantly on capabilities which are not available in LRC.
If you wish to automate WSP from the cloud version of Lightroom or Capture One:
Lightroom Classic offers unique support for plugins, but you can still automate from other software by using WSP’s older manual approach to integration. All you need to do is export a dummy copy of your image with a “-wspBatchAndDelete” suffix and open it in Photoshop. See this tutorial for more details.
Adobe just released Lightroom v15.4 with several updates:
Much better “select subject” masks.
Duplicate detection to help automatically find and remove clutter from your catalog
16-bit HDR exports to give you more control in Photoshop
Assisted culling updates to filter out images based where your subject’s eyes are closed or out of focus
More options to sort/find images based on use of AI masks
Keyword syncing across the cloud and mobile versions of Lightroom
More responsive brushing, camera updates, and more
The video tutorials below go into depth on these first three updates (broken into two parts to record relevant video in HDR when comparing how 16 vs 32-bit exports affect Photoshop editing).
Part 1: Select subject and Duplicate Detection:
The new mask quality improvements are automatic when you use select subject going forward. For an existing image, you may replace your existing mask as shown – or just change the AI denoise setting to create a prompt to update masks and click to refresh them.
The workflow for duplicates:
Click the icon for Duplicates in the Library (or menu: View / Duplicates).
There is unfortunately no shortcut key for this module, which is a bit cumbersome to get back here if you try to view any images large (which automatically takes you out of the Duplicates view).
Expand each stack to review, and right-click your favorite image to “set as original” (which is the top of the stack).
Right-click and show in Finder if you need to check the full path.
It would be ideal if LRC were updated to show the full path in the future.
You may right-click a thumbnail in the normal grid and use View Options to enable “top label” to show “folder” to at least see the parent folder in the Duplicates view.
When you are comfortable to commit to removing images, select all target stacks, right-click and choose “remove duplicates”.
Note that images with virtual copies are not marked and it would be ideal if LRC were updated to help make this more clear.
Part 2: 16 vs 32-bit HDR workflows:
Opening as 16-bit HDR in PS is ideal when the only edits you wish to make are with tools which are missing in 32-bit Photoshop. You may later switch to 32-bit if needed via Image / Mode / 32-bits per channel. Going in the opposite direction isn’t a simple task in Photoshop, but Lumenzia / Web Sharp Pro support it (via the flyout menu in WSP or by clicking the selective color icon in Lumenzia and you may delete that extra adjustment layer).
Note that 16-bit HDR files are nearly as large as 32-bit when you open as RAW Smart Objects. That is the ideal workflow since it is non-destructive, but 16-bit HDR files will save you quite a bit of space over 32 if you open as rasterized layers.
For more details on the other v15.4 updates, see the detailed post from Victoria Bromptom (“Lightroom Queen”)
I’ve got a great tutorial on the latest Adobe updates below – but first, want to share a time-sensitive announcement. I’m teaching TWO new classes focused on creative HDR editing this week at the Lightroom Virtual Summit. The Summit includes >30 hours of instruction from 17 top instructors. You can view the sessions for free for 48 hours after each airs this week, or better yet, get the VIP pass for lifetime access to course recordings, detailed class notes, bonus videos, presets, cheat sheets, and more. If you buy through my affiliate links on this page, you’ll also get access to a bonus “ask me anything about HDR photography” session as well – live this Saturday with a recording included.
Adobe just created new AI mask refinement controls in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) v18.3. This includes AI masks for sky, subject, landscape (vegetation, architecture, mountains, etc), background, and person.
Each of these masks now includes two new sliders:
Feather: a simple gaussian blur softening hard mask edges that aren’t critical.
Edge: lets you expand or contract the mask to better align with important edges, such as trees or buildings.
Sometimes just moving the edge slider a tiny bit can completely eliminate halos! You shouldn’t expect these tools to do all the work for you. The best results come from using them in combination with other masking techniques, so be sure to watch the full tutorial to get the most out of these great new controls.
As is often the case, ACR gets the newest capabilities before Lightroom. You’ll need ACR v18.3 for now. If you work primarily in Lightroom, you can edit there and open the image as a RAW smart object, then quickly tweak the mask via ACR.
To learn more about getting the most out of RAW, be sure to see my new Advanced RAW Masks course.
I am excited to announce the official launch of Lumenzia v12. The headline features in the initial release are a unique ability to align smart objects and new non-destructive focus stacking workflows (see the release notes for a full listing of recent updates).
In recent years, I’ve been trying to get you new features early rather than hold things back for a bigger release. But after hundreds of updates in the v11 life cycle and with major updates today, I think it’s past due to acknowledge how much Lumenzia has improved – so this is the official start of the v12 updates.
Lumenzia v12 is now available as another free update for all customers (see the update page to download and install page for more info). If you purchased Lumenzia when it launched over a decade ago, you’ve now received thousands of improvements with that single purchase at no additional cost..
Align smart objects
The most significant update in v12.0 is a new ability to align smart objects. This unlocks the ability to use the most powerful non-destructive tools (RAW smart object editing) while aligning images that were hand held, shot on a tripod which got bumped or moved, or when focus stacking (to correct focus breathing). None of this removes the need to shoot and compose your images carefully, but it offers much more flexibility for non-destructive workflows.
Note that there is no change in the user interface – the existing PreBlend “align” feature now simply works even when your source is a smart object. But under the hood is literally years of work to perfect the code to make this technically feasible – even Photoshop does not offer alignment of smart objects.
Focus Stacking
The most exciting use for this may actually be focus stacking, which is now a new tab in Lumenzia’s “PreBlend”. Focus stacking always requires alignment due to focus breathing (changes in field of view as you change the focus distance). In the past, focus stacking meant you always had a destructive workflow, as you could not make any changes to your RAW processing after stacking. That is no longer the case. You can now tweak your RAW processing after stacking, which is especially ideal if you wish to exposure blend or otherwise improve the sky in your focus stack.
The Focus Stacking options under “PreBlend” include:
Sort by layer name or inferred focus distance. This helps easily organize the layers from near to far focus distance.
Lock layers to help avoid accidentally altering source pixels when painting on masks. However, if you prefer not to use the “RAW” button in the Basics panel to edit smart objects, you might prefer to leave the layers unlocked.
Match color to active layer. This helps manage minor shifts in brightness or color which may be common when shooting at stack in fast changing light at sunrise or sunset. This feature is not available when working with Smart Objects (though you can easily tweak exposure and white balance in those RAW objects to match).
Crop transparent edges eliminates gaps at edges which occur when correcting for focus breathing. You may wish to leave this off if you prefer to use content-aware fill instead of cropping.
For those of you already familiar with focus stacking, you know that it often requires some degree of manual refinement to pick the sharpest frames across all parts of the image. And because refining the original masks can get tedious (as you’d have to delete parts of masks on upper layers as you reveal lower ones), it often involves doubling the number of layers. The correction process can therefore get tedious as you search for the right layer to use for correction. Lumenzia’s approach simplifies this by offering novel ways to make corrections.
Here’s the workflow to refine the focus masks:
Activate the move tool (<V>) and right-click on sharp pixels next to the ones you need to repair, and click the layer name that appears. This identifies / selects the sharp layer and Lumenzia will automatically make the correct layer mask active and switch to the paint brush for you.
Paint white on the layer mask to reveal the sharp pixels.
Repeat the process as needed until your blending is complete.
Here’s the workflow to refine RAW processing:
Select the layer (the thumbnail, not the mask) you wish to edit and click the “RAW” button in Lumenzia Basics. This will let you edit the RAW settings without needing to unlock the layer. Because Lumenzia creates the correction layers as dependent smart objects, you’ll be editing both the source and correction layer at the same time, while also avoiding file size increases which would occur with independent smart objects.
If you need to copy adjustments from one RAW layer to another:
Click <ctrl/cmd>-C to copy all settings while editing the source layer, then close it, open the target, and <ctrl/cmd>-V to paste.
If you wish to only copy certain settings: use <alt/option><ctrl/cmd>-C when copying
(or use the … menu if you don’t remember the shortcuts).
Note that while you are viewing an image that was focus stacked by Lumenzia AND have the move tool active, any attempt to select one of the original lower layers will cause the correction layer mask to become active and the lower group to close. This is how Lumenzia helps you use the move tool to pick images, but it cannot discriminate between using the move tool and directly clicking the layer. If you wish to select one of the lower layers, simply switch to any tool other than the move tool. It is unlikely you would ever need to access the lower layer, as you’ll do mask refinements on the upper layers and any RAW edit on them will also update the lower layers automatically. It is generally best to leave the lower layers alone. You could merge the whole group if you wish, but this will end your ability to make further RAW changes.
