Adobe released an update for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop for Creative Cloud 2015 subscribers, and announced their own stock service, which they are calling Adobe Stock.
The updates are only available to subscribers to Creative Cloud currently—presumably owners of the stand-alone Photoshop and Lightroom will receive updates at some point in the futures—as part of Adobe’s efforts to bring continuous and frequent updates to subscribers.
Lightroom gains a new slider to remove or add haze in a photograph. This allows photographers to selectively remove elements like fog or atmospheric haze from a photograph—think of it as an adjustable UV filter—or add haze for a film-like effect.
Photoshop gains a noise tool that provides more realistic bokeh (background blur) and blur noise, which the company says offers more natural transitions between subjects and backgrounds. (One of the big problems with the blur effects when simulating lenses is that it often has problems at the transition of the edges between subject and background, so backgrounds end up with the same sharpness of the foreground right around the subject.)
Photoshop’s healing brush has also gained some speed and how heals faster than before.
Adobe also updated their mobile versions, with better tone and vignetting adjustments for Lightroom mobile.
Adobe also introduced an Adobe branded stock photo service with “millions of high-quality images curated by Adobe.” Interesting this is not the first time Adobe has rolled out a stock photography service. Years ago when I was the Technology Editor at Photo District News, I helped work with PDN’s parent company Nielsen, as they worked on a joint stock product with Adobe. That service from Adobe disappeared after a few years, but the subscription-based Creative Cloud service gives a whole new way for customers to access Adobe’s stock tools.
The Lightroom and Photoshop updates are available from the Creative Cloud installers on a user’s desktop or laptop systems.