Lightroom 5.2 Release Candidate Is Out
I’m writing this post from the plane on my way up to Hartford, CT for my all-day Lightroom 5 seminar today. Looks like we’re going to have a huge crowd, but please make sure you stop in and say hi (you can see all the future seminar dates here). Now… on to the news. Adobe Labs recently posted a release candidate for Lightroom 5.2 on the site. I always get a lot of questions about what a Release Candidate actually is. In Adobe’s words: “The ‘release candidate’ label indicates that this update is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers.”
But what I really tell people is this. If you’ve got a problem/issue/bug that’s specifically addressed in a release candidate, then go ahead and download it. If not, and everything is running just fine, then I’d wait until the official 5.2 update comes out. For me, none of the bugs/issues mentioned in Adobe’s post affect me. Lightroom 5 has been running great, and actually faster than Lightroom 4, so I’m good.
Here’s The Catch
There’s a catch to this update that we usually don’t see in most Lightroom updates. There’s actually a few new features/enhancements in it. The big one for me is the Feather control in the Spot Healing/Cloning tool. As soon as I used the tool when LR5 first came out I immediately realized the need for feather. There’s also a couple of refinements to how the tool works. You an also now Right Click on a brush adjustment pin to bring up a context menu to duplicate or delete that adjustment. There’s also a new slider in Noise Reduction but I don’t use noise reduction much so that’s not much of a change for me personally. But those other features are pretty cool changes so I’ll go ahead and download the update as soon as my Hartford, CT seminar is over tomorrow (I never update anything right before a seminar) 🙂
Anyway, here’s the link to check out more information about the release, exactly what’s fixed and included in it.
And here’s a link to download it.
Have a great weekend!
I have the same issue in 5.2 with the spot healing tool and had it in 5 and 4. I have a brand new MacBook Pro and yet the spot healing tool and only that tool is slow and completely non – fluid, as if I wasn’t running enough RAM for the operation. And then I watch tutorials done on older ‘slower’ computers and the motion is seamless.
Lightroom 5.2 crashes when I try File>email!
Help…
Hey Matt, I know this is a little off the subject, but I was curious to know if face recognition will ever be added to Lightroom? I think that it would be a great addition and I know that I would use it a lot in my work flow. Just curious to hear your thoughts on it.
LR4 runs fine on my PC, but 5 and 5.2 as well seems to get slower as I use it, particularly the spot cloning tool.I’m not sure this is the reason, but it seems something like a memory leak. I really like the new features, but I’m reluctant to upgrade until I know that the slowness issues are fixed.
Rick, I am on LR 5 and the Cloning/Healing brush has always tended to be clumsy and slow in my experience. That, despite that I am using a super-duper desktop PC with 8GB of RAM. So I suspect there is something funny with the tool. It doesn´t happen always, but it happens often enough that it can be a pain.
That’s weird because I have a very non-super duper laptop that’s 3 years old and the tool works as fast as anything else in Lightroom for me.
Up to now, I have used only Elements (8,10,11). I have downloaded LR5.2RC and I like it, want to keep it. What is your opinion – should I buy LR5 now, and wait for an upgrade (I suppose upgrade from LR5 to 5.2 is going to be for free?) or just use 5.2RC and wait a moment 5.2 is available in a shop? Should I expect many problems with transfering my folders, calogues, etc. then?
Would be grateful to any advice.
PS. I know 5.2RC is valid till September 30, of course.
Hi. The update to Lightroom 5.2 when it does come out will be free. I’d go ahead and get LR5 now and just install the update when it comes out.
So, did they just completely skip 5.1?
That’s what I heard. There’ll be no 5.1.
I am curious why you say you don´t use Lightroom´s Noise Reduction much. I was under the impression that removing noise in RAW might be a better alternative than doing it in Photoshop. Plus, I think that most images not shot under ideal conditions -and/or ideal camera- usually need some degree of Noise Reduction.
Hi – For me personally, I don’t shoot any high ISO photos. I shoot mostly outdoor portraits or landscapes – neither of which require me to boost the ISO. So I rarely have noise to remove.