Lightroom Classic 13.3 and 13.4
Adobe has released Lightroom Classic 13.3, enabling you to erase unwanted objects and imperfections in your photos using the Generative Remove tool (powered by Adobe Firefly generative AI).
This requires a new catalog database format. I’m seeing some weird behavior in that I can run it for days with it seemingly not doing anything, but then when I try to quit it will warn that it hasn’t finished writing the XMP metadata. Then, sometimes, after starting the quitting process it will show a new modal progress bar for writing XMP before asking whether I want to back up the catalog.
Generative Remove is Lightroom’s most powerful remove tool yet, giving everyone the power to remove unwanted objects from any photo non-destructively in a single click by intelligently matching the removed area with pixel perfect generations for high-quality, realistic and stunning results. From removing distractions in family photos, to empowering professionals with speedier retouching workflows and more fine-grain control, Generative Remove empowers exciting capabilities for all photographers. Generative Remove is available today as an early access feature across the Lightroom ecosystem for millions of users.
Today, Lightroom’s AI-powered Lens Blur tool is now generally available with all-new presets, empowering everyone to achieve aesthetic blur effects on any photo in a single click.
Generative fill/erase is rising to the level of table stakes. Google launched Magic Eraser in 2021. Adobe’s brief demo video in this press release doesn’t show a professional photographer — it’s a woman shooting photos with her phone. Apple is going to have to add this to Photos, and it ought to be announced next month.
Apple calls it Clean Up. There’s also a 13.4 update that fixes some bugs.
With the release of version 5.4 for Mac and 7.4 for iOS, Lightroom now enables you to edit videos using the same controls that are used for photos. You can trim videos, adjust color and exposure, and apply presets optimized for video.
But these are not in Lightroom Classic.
I don’t know why, but it’s apparently impossible to directly import a Lightroom catalog from one computer into the catalog of another. It always fails at the end of the import with the same infuriatingly useless error message.
However, I seem to have found a fairly reliable workaround[…]
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