Lightroom Guy

Expert Support for Digital Photography

Will Your Current Mac Run Mac OS Mojave?

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Will your Macintosh desWill your mac run Mac OS Mojavektop computer or laptop run Mac OS Mojave?

In my previous post, I wrote about the Mac OS Mojave software issues with links to help you find out which software you currently have that is Mojave compatible.

Now, here’s a list of Mac OS Mojave compatible Macs:

  • MacBook models introduced in early 2015 or later
  • MacBook Airs andMacBook Pros introduced in mid 2012 or later
  • Mac minis and iMacs introduced in late 2012 or later
  • Mac Pros late 2013
  • Mac Pros mid 2010 or mid 2012 models with recommended Metal-capable graphics processor, including the 4GB MSI Gaming Radeon RX 560 and 8GB Sapphire Radeon PULSE RX 580.

Here’s how to tell which model Mac you have. In the Finder, click on the apple at the top left and select, “About This Mac.”

Mac OS Mojave

Mac OS MojaveThat will open the Overview of your Mac and show what version of the operating system you have installed and the year and model of your Macintosh.

2012 Mac Pro Tower will run Mac OS Mojave

Yes, they call this series of Macs, “cheese graters.” (But I’ve never actually used it for that.)

For those working with 2010 or 2012 Mac Pro cheese grater towers, you’ll need to wait until Apple introduces the next version of the Mac Pro. Or, if you want to update your older tower to Mojave, you’ll need to replace the graphics board with a Metal capable graphics processor. Another few hundred bucks in “life support” expense to keep your cheese grater alive (I know I will be).  If you’re working with earlier models of Apple computers, you’re out of luck for updating your operating system. Your computer will still work, of course. But, you’ll have to stick with High Sierra, or whatever earlier version of the Mac OS you might be using. The full list of what you’ll need to update to Mac OS Mojave is on the Apple website.

Holding out on updating your Mac Mini, since hasn’t been updated since 2014? You may be in luck! MacWorld rumors that there’s a Mac Mini update coming in September. On the other hand, the Mac Pro isn’t scheduled for an update until some time in 2019.

You might want to add up all those wasted moments you’ve spent waiting if you’ve been watching the rainbow pizza spinning every time you click your mouse. It could add up to hours of lost work every week. If that’s the case, you may want to seriously consider updating to a new machine.

 

Word of Caution Installing Mac OS Mojave

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Wait to install Mac OS MojaveA word of caution for our readers to consider before installing Mac OS Mojave, which is expected to be released some time in September. We follow a few tech bloggers who are Mac centric and one that we find particularly interesting is The Eclectic Light Company – Macs, Painting, and More, authored by Howard Oakley, one of the most interesting and prolific bloggers we subscribe to. Oakley is a very smart guy. He is a Mac OS app developer, but he’s much more than that and that’s what we love about him.

So, to get to the point, this week Mr. Oakley wrote a blog post, Mojave’s privacy protection is complex and will crash innocent apps, and in it he states: “What I’ve learned is how complex its new privacy protection is, and how users, sysadmins and developers may be in for a shock when they upgrade to Mojave.” Users, that’s us.

The take-away for us at Lightroom Guy is, that the current beta version of Mojave doesn’t run some third party applications. The result is an application crash without any indication of the cause.Oakley says, “Users will see this as a failing in the app, rather than the consequence of their action….” These issues will mostly stem from how Mojave’s new privacy  protection works. And in the current Mojave beta version, so far there’s no simple way to know if an app will work. If this doesn’t change by the release date, expect that some of your apps may crash.

To be clear, Mac OS Mojave is still being tested and not yet released to the general public, but it is expected shortly and these issues may still exist on release. Apple has also warned system administrators to prepare for Mojave, as there will be blowback for many users. MacWorld UK has a must read article – “Apps that won’t work with Mac OS Mojave.” – that includes how to check your current Mac OS to see if your apps are compatible.

The good news however, is that Oakley sees Mac OS Mojave as, “…already a great deal better than High Sierra. We just need to work out how to live with new features/snags!” He also further comments that, “I’m optimistic that, provided some of the current issues get sorted, Mojave is going to be a good release. I also know that a lot of Apple engineers, and third party developers, are currently working very hard to make it so.”

Oakley, as a Mac developer, has an inside perspective that we trust. So, again, we suggest you sit tight when Mojave is released and wait to see what happens. When the smoke clears, we’ll let you know.

And, since you’ve read this far, here’s a side note on Howard Oakley. He’s also an art enthusiast and aficionado, writing weekly on a broad range of topics. From little known women artists, renaissance, post-impressionism and multiplex narratives, he’s an amazing resource of comparative art history. I’m barely touching the surface of his topics! Always a fascinating read.

09/02/2018 Update:

Howard Oakley, has written an app called 32-bitCheck. It’s free for downloading. The program identifies applications that conflict with the soon to be released Mac OS Mojave. 32-bitCheck comes with PDF instructions in the download. Again, hats off to Mr. Oakley for his contributions.

How to Search for Photos in Lightroom Classic CC

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Search for photos in lightroom classic cc

I tend to leave all my folders open

So, you’ve just imported a bunch of photos into Lightroom, but can’t find them. Where’d they go? Here are four ways on how to Search for Photos in Lightroom Classic CC.

It’s not unusual for me to have to search for photos in Lightroom Classic CC. I have a large library and there are way too many master year folders open, revealing a long list of subfolders that are time consuming to sift through. When I import a new batch of images, instead of scrolling through that long list of folders to find out where my new, imported photos went, I locate the folder with a simple right click on one of the “Previous Import” photos. And there are other very useful ways to search for photos in Lightroom Classic CC. The Lr:Shorts video below shows the four search methods I use most: use the contextual menu to take me to a photo’s folder in Library, filter by Edit Status, search by folder name or, search by date, camera model, lens, etc., using a Metadata search that I demonstrated for determining which focal lengths you use most in my previous blog post

These Lightroom features are all very easy to learn, and learning them will make the time you spend working in Lightroom Classic CC faster and simpler. And, who doesn’t like having Lightroom work a little faster? However, please, take note that some of these search features are only available in Lightroom Classic CC version 7.3 or later. Earlier versions of Lightroom Classic CC won’t have most of the features demonstrated in the video.

See just how easy it is to get Lightroom to behave and show you exactly where your photos and folders are located in this Lr:Shorts video!

 

Lightroom Classic 7.4 Update is Released

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Lightroom Classic 7.4 Update is Released

Fast and furious, Adobe’s been debugging and updating Lr Classic’s features, and so, the Lightroom Classic 7.4 Update is already here. It was only April when the last Lightroom update was released. This Lightroom Classic 7.4 release has bug fixes, catalog management improvements, new file format support and added features. It’s hard to keep up!

Here’s the basic rundown on new features:

Hide and Reveal Presets and Profile Groups

Lightroom Classic 7.4

Choose to Show or Hide Profiles

Lightroom 7.3 introduced Profiles and additional Presets. In this release of Lightroom Classic 7.4 (available only for Creative Cloud members) you can have control over which Presets and Profile Groups are visible. This will allow you to hide what you rarely use and keep the Presets or Profile Groups you use most visible. This will reduce the time spent sifting through the myriad of Presets you’ve accumulated. Of course, the hidden items can be revealed again at a later date if you need them.

Folder: Labels in Color and Faster Searches

Lightroom 7.3 added a Favorites option that added a “star” to a folder icon. Now, using the same shortcut keystrokes, you can add a color label to your Folder (Not available for Collections. Maybe version 7.5?) by selecting a folder in the Folders Panel, Control Clicking (Mac) or right clicking (PC) and choosing a color from the submenu – “Add Color Label.” Once you’ve chosen a color, a color bar will appear on the far right side of your folder title.

Searches will be faster, too. Click the magnifying glass in the Folder search window to see options for filtering by Color, Favorite or All. There’s more on searching Folders here on the Adobe site.

Auto Stacking HDR and Panorama

Check Create Stack to Stack source images with final merged photo

I usually stack the source images I’ve used to create HDRs and Panos, keeping only the final merged image visible on top of the stack. This keeps things more organized (for me, anyway).

Now when merging to HDR and Panorama, Lightroom can automatically stack the source images used by simply checking the new Create Stack checkbox in the HDR/Panorama Merge Preview dialog.

Final Pano/HDR is merged into a stack

 

When the merging is complete, the final merged HDR or Pano image will be displayed at the top of the stack containing the source images used to create the HDR or Pano.

HEIC Image Files Support on MacOS High Sierra

Lightroom Classic 7.4 CC now supports Apple’s HEIC image file format on macOS High Sierra v10.13 or later. For more info on this see the Adobe Tech Note.

There have been bug fixes as well in Lightroom Classic 7.4:

  • Keyboard shortcuts not working for rotate left and right in French, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian – FIXED
  • Crop overlay is hard to see – FIXED
  • Tone curve enabled not copied by sync, auto sync, presets, or snapshots – FIXED
  • Settings are reset when develop preset is applied via script – FIXED
  • When backing up catalogs on macOS, Lightroom Classic doesn’t zip catalogs that have a file size less than 4 GB – FIXED
  • Lightroom unresponsive after Eject SD Card/USB Drive – FIXED
  • Presets no longer record and apply the turn on/off settings in the Develop Module – FIXED
  • Hitting “Previous” and/or Copy/Paste is triggering an bad error message – FIXED
  • Not saving new saving new presets if they contain special characters – FIXED
  • iPhone videos play in wrong orientation (Windows-only) – FIXED

You can read more about the Lightroom Classic 7.4 update and how to use these new features on the Adobe website here.

How to Choose a New DSLR Lens Using Lightroom

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How To Choose a DSLR Lens

We’ve discovered a great way to help you make a decision when you’re thinking about buying a new DSLR lens, using Lightroom Classic CC. If you’ve ever wondered whether or not a particular lens is worth investing in, here’s what we do. We start by looking at lenses and focal lengths using the Lightroom Classic Metadata search. Use the Lightroom Metadata panel to choose a DSLR LensThis came about as more and more of our clients have asked us – What would be a good focal length DSLR lens to purchase? Watch the video and see how we do it.

Lightroom Classic Update 7.3.1 and Upcoming Lightroom Workshop

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This week Adobe released Lightroom Classic update 7.3.1

This update includes fixes for presets and profiles in addition to a fix for an issue corrupting backup catalogs. To resolve this particular corruption issue, update to Lightroom Classic CC v7.3.1 and then back up your catalogs again. If you’re backing up your catalogs on Mac, use this link https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html#known-issue-lr-7-3-1 related to catalog compression. It’s an important update to install, even though there aren’t any new features to introduce. To find out more about these fixes, you can read the release notes for this Lightroom Classic update here – https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/whats-new.html. And, if you’re not familiar with the Adobe Creative Cloud app for Lightroom updates, you can find instructions from Adobe here.

Upcoming Lightroom Workshop (Lightroom Classic + Lightroom CC)

Lightroom Classic Update - Lightroom Workshop

Our Lightroom Workshop is conveniently located

Join the Lightroom Guys as we continue to design our ongoing series of unique, semi-private workshops and our New Skills in Lightroom series. All of our LightroomNYC workshops are limited to 4 attendees and we have a two-to-one student to teacher ratio, guaranteeing that you’ll never fall behind in our classes. Classes are held in our convenient and comfortable Cobble Hill, Brooklyn office, one block from the F/G train.

May 12, 2018 Lightroom Workshop

Lightroom CC | Better, Faster, Easier

In this focused hands-on Lightroom Workshop, you will acquire the skills necessary to use the automatic and powerful digital developing tools of Lightroom CC to enhance your photos.

Not to be confused with Lightroom Classic, Lightroom CC is designed to be simple and intuitive and works on both Mac and PC as well as Apple iOS and Android mobile and web devices while automatically backing up your photos as you work. Lightroom CC has everything a casual user needs, but is full-featured enough even for the pros.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

  • Setup of Lightroom CC for importing your first of photos
  • Managing your photo library
  • Creating albums of images
  • How to use the smart search that identifies image content, even without keywords
  • How to develop photos using the automatic features that use Adobe Sensei
  • Exporting photos for email and print

Even if you’ve never used Lightroom before, you will walk away with everything you need to know to start, manage and maintain your own Lightroom CC library. So, learn to take control of your photo library now, with the newest and easiest version of Lightroom.

To reserve your seat in this class, click here for our LightroomNYC portal.

May 19, 2018 Lightroom Workshop

From Digital to Print | Making Books

In this small-group, hands-on Lightroom workshop, you’ll use Adobe Lightroom (Classic and CC) to learn how to plan for, design and create a book using our favorite online book creation applications.

This is a specialized semi-private workshop that will use Adobe Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC – so you should have a little experience with one of these applications. You’ll learn to create a selection of best images to tell a story and then develop and design a book using popular online applications. Start to finish, we’ll cover every aspect of creating a book using best practices with an uncomplicated approach. This class is for anyone who is ready to make gorgeous photography books.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

  • Using Lightroom (Classic and CC) to choose the best photos for a book
  • Creating a timeline for your story
  • How to export photos for books: colorspace and pixel sizes
  • Choosing a book size, cover and paper options
  • Importing photos into the book design program
  • Using templates vs. custom page design
  • Proofreading and checking for errors

First, you’ll watch while we demonstrate. Then, after each demo, you’ll get to do the work yourself: developing photos, exporting them, bringing them into the book application and designing the pages.

To reserve your seat in this class, click here for our LightroomNYC portal.

 

 

 

New Skills in Lightroom Workshop Series

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On Saturday, February 3rd, Lightroom Guy dot com held its inaugural New Skills in Lightroom, small group workshop, at our new Cobble Hill, Brooklyn office. The Lightroom Guy “world headquarters” is a cozy, quiet space designed with these small workshops in mind. You can reach us easily by subway with convenient parking nearby as well.

To meet our personal philosophy of maintaining a boutique approach to learning, our workshops are limited to a maximum of 4 attendees.

New Skills in Lightroom

Classes are limited to 4 attendees and taught by two Adobe Certified Lightroom Experts.

They are always co-taught by myself and my fellow Adobe Certified Lightroom Expert, David Mark Erickson. Small group workshops assure that everyone gets personal attention and no one falls behind. And, if you’ve ever been to a large workshop with dozens or even hundreds of attendees, you know exactly what I mean.

 

This is a three hour session focused on teaching you new skills, using Lightroom’s very powerful local Develop tools. Here a description of the workshop:

New Skills in Lightroom | Develop Like A Pro

Whether it’s Lightroom Classic or Lightroom CC, we’ve applied the developing techniques of professional darkroom printers and recreated them for digital photography. You’ll learn these new skills, not by just watching, but also by following along and developing photos with supervision and guidance by two Adobe Certified Lightroom Experts. That’s us!

By the end of the session, you’ll know how to make real-world practical use of the Adjustment brush, Radial and Gradient tools so you can take your photographs further.

You’ll learn how to add depth, emphasize your subject and bring out those subtle details you may not have unnoticed in the original capture.At the session’s end, you’ll get a PDF guide to help you remember the steps for using these tools and a cheat sheet of frequently used keyboard shortcuts.

Lightroom Guy’s next New Skills in Lightroom | Develop Like a Pro workshop will be on Saturday, April 14th from 9:30 – 12:30. Please contact us to reserve your seat.

Don’t forget, seating is limited to 4!

Frequently Used Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic

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You should be using the Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic

Tapping the “D” key brings you right to the Develop module

The more you use Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic, the less time you’ll spend hunting for menus and buttons. And that means less stress, more productivity and definitely more Lightroom happiness.

For example, when you want to develop an image, tap D for Develop. To return to the Library from the Develop module, just press G for the Library grid view. Don’t tap L for the Library, which is a common mistake, as that will put you in “lightbox” view which darkens and hides the Lightroom interface. A little disorienting if you didn’t expect that to happen. If it does, keep tapping L to return to your standard view.

So, D for Develop and G for grid. L for Lightbox. I bet you didn’t even know Lightroom had a Lightbox mode. Easy, right? Here are a few more:

Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic

Tapping the J key in the Library cycles through the metadata options

Wanna make a print? Command (Control on the PC) P takes you right to the Print module. You probably know that the Tab key hides the side panels, but did you know that pressing Shift and Tab hides the side panels and the filmstrip at the bottom. More screen space if you’re working on a laptop! Just tapping on the + and – keys (Mac and PC) will increase or decrease the size of your Library Grid thumbnails. And here’s something that will change the way you look at thumbnails – tap the J key while you’re in the Library and show the metadata associated with each photo. You can choose what data you is displayed by going to the top menu and choosing View>View Options to change the settings.

These Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic speed your workflow, but more importantly, you’ll find working in Lightroom more of a pleasure, not having to move your cursor here and there, pulling down menus and reaching for buttons. And although the shortcuts are incredibly useful, some of the keystrokes used in the Library, will produce different results if used in the Develop module.

Sign up for Lightroom Guy’s Newsletter on the right of this article to download our cheat sheet of our PDF of frequently used Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic. To get the full list of Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom Classic, you can see them on the Adobe site here, but you’ll like our cheat sheet better; it has most of the shortcuts you’ll want to use anyway.

Happy New Year from the Lightroom Guys!

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Wishing you all the very best for 2018!

Lake Region in Provincia del Neuquén, Argentina Lightroom Users can learn to develop images like this

© David Mark Erickson – Provincia del Neuquén, Argentina

As we reflect back on 2017, it’s been an exciting and productive year and one of many travels for both David Mark Erickson and myself: Bangkok, Budapest, Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Italy, Qatar, Seattle as we try to decide where to get started with our travel workshops. Ah, decisions, decisions. More on our travel workshops as they develop …

We have also been busy creating instructional videos on Pluralsight. We’ve grown, but we aren’t forgetting our roots. We’re here to serve the community and educate. And on that note, we have a few exciting announcements to make …

Upcoming Lightroom Workshop

One of the many things that we have learned from our clients is that no two students learn the same way. Some prefer the focus of one-on-one sessions, while others enjoy the more social interactions of a group workshop. As it happens, we have decided to split the difference and we will be offering a monthly small group Lightroom workshop at our bright new Brooklyn office!

  • Small Classes – Each Lightroom workshop will have 3-4 students max, for an intimate  learning experience
  • Co-Teaching – Both D.A. and David present every Lightroom workshop together, so you get to learn from two of the photo industry’s leading educators
  • Individual Attention – Co-teaching means more opportunities for solving individual problems
  • Focused Sessions – every Lightroom workshop is  3+ hours in length so we can go deeper and have more time to help you gain stronger skills with different tools and processes
  • Saturday Mornings – fun and relaxed atmosphere with fellow photogs (our clientele is very select and we personally enjoy the company of all our clients)
  • Coming Soon – live streaming of our Lightroom workshops

Our first Lightroom workshop will be on  Saturday, February 3rd in Brooklyn, NY

The special introductory price is $129.

Book now and save $70 off the normal price of $199

Click here to reserve your place!

 Pluralsight

As mentioned, we have two courses available on Pluralsight: one on the Lightroom Web & Map modules and, our second course on the most recent Lightroom Classic CC Updates, which includes info about the all new Lightroom CC.

If you haven’t checked out Pluralsight yet, we strongly recommend that you do, as we have found them to be the most professional web based training platform. This is why we’ve chosen them to be our exclusive online training content provider!

  • Pluralsight has a strong editorial staff that helps guide our educational content.  
  • For only $30/month, you get access to everything in the Pluralsight library.
  • We’re always  developing more Lightroom content for the site, but in the meantime, Pluralsight is the only other source for online info that we recommend.
  • Our upcoming course will be a full how-to to get the most out of the new Lightroom CC!

 New Website

We are also excited to mention we’re currently in the middle of a Lightroom Guy website redesign!Our goal is to create a more engaging and robust site so that Lightroom Guy is an even better resource for our readers and clients. We’ll be expanding our recommendations and book suggestions, along with more regular blog posts and announcements for local workshops. We’re hoping to have the new site up and running within the next few months.

So, once again, all the very best for 2018!

Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic

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By now you may have  heard that Adobe has introduced two versions of Lightroom. One is called Lightroom Classic and the other Lightroom CC. I equate this new naming to this: after your second child is born, giving that child the name of your first child and giving your first born child a new name. Got that?

This naming was confusing to the Adobe professional community as well – to the point of humor. But nonetheless, Adobe went ahead with the name changes. So let me explain the differences.

Lightroom Classic CC

This is essentially Lightroom CC version 7. It has two great new features – Color and Luminance Range Masking. These masking features make use of new technology, they’re very easy to use and highly accurate. Many of the other improvements are “under the hood,” like faster image previewing using embedded camera raw previews, faster startup, more responsive brushes in the local adjustments and much more. Suffice it to say, Adobe’s primary goal was improved speed and it seems they have accomplished this goal!

And you should note that the Creative Cloud version of Lightroom will be the only version available from this point on. There will be no perpetual version, that is the standalone version that is not part of the Creative Cloud. Lightroom 6 owners will get an update or two in the near future but then, that will be it. No more updates, no more bug fixes. I know this won’t make some users happy. But I can say from experience, Lightroom CC was updated with bug fixes and new features far more often than Lightroom 6. It’s worth the move, even if you hate having to pay a subscription. You can read more about the Lightroom Classic CC updates here.

Lightroom CC

Taking its big sister’s name and changing the Lightroom logo color to turquoise, this is Adobe’s simple to use, cloud-based application that works across desktop, smartphones and tablets. It’s a totally new and different program and It’s a game changer. And honestly, we love it! This is definitely aimed at Apple Photo (or iPhoto) users and Lightroom users who may have found Lightroom too complicated. And, if that’s the case, then there’s a nice feature in Lightroom CC that let’s you easily import your existing Lightroom Catalog of images over to the new, cloud-based app.

Although it’s not free, Lightroom CC offers a wide range of features not available in Apple Photos. The develop features are similar to its big sister, but with an easier to use interface and simpler importing and organization of photos. You can read more about Lightroom CC here.

Lightroom CC is now Lightroom Classic

You’ll notice in the comparison above that there isn’t any Map, Book, Slideshow, Print or Web module in the new Lightroom CC. In fact, there are no modules at all. Just exactly what casual users need, a library (hidden when the develop sliders are available) and developing tools. Lightroom Classic looks exactly the same as previous versions in this new update.

And, below is a side-by-side detail comparison the develop panels. 

Lightroom CC is now Lightroom Classic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, if you’ve already updated to Lightroom Classic, you’ll want to have Adobes’s Lightroom Classic CC User Guide and Lightroom Classic Tutorials.

Lightroom 6

And, if you’ve updated Lightroom 6, you may have been misdirected  to download a Lightroom Classic trial. This deletes Lightroom 6 from your computer, you’ll need to reinstall Lightroom 6 (a major Adobe error!). If this has happened to you, you can download the most recent version of Lightroom 6 again here: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-downloads.html Keep in mind that you will need your Lr6 serial number to reinstall the application. If you don’t know your serial number, you can find by signing in your Adobe account here: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/membership/index.cfm?loc=en_us&nl=1

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In the next few blog posts David Erickson and I will go more in-depth, discussing the most important new features of Lightroom Classic (formerly known as Lightroom CC) and review the new, cloud-based Lightroom CC.