Lightroom Classic CC Update (Version 8.2) - Enhanced Detail Before and After
Lightroom Classic CC Update (Version 8.2) - Enhanced Detail Before and After
In February of this year, Adobe released an update to Lightroom Classic CC, Version 8.2. One of the main features of the update was the Enhanced Detail feature that was added for supported RAW files. Adobe says that enhanced detail“…produces crisp detail, improved color rendering, more accurate renditions of edges, and fewer artifacts. Enhance Details is especially useful for making large prints, where fine details are more visible. This feature applies to raw mosaic files from cameras with Bayer sensors (Canon, Nikon, Sony, and others) and Fujifilm X-Trans sensors.”
So naturally when I saw this update I had to check it out and see if there was any improvement to my RAW files. The claims of improvement detail, edges, color and less artifacts is something that all photographers who do prints are usually looking to improve. I was super curious if it would help to improve the quality of my images.
Keep in mind that this feature is only available for RAW files from cameras with Bayer sensors. This might not work for your camera and it will not work on .tif or .jpg type files. You also need the latest versions of Lightroom Classic CC, Windows 10 or macOS.
Get up-to-date!
To get this feature working you need to make sure that you have an update version of Windows 10 and Lightroom Classic CC. If you aren’t part of the Adobe CC Photography Plan then I highly recommend that you purchase it. You get Lightroom and Photoshop for $10 a month. It’s worth it and keeps you up-to-date with the latest versions of both. To make sure all Adobe apps are up-to-date, open your Adobe Creative Cloud app and make sure that all installed apps are up-to-date.
If you are on MAC then you need to be up-to-date as well. Here are the system requirements for the Lightroom update:
(Mac) Metal-capable graphics processor and macOS High Sierra (version 10.13) or later
(Windows) Windows 10 October 2018 update (version 1809) or later. See the following Microsoft Support articles for details:
If you need help updating Windows and Adobe Lightroom check out my previous blog.
Once you are updated you are ready to give it a test drive. I took several different types of photos with different details to compare the RAWs and enhancements. You can see a zoom crop of a before and after in picture just below.
You should notice some edge pixelation in the RAW file on the left and then it should be removed in the enhanced version on the right. I compared a few other types of photos in the video version of this below. Take a peak and see what this nes feature can do to improve your photos.
Conclusion
Overall I think this is a great new feature which I’ll be using on all of my photos to ulitimately improve quality of detail for large print and resolutions. I highly recommend this for anyone editing RAW and taking it on to print. Feel free to drop my a question or comment, I’d love to hear what you think of this new feature to Lightroom Classic CC.
Chris Ewen Crosby
is a landscape photographer and educator from Southern California creating unique and powerful landscape images.
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