New Lightroom, Camera Raw release candidates support Canon 70D, Sony RX100 II and more

We said it was coming, and it's here! Earlier this week we noted the imminent arrival of a new version of Photoshop Lightroom, squashing several bugs found at launch last month. Those bug fixes are now available for you to test, and they come accompanied by new camera and lens support, plus a number of new features. The new Lightroom 5.2 release candidate is mirrored by a Camera Raw 8.2 RC that supports much the same array of feature additions. (And there's also a new DNG Converter RC, as well.)

Bugs listed by Adobe as being fixed in the new Lightroom 5.2 RC include the following:

• Catalog containing images processed with PV2003 were adding a post-crop vignette when catalog upgraded to Lightroom 5.

• Pressing the “Reset” button while holding down the Shift key caused Lightroom to exit abruptly.

• Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction were not applied to exported images that were resized to less than 1/3 of the original image size.

• Incorrect photo was selected when trying to select a photo in segmented grid in Publish Services.

• The Esc key did not exit the slideshow after right clicking screen with mouse during slideshow playing.

• Import dialog remained blank for folders that contain PNG files with XMP sidecars.

• Metadata panel displayed incorrect information after modifying published photo. Please note that this only occurred when metadata was changed after the photo was published.

New features in Lightroom 5.2 RC and Camera Raw 8.2 RC are as follows:

• Lightroom:

  • A Smoothness adjustment slider has been added to the Detail Panel under Color Noise Reduction. This helps to reduce low-frequency color mottling artifacts.

  • Smart Preview size has been updated to 2560 pixels on the long edge.

• Camera Raw (only for Photoshop CC owners; new features are disabled for Photoshop CS6 owners)

  • A Color Smoothness adjustment slider has been added to the Detail Panel. This helps to reduce low-frequency color mottling artifacts.

  • The Histogram is now interactive. This enables the ability to click and drag on the Histogram to adjust the Blacks, Shadows, Exposure, Highlights, and Whites slider adjustments.

  • Separate Auto Temperature and Auto Tint controls, which is accessible via the Shift+Double Click on either the Temperature or Tint adjustment sliders.

  • Workflow presets are now available and can be selected on context-clicking the workflow link.

• Both: (only for Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC owners; new features are disabled for Photoshop CS6 owners)

  • Refinements to the Spot Healing Tool:

    • New Feather control.

    • Auto find source method now works better for images with textured areas like rocks, bark, and foliage.

    • Auto find source method now prefers source areas within the crop rectangle.

  • Refinements to the Local Adjustment Brush:

    • Right Click (PC) / Control-click (Mac) on a brush adjustment pin to bring up a context menu to duplicate or delete.

    • Control+Alt+Drag (PC) / Command+Option+Drag (Mac) on a brush adjustment pin to clone (duplicate) that adjustment.

    • Alt+Click (PC) / Option+Click (Mac) on a brush adjustment pin to delete the adjustment.

Newly-supported cameras in the release candidates include (with asterisk denoting preliminary support):

• Canon EOS 70D*

• Casio Exilim EX-ZR800

• Fujifilm FinePix HS22EXR

• Fujifilm FinePix HS35EXR

• Fujifilm FinePix S205EXR

• Fujifilm FinePix F805EXR

• Fujifilm X-M1

• Phase One IQ260 *

• Sony DSC-RX1R

• Sony DSC-RX100 II*

Newly-profiled lenses include:

• Sony Alpha mount

  • Sony E 35mm F1.8 OSS

• Sony E-mount

  • Hasselblad LF16mm F2.8

  • Hasselblad LF18-55mm F3.5-5.6 OSS

  • Hasselblad LF18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS

• GoPro fixed-lens

  • GoPro Hero3 Black

  • GoPro Hero3 Silver

  • GoPro Hero3 White

Lightroom 5.2 release candidate is available free of charge for existing Lightroom 5 customers. Camera Raw 8.2 is available free for customers of Photoshop CC and Photoshop CS6. There's also a new release candidate of DNG Converter supporting the same new camera types. More details and the downloads can all be found on Adobe Labs.