Adobe continues to improve both flavors of its market-leading Lightroom pro photo software—Lightroom Classic and the simpler, online storage-connected Lightroom.

New for Classic (and Adobe Camera Raw) is support for those huge, often panoramic PSB files created in Photoshop. Perhaps of more use to more photographers are performance improvements with more GPU-accelerated action and the new ability to set the default raw camera file import to use your camera’s settings to interpret how raw files should be rendered. For the more lightweight Lightroom, a new export option has arrived.

Some photographers expect images to look the way they do on the back of the camera, even after they’re imported into Lightroom. Alternatively, you can now set the default raw import to not only Adobe Color but to any of the other profiles available in the application.

Adobe says that performance in Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw (the utility that comes with Photoshop for importing raw camera files) now takes advantage of GPU acceleration for the Lens Correction and Transform adjustments. Furthermore, the Enhance Details feature can now take advantage of external GPUs on macOS 10.15.

Photoshop Elements can now be considered as more of a stepping stone to the more pro-level Lightroom and Photoshop, and with today’s announcement, you can now import Elements catalogs into Lightroom Classic. Syncing in Classic is getting some love with the update, too, with new FAQs and message boxes letting you know exactly what’s being synced.

One of my big criticisms for Lightroom (non-Classic) has been its lack of output options, but with this update it gets one that some will find of use: the ability to output to the DNG file format. This is a raw file standard developed by Adobe that’s widely accepted in other software. One thing we’re still waiting for is local printing capabilities. Every other photo workflow application I’ve reviewed apart from Lightroom (non-Classic) has this capability, but at least a previous update added the ability to send photos to services for offsite printing.

There are several other tweaks that enhance usability and add options, such as the ability to drag files directly to a specific album, and simpler HDR merging. For the full rundown of what’s new, read Adobe’s photography blog post.

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