Adobe dropped six new Lightroom features this past week, timed to coincide with its annual Adobe Max 2022. Already the go-to software for serious and professional photographers, a single click will do more and more efficiently, including applying masks and selecting objects.

Thanks to the company's advanced artificial intelligence called 'Adobe Sensei.' Below we explain the new features. (You'll need the latest version of the software.) While these new features are suitable for most photography, several are especially handy for portrait photographers, improving their edits and workflow.

1. Select people

This is a handy feature for portrait photographers or images with people. Bring up the Masking controls. At the bottom, you'll see a new section entitled Select People. The new feature uses AI to automatically find and create masks for people appearing in your photo.

If you click on one person, a list of that person's attributes will appear. You can automatically create a mask for any body part, such as the face, hair, eyebrows, whites of the eyes, iris, pupils, skin, body, lips, or teeth. With a click, Lightroom will build out the mask.

2. Select objects

Just as you can select people with a click, you can do the same for specific objects in an image. You can create a mask for any object with an easy click and no painstaking detailed work. Under the Masking controls, click on the Objects option. Paint over any object, and Lightroom automatically refines the mask to precisely select the object.

3. Adjust portraits

Adaptive presets aren't new, having been released earlier by Adobe. But those presets focused on the sky and subject. The new collection of adaptive presets is for portraits. They allow you to precisely target edits for portrait photography. It can be a game changer for portrait photographers. You can target the overall picture or specific aspects of your subject. For example, you can enhance or adjust hair, eyebrows, etc. The new adaptive portrait presets leverage the Select People AI masking we detailed above. Of course, if you need a more professional Portrait Lightroom Presets Collection, you can order it from our shop.

4. Content Aware Remove

Although Lightroom makes removing distractions or blemishes easy, you now have another excellent option: Content Aware Remove. The healing tool uses Content-Aware technology to help you easily remove objects from the photo. Just paint over the object you want to remove, and Lightroom removes it. There's also a Refresh option and the ability to pick the sampled area with keyboard commands for finer healing control.

5. Compare images side-by-side

At last, you can compare images side-by-side to assess your edits and consistency. This means you can open two photos next to each and make edits to one while comparing it to the untouched image next to it. This makes editing, comparing, and checking for consistency much more manageable and time-saving.