Adobe unveiled Lightroom Classic 16 at Adobe MAX, and several of its headline additions tackle tasks that working photographers have long handled elsewhere. Glow effects, depth-based masking, color grading inside masks, and automatic blemish removal now sit inside the catalog-based editor, reducing the need to bounce between applications for routine adjustments.
For years, many of these capabilities lived outside Lightroom. Atmospheric glow often meant round-tripping to Photoshop or buying a third-party plugin. Depth-driven masks typically depended on a smartphone or camera that recorded depth information at capture, which limited them to specific devices. Bringing these tools into the core software changes the calculus for anyone who edits large batches of images.
A Native Glow Effect
Glow is one of the most requested looks in portrait and fashion work, where a soft halo of light can lift skin tones and add a dreamy quality without washing out fine detail. Having it built directly into Lightroom Classic means the effect can be dialed in alongside exposure, color, and tone adjustments, keeping the entire look within a single, non-destructive workflow.
Depth Masks Without Special Files
Depth masking is among the most useful selection tools to arrive in recent years, because it isolates subjects and backgrounds by distance rather than by brightness or color. Previously, the technique generally required depth data captured by compatible hardware. Removing that dependency opens the feature to a much wider range of images, including files from cameras that never recorded depth information, which makes it practical for archival work and older shoots as well.
Color Grading Inside Masks
Color grading has become a core part of contemporary image finishing, and applying it selectively is where it gets interesting. Grading within a mask allows an editor to warm a subject’s skin while cooling a background, or to push mood into a single area of the frame without affecting the rest. For photographers who previously relied on layered edits in external software, this streamlines a process that once demanded careful layer management.
Automatic Blemish Removal
Spot healing has been a staple of retouching for decades, but manually clearing dust, sensor spots, and skin imperfections across a large set of images is time-consuming. Automatic blemish removal aims to handle the repetitive portion of that work, freeing editors to focus on creative decisions. As with any automated retouching tool, professionals should inspect results at full magnification, particularly on portraits where natural texture matters.
What It Means for Working Photographers
Taken together, these additions reflect a broader trend in post-processing: tasks once reserved for pixel-level software or specialized hardware are migrating into the everyday editor. For commercial and event photographers, the gains are mostly about speed and consistency across large catalogs. For hobbyists, the appeal lies in achieving polished results without learning multiple programs. Either way, Lightroom Classic 16 narrows the gap between a quick edit and a finished image, and that alone makes the update worth a closer look.