I have had a good look at Lightroom 5 and needed to find out for myself and hopefully for other photographers and users of Lightroom why you should upgrade. I came up with six reasons and will list them below.
1. The new crop feature that allows you to crop your images to a particular aspect ratio. This feature makes it much easier to do without guessing in previous versions.
2. You can now view your images in true full screen without any distractions from the lightroom interface.
3. The ability to be able to customise the grid and guide overlays. The grid overlay is particularly useful on an architectural photograph or for product photography. You can access these now in the library module or the develop module.
4. The new upright feature in the develop module which allows you to make perspective or leveling corrections to your photographs.
5. The new healing and retouching brush which allows you to see blemishes and spots much better when you select visualize spots. This is a great step forward when it comes to retouching a beauty portrait for example. The other great feature of the healing brush is the ability to make linear and free-form corrections. In other words you can easily remove a vertical or horizontal line that is a distraction in the shot.
6. The new radial filter which allows you to make selective adjustments in the develop module. This is a great tool when you want to brighten up a face for example or sharpen the eyes. The radial filter is like painting with light.
I tried out the new upright feature on a couple of images I shot of the great art deco heritage listed Henry Davis York building and it worked to perfection.
