Lightroom 8.4 Just Made Using AI Edits WAY EASIER (June 2025 Update)

If you rely on Lightroom Desktop for your editing workflow, the new v8.4 update brings some long-awaited features that are genuinely worth exploring. Adobe has made key improvements to performance, editing tools, and usability, all aimed at solving real pain points photographers have raised over the years. Here’s a breakdown of the most useful new features in this release, explained with photographers in mind.

1. Non-Destructive Enhance (AI Denoise and Super Resolution)

Previously, applying AI-powered Enhance features like Denoise or Super Resolution would generate a new DNG file, separating your enhanced image from the original RAW. That made versioning and file management more complicated than necessary. With Lightroom Desktop v8.4, these tools now work non-destructively on supported RAW and DNG files—no extra DNGs needed.

You can now apply Denoise directly in the Detail panel and adjust the strength anytime afterward. The best part is that you can always adjust the Denoise amount on the fly!

2. New AI Edit Status Indicator

If you’ve seen mysterious “some AI settings need to be recomputed” messages in the past, there’s a new feature that makes things more transparent. The new AI Edit Status button at the bottom of the right-hand toolbar lets you see exactly which AI tools were applied and whether they need updating.

This helps you stay in control of the editing pipeline, especially when combining AI tools like Adaptive Presets, Lens Blur, and Denoise. If things fall out of sync, just click “Update All,” and Lightroom will reprocess the image in the correct order.

Pro tip: There’s a recommended “order of operations” for AI tools that can help you avoid recomputation altogether. It’s not required, but if you want smoother editing, it’s worth checking out. The recommended order is:

• Denoise
• Distraction Removal: Reflections
• Distraction Removal: People
• Generative Remove
• Lens Blur
• Adaptive Profile (Color or B&W)
• Adaptive Masking

3. New Distraction Removal Tools: Reflections and People

Lightroom now includes two new tools under the Remove panel designed to handle common distractions automatically:

• Reflection Removal: Have you ever tried shooting through glass only to get stuck with unwanted reflections? This tool intelligently identifies and removes glass glare and reflections from images. A quality dropdown lets you preview results quickly or opt for high-resolution output when you're ready to finalize.

• People Removal: Ideal for travel or street photographers, this feature finds and removes people that may be cluttering up your scene. Lightroom offers up to three variations for each removal, and you can selectively include or exclude people before applying changes.

Both tools are powerful additions for cleaning up an image without tedious manual masking or cloning.

4. PNG Export with Transparency

You can now export images as PNG files with transparency preserved. This is especially useful if you’ve created layered or masked images in Photoshop and want to preserve transparent areas without flattening or converting to JPEG. It’s a small but practical update that fills a long-missing gap in Lightroom’s export options.

5. New “Variance” Slider in Adobe Camera Raw’s Point Color

This one is technically in Adobe Camera Raw (accessible via Photoshop or Bridge), but it’s too useful not to mention.

The Variance slider in Point Color helps blend or separate color variations within a selected range. It’s extremely useful for tasks like:

• Portraits: Even out uneven skin tones with subtle, natural-looking results.

• Landscapes: Fix sky gradients that look uneven, especially when caused by polarizer filters.

By adjusting this slider to the left, you reduce color contrast in a selected range, smoothing out transitions. Combined with masking, it allows precise, localized edits without affecting the whole image.

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