Adobe & Canon Kiss and Make Up: Color Profiles Updated in Lightroom

For years, Adobe didn’t provide color profiles for bodies from Canon, a mysterious absence. This appears to be changing rapidly, with support added for the R5, R6 and even the upcoming R3. Adobe’s newest update to Photoshop and Lightroom have added equivalent color profiles to those color profiles selectable in Canon’s own menu system.

When Canon cameras produce jpeg files, they those color profiles define the colors visible in the files, but RAW files remain untouched, and the Adobe software previously didn’t have a mechanism to replicate the chosen camera color profile. Users had to use generic Adobe profiles, which haven’t been widely-loved, or produce their own color profiles, which few have the stomach to do.

The addition of the long-awaited R3 color profile may also be an indication of that camera having been significantly delayed since its original planned introduction prior to the summer Olympics. Adobe normally takes some weeks after a launch to update its applications to support new bodies, especially Canon ones.

Additionally, lens profiles for most of Canon’s RF system lenses are now available to provide for lens-specific correction for problems such as distortion and vignetting.

The update that moved yesterday also made one of the most significant feature additions since Lightroom was separated from Photoshop: compound masking, allowing for a much more refined set of additive and subtractive masking features for selective edits. Adobe also indicates that it may be putting a “prepare as NFT” option in Photoshop soon.