Adobe Lightroom Beta 4.0

[Photo-John]

I just downloaded the Adobe Lightroom 4.0 Beta. I think it's much improved over the previous version. I've been using Pixmantec's RawShooter. After Adobe bought RawShooter I really wanted to see some of the tools from that software incorporated into Lightroom. Then I bought the Canon Digital Rebel XTi and couldn't use RawShooter for RAW conversions anymore and really really wanted to have RawShooter tools included in Lightroom. I haven't shot a Rebel XTi RAW file to test with Lightroom yet. But the Develop stage of the software has RawShooter's excellent crop tool, Fill Light, and Vibrance controls. It doesn't appear to have RawShooter's separate highlight and shadow contrast controls, which I really like. But I'll have to experiment some more. They may just have different names now. In any case I'm pretty pleased with the new version. Lightroom is starting to look good to me.

Who else here has been experimenting with Lightroom? What do you think so far? Can you compare it to anything else? I'm curious how it compares to Apple Aperture and Phase One's Capture One.

[SmartWombat]

If you hover over or click in the histogram you will find several different regions labelled shadow, highlight and so on. You can then manipulate those parts of hte tone curve separately.
Freaked me out when I first saw it, and it's amazingly easy to use.

I just wish it was faster, and could cope with 1000 or more photos without having to run overnight.
Oh and I want a batch mode for the conversion, so I can convert a whole folder full of raw images to jpeg at the press of a button, with full size and auto web resize.
A scripting language to do that would be nice

[Sebastian]

PJ,

I don't have the time right now since I'm working about 90 hours a week, but I will eventually put together a piece on it. I plan on doing a comparison of it to Aperture once I get my Macintel.

BTW, Lightroom has a really, really sweet crop tool. All that stuff is in the "Develop" section. Can't compare it to C1 though, C1 is a browser and developer, Lightroom/Aperture are meant to be DAMs as well as one-stop developing tools. But, Lightroom comes way short in really important feature like versioning compared to Aperture.

[Photo-John]

Sebastian-
What is "versioning?"

I want to play with Aperture. My dad has a Mac but he'd have to update his OS and doesn't want to. I've been reading that other people have the same issue with Aperture. On the other hand, I went to load Lightroom on my desktop at home and realized it isn't compatible with Windows 2000. So the same problem exists with the Adobe software. Now I have to decide if I like Lightroom enough to install a new OS on my home computer

I do think Lightroom is slow. But it's not done yet. I hope and expect they will speed it up before the final product is released. RawShooter was super fast, although it didn't manage photos like Lightroom does.

The crop tool you like is from RawShooter. It's just one of the really great features that RawShooter has and have been incorporated into Lightroom.

[Photo-John]

I've been forcing myself to use Lightroom and figure out how to accomplish my regular tasks with it. I haven't been able to do everything with it - yet. Of course, I won't be able to as it doesn't support layers or masking. But I'm finding more, like the export tool I used to create this JPEG from a RAW file. Yes - it converts my Rebel XTi RAW files. That's wonderful. It means that I have access to my beloved RawShooter tools (most of them, anyway) for Rebel XTi RAW conversions.

[mjs1973]

I downloaded Lightroom yesterday. I only played with it for a few minutes, but it looks pretty cool. I wish I had more time to play with it and learn what it's all about.

I heard on Photoshop TV this week that they have officially changed the name to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I was under the impression that Lightroom was going to be a seperate, stand alone program, but the name change makes me wonder... Anyone have any insite into where Adobe is going with this? Is LR going to be a stand alone program or could it be built into CS 3 when it comes out next spring? Perhaps it will replace the RAW converter that CS 2 uses or is that just wishfull thinking?

[Sebastian]

PJ,

Versioning is making multiple version of the same shot. One cropped square and B&W while the other is cropped horizontal and color, for example. With Lightroom you have to export the file to PS, make your changes, and then Lightroom automatically reimports the new file. But, then you have two files for no reason. Aperture makes as many versions as you want without ever duplicating the original file. All its changed are rendered as previews based on the original file, your edits get stored in a database. This saves loads of space, and allows for much more creative freedom. In addition, the clone tool works the same exact way, you clone something out but the original file is never touched. Canon's DPP does the same thing, BTW, the clone tool is non-destructive.

As for upgrading, there are many more reasons for your dad to upgrade than just running Aperture, plus you really have to make sure the hardware can support it.

[Photo-John]

I gotcha. RawShooter was very good at versioning, too. You could make and preserve many versions of the same RAW image without having to actually convert them. I am actually working on an image in Lightroom right now where I did two conoversions of the same image - one for the sky and one for the foreground. I was looking for a way to make and save multiple versions but couldn't do it. Bummer. I will hold out hope since this feature was in RawShooter and I have seen Adobe intergrate a bunch of RawShooter tools into Lightroom Beta 4.

My Dad doesn't want to upgrade because he's got an old version of Illustrator that only works on OS9.

[Sebastian]

Well, makes sense since they bought them.

"My Dad doesn't want to upgrade because he's got an old version of Illustrator that only works on OS9."

So how does that prevent him from running Tiger? The classic environment runs in Tiger just fine. I'm curious.

[Photo-John]

"My Dad doesn't want to upgrade because he's got an old version of Illustrator that only works on OS9."

So how does that prevent him from running Tiger? The classic environment runs in Tiger just fine. I'm curious.

You got me. That's just what he told me. I don't know much about the Apple OS except that it's real purty.

[cr_mmurillo]

I think a cool addition to lightroom would be the history style function like in Photoshop, instead of just pressing "ctrl+Z". I was using Picasa before. I liked it because it was easy and fast. When I saw Lightroom 3, I switch over. Although version 3 was super slow, it was still powerful. Lightroom 4 is miles away from 3 with lots of improvement and speed.

Adobe should also consider HDR functionality, just a simple tool nothing too complicated. One of the reason why I like Lightroom 4 is because it's easy to use. I don't think they will add layers or make it too complicated because they don't want this product to compete with Photoshop.

I wonder how much lightroom is going to cost? I think Lightroom beta 4 is going to expire in 2007:idea: .

[Photo-John]

I am loving the results I get from Lightroom. But I hate it's lack of reliability. It locks up on me regularly. I know it's only a beta right now. But I sure hope they make it more stable and faster. Right now the performance is too much like Adobe's Album and Bridge. Bridge works ok. But there are a lot of other programs which work better. That's why I keep using BreezeBrowser. It's a much better browser. Lightroom needs a lot of speed and reliability improvement in order for me to be able to fully commit to it. The features and results are very, very good. But it doesn't cut it when yet as a professional production tool.

[Photo-John]

We have a review page up for Adobe Lightroom beta 4, in our software reviews. The discussion is great. But the reviews are the best permanent home for your thoughts and experience with Lightroom or any other photo-related product.

Read and write reviews for Adobe Lightroom beta 4 >>

Thanks in advance for your reviews. Every review gets you entered in our review contest, too.

[SmartWombat]

Has anyone got hte install to work on Windows XP?

I had 4.0 installed.
It auto-downloaded the 4.1 release for me.
I ran the install and it still came up as Beta 4.

I've found Beta 4 a bit faster than Canon's raw converter Digital Photo Professional (huh, it's amateur software).

But Beta 4 has been crashing regularly. No error, no message, just sudden disappearance from the screen. Very annoying.

[Photo-John]

Has anyone got hte install to work on Windows XP?

I had 4.0 installed.
It auto-downloaded the 4.1 release for me.
I ran the install and it still came up as Beta 4.

I've found Beta 4 a bit faster than Canon's raw converter Digital Photo Professional (huh, it's amateur software).

But Beta 4 has been crashing regularly. No error, no message, just sudden disappearance from the screen. Very annoying.

I thought it only worked with XP - with Windows anyway. I tried to load it on my Windows 2000 machine and was denied. That means I have to reformat and upgrade the OS to use it at home. That's a pain in the ass.

I haven't downloaded and installed 4.1 yet.

I wouldn't exactly say that it's been crashing on me. It just locks up or gets really, really slow. It seems to me that however it's caching data is crappy. It seems like it's filling something up and getting slower. maybe I'll look into the preferences and see if there's a way to define where and how it caches.

[JSPhoto]

Photo John,
According to the readme file that is installed with 4.1 there are known issues that cause this program to crash and they include:
Minimum of 758MB of ram required but they suggest having 1GB!
it crashes when libraries are created at the root of any drive
it's not optimised for 1028x768 and they suggest running it with one panel hidden in this mode.
And it won't run on Win 2000, only on XP svc pack 2 and up machines

That should help you out on the crash problems, but you'd think they would fix these things before releasing it!

JS

[readingr]

Its working fine on mine - other than it keeps wanting to upgrade as its gone to V1.0 not Beta 4.1

I only have 512 of memeory and its fine - much faster.

Roger

[Erik Stiegler]

Has anyone got hte install to work on Windows XP?

I had 4.0 installed.
It auto-downloaded the 4.1 release for me.
I ran the install and it still came up as Beta 4.

I've gotten it running on XP. It still says "Beta 4" on the splash screen, but the build number has changed.

I haven't had it crash yet, but I don't really stress it out much, and my PC has 2GB of memory.

[JSPhoto]

Its working fine on mine - other than it keeps wanting to upgrade as its gone to V1.0 not Beta 4.1

I only have 512 of memeory and its fine - much faster.

Roger

Interesting because it seems to run fine on mine as well, and it too has 512MB of ram, but I wonder if it's also using the 256MB on the video card as well. I found it wasn't slow at all, even with multiple files open, which again leads me to wonder if the choice of video card makes a difference, and also what CPU is being used. This particular machine is running a Celeron D 340 @ 2.93Ghz. I haven't tried it on the other two machines, one of which is a laptop with a P4 (forget the speed) and 512MB and then the other desktop which is running a P4 @ 1.72Ghz and also has 512MB of ram.

JS

[Sebastian]

That should help you out on the crash problems, but you'd think they would fix these things before releasing it!

It's a BETA. The whole point is for us to test it and give suggestions.

The features and results are very, very good. But it doesn't cut it when yet as a professional production tool.

Depends on what your definition of "professional production tool" is. For my corporate and wedding work 4.1 is actually pretty usable. For my editorial work on deadline, I shouldn't be using Lightroom, or Aperture or anything else like that. It's Photo Mechanic all the way.

I ordered Aperture last night, can't wait for it to get here.

[SmartWombat]

Looks like it had updated sort of, but not copmletely.
What threw me was the lack of change in the UI to say Beta 4.1
I know it's a beta but that's just shoddy version control, I'd kick our develpers' asses for that.
Just upgrading the lappie now.

[JSPhoto]

It's a BETA. The whole point is for us to test it and give suggestions.
.

actually, BETA tests are supposed to be run on the very best version of the software, not one that is known to have serious flaws such as these. How can they expect to get better software when many of the users are having crash issues that could and should have been dealt with prior to releasing the updated BETA?
I have done BETA testing for Quickbooks and a couple others and none of those companies would have released something this buggy. Heads would roll...right out the front door! And I can't beleive the Adobe would allow it, I thought they had more sense than this.

JS

[Photo-John]

actually, BETA tests are supposed to be run on the very best version of the software, not one that is known to have serious flaws such as these. How can they expect to get better software when many of the users are having crash issues that could and should have been dealt with prior to releasing the updated BETA?
I have done BETA testing for Quickbooks and a couple others and none of those companies would have released something this buggy. Heads would roll...right out the front door! And I can't beleive the Adobe would allow it, I thought they had more sense than this.

Both points of view make sense to me. I don't expect it to be perfect. But I sure wish it was stable. It makes it frustrating to use and hard to really test if it locks up on me. I just want to shut it down and find another solution. And then there's the fact that RawShooter was working just fine for me.

[Sebastian]

Got Aperture earlier last week, have used it for a couple projects now. Lightroom has a LONG way to go before it can compete. Of course, that's only on the Mac side, Lightroom is the only player on the PC side.

[masdog]

Photo John,
According to the readme file that is installed with 4.1 there are known issues that cause this program to crash and they include:
Minimum of 758MB of ram required but they suggest having 1GB!
it crashes when libraries are created at the root of any drive
it's not optimised for 1028x768 and they suggest running it with one panel hidden in this mode.
And it won't run on Win 2000, only on XP svc pack 2 and up machines

That should help you out on the crash problems, but you'd think they would fix these things before releasing it!

JS

But John, they're not problems. They're features!

Actually, that's somewhat true for the last item. With Vista on the horizon, and Win2K at its end-of-life, there is going to be a lot of software that will require XP-sp2.