Adobe Lightroom 2.2 Update

[Photo-John]

Adobe announced a Lightroom update today:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.2 Update >>

It adds support for new cameras, including the new 5D Mk II, the Panasonic G1, and the Panasonic LX3. And more importantly to those of us who don't have those cameras, it looks like they fixed some performance-related bugs. You can read more about it in my short article, linked above.

[drg]

I've loaded and am now running LR 2.2.

Put it through the paces pretty thoroughly last night and this am. Looks solid and yes, it performs much better and output for certain options (i.e. print to JPEG and Web outputs) are now greatly improved and have lost the jaggies that appeared with certain images under certain resolutions. These were very intermittent and difficult to reproduce errors.

There's new RAW conversion files and implementation of manufacturer settings that looks interesting!

More soon!

[Wild Wassa]

I have Lightroom (now 2.2) but it makes me laugh ... I laugh heaps at Lightroom's presets.

What cuts me up most, are all the lame presets. They are really dodgy.

Take for example the pseudo Seleniun Toner preset. A liquid selenium toner used on a paper print apart from giving the blackened silver an impervious protecting coating; intensifies the blacks while retaining the whites and gives a hint of colour change and adding markedly to the enhancement of an image. Just a hint of colour change towards mauve Selenium gives. Which can best be described as changing the colour balance of a b/w image using equal units of yellow and magenta with half an equivalent reading in Cyan so that there is a slight density buildup in the blacks, in other words just a hint of a deep mauve closer to the traditional colour/pigment of Mars Violet. Not Lightroom's bright blue-black preset. The list of dodgy presets goes on ... no doubt you get the drift.

A good update for Lightroom are the 128 modified presets that can be found on the web ... if you like the thought of Lightroom becoming your b/w darkroom and less of an excercise in using a Super Chromega Dichronic filing system, look for the mods.

Warren.

[drg]

What cuts me up most, are all the lame presets. They are really dodgy.

...

Take for example the pseudo Seleniun Toner preset. A liquid selenium toner used on a paper print apart from giving the blackened silver an impervious protecting coating; intensifies the blacks while retaining the whites and gives a hint of colour change and adding markedly to the enhancement of an image. Just a hint of colour change towards mauve Selenium gives. Which can best be described as changing the colour balance of a b/w image using equal units of yellow and magenta with half an equivalent reading in Cyan so that there is a slight density buildup in the blacks, in other words just a hint of a deep mauve closer to the traditional colour/pigment of Mars Violet. Not Lightroom's bright blue-black preset. The list of dodgy presets goes on ... no doubt you get the drift.

A good update for Lightroom are the 128 modified presets that can be found on the web ... if you like the thought of Lightroom becoming your b/w darkroom and less of an excercise in using a Super Chromega Dichronic filing system, look for the mods.

Warren.

The good thing about Lightroom is that the user can modify existing presets, create their own and save them as whatever they want to call them. You can have as many variants as you care to create and label!

Lightroom as all digital workspace benefits tremendously from using a Calibrated and properly illuminated monitor. Many of the presets may not look like what they really are if the monitor used to view them is off even a few degrees from an optimum. LCD's are particularly bad as the contrast transitions are overly abrupt for some manufacturer's displays.

Selenium toning can actually produce a rather wide range of coloration, which depends upon the combination of paper and chemistry. A very deep purplish can result with some papers but can also range to almost a a light almond or yellow tint. Reddish toning is also possible. The deep purple-brownish tones some photographer's automatically associate with Selenium work, is darker than LR's current preset. But it isn't the only one and to try to define that exact tone defeats the purpose of adjustment in the virtual realm. The LR Selenium preset is in the range of what traditional chemistry will produce.

There are 1000's of presets appearing for Lightroom all over the web. Everybody else is wrong you know.

B/W conversions from RAW or film scan adjustments are part of what Lightroom was built to do. The ability to look side by side by side (ad infinitum) of variants of possible was the subject of a blog entry ' RAW Material and the Pretty Girl ' I wrote this past fall. We have gone way beyond the fixed glass filters of the old Chromega Color Heads!

[Wild Wassa]

"...but can also range to almost a a light almond or yellow tint. Reddish toning is also possible."

I was nearly going to write about over cooking the Seleniun bath but didn't. Staining prints I do not consider to be good practice. Thanks for doing it.

"The LR Selenium preset is in the range of what traditional chemistry will produce."

This colour I have not ever seen on any of the modern plastic coated papers or gallery papers. Nor on single weight or double weight traditional bromide, chlorobromide or verichrome papers, toned with either a proprietry Selenium toner or Selenium toner that I've made.

Sorry, I should have called the pack that I refered to as, the 'Lightroom 128 Preset Pack'.

Warren.

[drg]

I still wonder if what you are seeing is a calibration issue as opposed to any other factor.

It is not always about 'overcooking' the process as there is a great possibility of variation. Ilford papers have always produce a significant difference in range of tones. Modern Warmtone papers can produce a pretty wide range of color.

There were papers produced in the Seventies and Eighties that exploited these differences in chemistry for a special effect.

This is becoming a film discussion and really doesn't have much to do with the LR announcement!

[Wild Wassa]

A calibration issue, no Mate. Do you think that I'm a novice because I don't write like a texbook?

I suggest that you go and patronize someone else.

Warren.