Lightroom: pain and pleasure, mostly pain

David Hull said:

I'll give it a go next week when it comes out. I hope it works
well since I really liked PSE. If PSE handled RAW better in
conjunction with PSCS2, I would still be using it.

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Give it a good look. It takes a bit of getting used to and it takes some time to figure out the best way to use it for what you are doing. It's more flexible than it appears.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)

I have used both beta 3 and beta 4 of Lightroom, and have been looking at the free tutorials for Version 1. Since I use raw often, I appreciated the ability to practice on the beta versions, read the comments from other testors on the Lightroom forums, and get to know my way around the software. From the start, Adobe stated and restated that Lightroom was not to be an all in one type of program. It was not photoshop. It was a relational database program to process and work with raw files, to rank and sort them, and to do so non-destructively. It was also designed to process the raw files as quickly as jpeg images.

I find the program very useful, even though I will still export some files into photoshop when I am going to make use of extensive filters, or make composite images using layers and various opacity settings, etc, etc. The folks at Adobe are not ham and eggers and, based on their beta versions, I fully expect the new V1 to be more than worth the introductory $ 199.00 price. I may also evaluate Aperture, since I use an IMac G5.

Just my opinion as an interested amateur.

Regards,

Richard Hurd

I'm far from being the brightest candle in the box, but I find LightRoom a VERY nice and powerful program. I bought Scott Kelby's E-book, upgraded it for a price and then again with the free upgrade, and NOW I am truly "on track". I set the book up so it is running silmutaneously with LightRoom and toggle back and forth when I have a question. It works really well, for me, and I am getting much more out of LR than I would on my own.

I no more expect to be an expert on a new piece of software just because I bought it than I expect to be a furniture maker just by buying a builders saw.

That said, I find LR to be more intuitive than anything I have seen from Adobe in the past several years. I am eagerly looking forward to taking delivery of version 1.0 in the next few days (I am coming from the RawShooter Pro category, also).

The way I see it, digital photography has taken a BIG step forward with, first, RawShooter, and now with LightRoom.
--
Dale53
http://www.pbase.com/dale53

Brian Vallelunga said:

Some photographers just want to do everything on their own and
manage their files using only the file system. That's fine. For
them, Photoshop CS3 with the new Camera Raw and Bridge will be the
solution they're looking for.

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Actually for us RSP users, RSP WAS the solution. When it was absorbed by the lightroom project, I was hoping (probably nievely!) that they would take the best ideas from both products.

--
Canon 20D
FujiFilm F20

http://www.pbase.com/timothyo

How in the world did you get it? I follow your comments a lot (you usually have something neat to say) and you had plenty of comments for the Lightroom forum. How did you manage to get it? I'm still hanging on until the 19th. So, what's the secret? The heavy participation? Were you being paid off to go easy? What? Hehe.

ljfinger said:

Blue II said:

fwampler said:

How can you evaluate it?

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Lee Jay said:

Seems it would be difficult.

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Unless you already have it.

;-)

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)

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--
Fred

There is a world of difference between the last beta version and version 1. I worked with version 1 on February 5 & 6 at the Digital Technology Center in Sarasota, Florida. I was attending a two day Lightroom workshop that was taught by Scott Kelby. More important to note is that Adobe is continuing to enhance this program based on additional requests received from beta testers and others. There will be a version 1.1 (as a free upgrade to those that purchased version 1). I didn't have to sign a NDA, just spend a nice chunk of change to attend a class.

fwampler said:

How in the world did you get it? I follow your comments a lot (you
usually have something neat to say) and you had plenty of comments
for the Lightroom forum. How did you manage to get it? I'm still
hanging on until the 19th. So, what's the secret? The heavy
participation? Were you being paid off to go easy? What? Hehe.

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That's a wierd story and I probably can't tell you the whole of it. But some people outside Adobe were part of the Beta process post version 4.1.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)

Regarding the seminar: How much was it, and will it be available in the N.Y. area? I would love hands on training.

Richard Hurd

Bones Cobb said:

Her response was somethng like the following... "I can't believe that I just bought a program for $80 dollars and I now have to buy a $30 dollar book to tell me how to use it." What can you say to that?

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Invite her to my law campus. I drop $700 a semester on a books. Good instruction costs money.

Alternately, have her download Picasa. That's suitable intuitive for simple edits.

DI

You deserved to be.

I'm getting a free first copy of APlR since I was a RSP customer. Didn't much care for RSP though after I did detailed matching on a photo by photo basis with DPP.

Lightroom is another story altogether though. Much better control for shadow, midlevel and highlight areas. Looks better. And I can get a good result very quickly.

APLR will end up being a first-class product in my opinion.
--
Fred

In consequence I've pretty much gone back to using Elements 2.

I have never really used Elements 2.0 ... but purchased Elements 3.0 and 4.0 only shortly afterwards .... does probably 85-90% of what I would do with jpegs or Canon RAW files in CS2/3. Like you - my Photoshopping skills cannot justify CS2 or 3 - and I'll rather have a 135 f2 L and some change thanks!

Also feeling very smug that I leapt from RSE to RSP when I did - love the speed & simplicity of that program !

WIth regards to Elements - you should get 4.0 or 5.0 ... great enhancements with RAW support and what you can do with curves etc ...

Richard Hurd said:

I may also evaluate
Aperture, since I use an IMac G5.

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I don't think you will fully appreciate Aperture on that hardware. The early G5 imacs have quite a sad graphics card and the later models a moderately ok one. Aperture needs a meaty beefy graphics card and you make get frustrated by speed issues of certain functions.

I rate Aperture (1.5) above Lightroom (b4.1). Will be interesting to see how LR 1.0/1.1 shapes up.

One thing is certain, with either of these products it will transform the way you work with raw and you will soon be incredulous at the hoops you've previously had to jump through.

You can download a 30 ay trial of Aperture from Apple and see how it runs on your system.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/

-Najinsky

creating a slide show for the Web is one reason why I bought Lightroom.

Tannin said:

• The slide show mnodule is useless (no-one reading this won't

already have better, faster, simpler slide show sodtware.)

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Exactly. The reaosn it is only $80 (she could have found it for $49) is partly because there is no manual in there. She should get the Barbara Brundage missing manual book as well.

PSE 5 is as intuitive as Picassa (IMO). Just use the quick edit ffeatures. PSE users should be aware of the following site:

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/

Lots of good help there.

My lady friend is smart and has been around all types of software for quite some time. I think what she was complaining about however was having to spend extra bucks just to get up and running. She wanted it to just work. And in some ways, I can't really blame her.

Most times, you buy new software to solve a problem or expand your capabilities. Quit often however it's just the begining of your "problems" and it's a long time before you become comfortable enough to say "Yea, I like it" or "I'm glad I bought it". That is why I found the origninal post in this thread so amazing. The software hasn't even shipped yet and people are complaining.

Buying photo software, is sort of like buying art supplies or a blank piece of canvas. What you do with it is determined by your skill, knowledge of the program, and patience. Some people create master piece artwork, others (like most of us) can only create grade school quality drawings. One thing is clear, if you expect that buying a new piece of software will simplify your life, most times you'd be wrong. But then, that's the fun of it too.

I am truly amazed that people would bad mouth a product that really doesn't exist yet. Give it some time.
--

'Image quality is not the product of the machine, but the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression.' Ansel Adams

Find a link for my Photoshop Custom Brush Tutorial below
http://garypalamara.com/Gallery.htm

Not sure what I was bad mouthing (if anything). I am a tremendous fan of PSE and think it is very intuitive and a dream to use. I do have issues with how they handle RAW and why they cripple the built in RAW features so that teh program is not compatable with PSCS2. I suspect they don't want it compeating with Lightroom. Any comments I have made regarding Lightroom are based on my personal experience with B4.

Tannin said:

Paintshop Pro XI (actually 11.11, Henry, there was a bugfix release
to download a while back) on Windows XP. Only seen the corruption
in maybe 5 or 6 files, but all of them were generated by PSP, none
by Neat Image, Elements, or PMView - all programs I use a lot more
than PSP too, so there should be more opportunity for them to screw
up.

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I am using PSP X and have seen no reason to upgrade to PSP XI. Seemed to be just a few trivial new features. It sounds like the TIFF bug was introduced in PSP XI.

Tannin said:

On the Paintshop EXIF problem, I see that Breeze Browser has a copy
and restore EXIF function. I don't really need the browser itself
(PMView is faster and suits my working style better), but it might
be worth buying just for that.

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It was not a PSP EXIF problem that I was talking about. It was a Canon DPP problem.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com

Grrrr ... Paintshop Pro just did it again. Let's see if I can figure out how to post the evidence here.



That's a 100% crop from an attempt to save a TIFF with Paintshop Pro XI. Speaks for itself, really: we have some out of focus red sand forming the background to my picture, and Paintshop Pro has overwritten the first 8 pixels with garbage, all the way across the top of the picture.

Do the same things to the image with any other program (Elements, for example) and it is fine. Use PSP but save in a different format (such as BMP), and it is fine. No serious entrant in the image manipulation software market should be (a) unable to preserve EXIF information, and (b) unable to reliably write a TIFF without corrupting the image.

I'm sorry I ever gave Corel my money - this program shouldn't be out of beta test yet.

David Hull said:

It would appear that Adobe ran a multi tiered beta program. It
would seem that there were those who were more deeply involved with
the program who were under NDA etc. I suspect that these guys got
the final release candidated. I was always surprised that the
"release candidates" were never made public as part of the beta
program, but Adobe has their reasons, I am sure.

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Interesting. I did my upgrade from B3 to B4 very late and ended up with 1.0. No NDA, etc. I did however give them many many detailed bug reports and hints at problem areas and how to solve some of them.

It is kind of funny in that it keeps asking me to upgrade to B4.1, but what I have identifies it's self as Lightroom 1.0, not Beta 4 on the about page. It also has a Feb 28th license expiration date. Anyways, I'll be getting a licensed copy as soon as finances allow. My only issue at this point is the handling of huge libraries with multiple copies of which some may be offline at times. Otherwise it does what I need for now.

--
Bryan - click, click, click, click, moo, click, click...