Today is the beginning of CES in Las Vegas.(ConsumerElectronics Show)So, naturally, we’re going to see TONS of awesome new products announced in the next few days; many will have absolutely nothing to do with photography,and some will.
I’ll post another news article later this week to discuss all the awesome things announced in the photography world,(Sigma 180mm f/2.8
, Canon GX1, SWEET!!!)…but for now I’d just like to mention that I’m curently downloading and testing the Lightroom 4.0 beta, and I’m pretty excited to see what comes up.
As usual, here are my random thoughts on what I see so far.I’ll probably update this article as I get a chance to play around and learn more, so check back often!
CLICK HERE to download and try out the new Adobe Lightroom 4.0 Beta!
• 2012 process version, yay!Hopefully it will be a significant enough improvement that I’ll get cleaner images at high ISO’s!
• I’m scared that they merged exposure and brightness.That is REALLY surprising, considering how much I use those two adjustments separately, to manipulate my dynamic range…
• It SOUNDS like they’ve dramatically improved highlight recovery options, but I can’t be sure yet.
• Local WB adjustments, NICE!Now I guess I don’t have to use my warming / cooling preset color brushes anymore!
• RGB curves – YESSSS!!!!!This was one of the things on my LR 4.0 WISHLIST.I cannot begin to explain what new worlds this opens up.Simply put, I just cut my Photoshop needs down by 50-75%…(Except now, HOURS AND HOURS of work creating Photoshop actions may have been in vain, OUCH, but that remains to be seen…)
• Direct book design, including Blurb.Thank you, Adobe.I will be using this like there is no tomorrow.From clients to personal photos, I’m loving this.Honestly I hardly ever used the other Lightroom modules before now; I’ve been 100% “Library + Develop” for years.This is exciting…
• GPS maps.Creepy, but inevitable and probably VERY useful for many.(I’ll be surprised if every camera doesn’t have GPS capability within the next 1-2 generations.Although I’ll be sure to turn it off ANY time I shoot a photo that includes someone’s face, but that’s a “big brother” discussion for another day!)
• A bunch of video features.Nice, but it doesn’t sound like LR is a video editor, yet, just a catalog system.And I don’t see any way to compile time lapse videos from still frames, that’s lame.I guess I’ll just keep using Quicktime Pro…
• It sounds like we can now CATEGORIZE our PRESETS a little better.I just hope I can DELETE the hundred useless Lightroom presets!I hate those things!(If that was possible in LR3 I’m gonna feel kinda dumb, but please feel free to point it out if you want!:-P
• Unfortunately, there are plenty of wishlist items that did NOT make the cut…
– No word on multiple catalogs
– No word on access to in-camera processing
– No sign of that “relative adjustment” capability I was brainstorming
– Nothing about easily programming hotkeys for individual adjustments
– Yeah, youget the idea.There is of course the fact that this is a BETA release, and the final version could and probably WILL be quite different.So for now, I’m just gonna fire it up, see how buggy it is, and probably close it and go back to LR 3.0 within 30 mins LOL because I can’t get work done.(AT least, that’s how it was with the LR 1.0 and 2.0 betas.:-(
Take care,
=Matt=
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version 6 just came out. it’s always fun to look at “old” tech announcements and see where we’ve come from :)
love it
Arrrgh! Why no customizable Shortcut keys!?!?!?!? I hope that will make it into the final version. It’s a major workflow annoyance.
Really all I’m concerned about is if the Auto button works any better. That’s the main feature I use. ;-)
Image quality is maintain while shrinking the size of RAW files by up to 75%. Perfect for photographers.
My first impressions from < 1hour of use:
– I was hoping for some more Develop module features–maybe layers or better healing tools or more innovative ways to do general basic editing
– Is it quicker to cull through files? It seemed pretty snappy to me, but it could just be a mental thing.
– I guess changing the the develop module controls to default to the middle makes sense, but in my head black point, recovery, and fill just make more sense to start at the very left. I suppose I can get used to this though.
– Soft proofing sounds kinda neat, although it wasn't on my wish list either.
– The great 2012 processing sounds cool, but I didn't really test it at all to notice any difference.
I haven't used the book feature yet, but your enthusiasm for it make me want to check it out. :) I guess for book/album design, this should work vs. InDesign since I really don't use many of those features.
In general I'm not too keen on the video-editing features, but on Windows it could be preferable to Windows movie maker, which I've never had much luck with it working with DSLR video. I also only use the Library and Develop modules. I was hoping for more innovation there and not all the additional features that I'll probably never use. GPS tagging/mapping is neat in theory, but I can't really see it ever being useful for work.
Overall I'm a little underwhelmed, but I may end up buying this anyway. Also I can't say too much about LR4 from my small amount of use. :)
Thanks for your input on this Matt!
Yep Jon, that’s my reaction as well. It’s nice, but I’ll probably keep on using LR3 through (at least) the rest of this season unless the studio buys me a copy. It’s not a *critical* update, like LR3 was. And yeah, I was hoping for MANY more improvements. My wishlist only got like, 10-20% of it’s requests.
Of course this is just a beta, so hopefully there will be more. But who knows.
And yeah, I’m sure Apple Aputure users are laughing at me right now since they’ve had great book design integration for a while now, (supposedly ;-) …but I’m still excited.
The 2012 processing and the new develop organization does seem to handle highlight recovery better; previously you would get a lot of weird color shifts and posterizations even with a conservative amount of “recovery”. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s still better.
I’m just glad it doesn’t crash, I can actually use it for work! (Well, it doesn’t crash anymore than my already buggy PC likes to freeze / crash)
=Matt=
I’d love to hear more about why you’d turn off GPS for any photo with a face in it. All it means is that person was at that place at that point in time in history. Big deal. (at least to me anyways). It’s a bummer that LR4 won’t run on Windows XP so I can’t play with it until I get home and have access to my Windows 7 machine.
Zack, I’m sure I wouldn’t turn it of for EVERY SINGLE PHOTO, but I certainly would be interested in protecting most people’s privacy.
I’m not some sort of criminal who needs to hide their tracks all the time, but I just don’t feel like I should be so casual about the whole thing. But, like I said, that’s a whole different “big brother” discussion for another day…
=Matt=