Opinions on Lightroom

[Richard Lundberg]

I have never tried Lightroom, so I downloaded LR 5.3 trial and installed it today.
Right away it violated my two major requirements.
1.No forced cataloging.
2. No "modern" (unreadable) UI.
And then it violated the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. Just like all other Adobe products that are supposed to support my camera, it doesn't really, although the Quick Develop mode seems to, the Develop mode doesn't support any lens distortion correction. It only has profile data for the Fuji X100. I don't have any RAF files from another Fuji at hand right now, so I don't know if LR is interpreting mine as a X100 or whether it interprets all Fujis as the X100. Adobe is supposed to support all Fuji since ACR 6.4 with additions as necessary. I know that mine (F600EXR) is shown in the list that far back. The odd thing is that Quick Develop removes the lens distortion. QD only offers white balance, exposure and a couple others. ACDSee Pro 3 View mode also removes the lens distortion but its Develop mode won't open the image, and you can't save from View. Fuji's own software does the lens but will only save in aRGB.

I see no point in buying it unless it has develop capabilities far better than ACR 6.7. I have seen claims to that effect but don't know what they are right now.
Its catalog view is UNLABELLED. You only see the image filename when you rollover. The Import view shows labels. They couldn't afford ten lines of code for ***** sake? That is really awkward and the rollover is unreliable to boot.

[yauman]

Don't know about the other stuff but the label is optional - most of us turn it off. You can turn it on if you like. In the Grid View, right click on any image and select the last option - View Option. In the 3rd group of the Grid View option, you can check if you want to see top and/or bottom label and what info in those labels you want to see. I turn it off only because it makes the grid view too busy.

[yauman]

Also, under View Option, in Grid View, the very first item - if you select "Expanded Cell" you get all the info.

[chauncey]

Adobe has this wonderful series of instructional videos for LR5 and others...it's called adobe tv.
http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-lightroom-5/

[DanK]

I have no idea about Fuji support, as I have never used a Fuji camera. However, I do the large majority of my editing in Lightroom. I'm only beginning to take advantage of its powerful database capabilities, but its developing tools cover most of what I need for almost all images and all of what I need (apart from image stacking) for most of my images. Once you know your way around it, it is very quick, and of course everything is reversible.

AFAIK, the developing engine is identical to ACR. The interface, of course, is not, and the database functions are not at all the same.

But if you don't like it, just don't use it. there is no shortage of alternatives.

[yauman]

I have never tried Lightroom, so I downloaded LR 5.3 trial and installed it today.
Right away it violated my two major requirements.
1.No forced cataloging.

Trying to figure out what you mean. Lightroom, IMHO is first and foremost a cataloging program so out of the box it's set up in some default mode. But all that can be changed and customized. The one big epic war (akin to Canon vs Nikon) among many users is whether to put all photos in one giant catalog, with many collection sets and collections or whether each photo excursion should be in it's own catalog. Physically, of course your photos can be saved in any drives or folders you want and organized the way you want them to and is independent of your cataloging scheme. This feature alone is why I think Lightroom is really superior to other products out there. If you want to do post-processing without cataloging, I recommend just Photoshop or Element with Bridge. Bridge is a simple photo "arrangement" program that comes with Photoshop but not a full-blown cataloging program.

[Colin Southern]

LR isn't for everybody (like you, I have no use for cataloging and the UI drives me nuts) -- I vastly prefer Bridge + ACR + Photoshop combo; it may not look as flashy, but when you work the keyboard shortcuts it's ruthlessly efficient (especially with a fast CPU - lots of RAM and Solid State Drives).

With regards to supporting your camera - can't really comment. Best advice I can give there is "sounds like it's time to trade up".

[Richard Lundberg]

I'm going to rename it Eyestrain 5.3. Like many other recent image editors, AND THIS FORUM, black background and grayish font. Who decided that modern means illegible?
As soon as websites were developed some idiots began using black backgrounds, and immediately a website came out called "Websites That Suck" The authors derided black backgrounds as counterproductive and even wrote a book.
Every image editor I have with a black or dark grey background is nearly impossible for me to use. To compound the crime their fonts are tiny and their arrowheads are miniscule. What is wrong with these people?
Eyestrain 5.3 also violates another principle. Sliders should be able to be incremented numerically with arrow clicks, but noooooooooo. I would bet the UI designers for all these apps are geeks who have never heard of human engineering.

[Mike Buckley]

Richard complains that Lightroom forces cataloging. Is this really true?

The reason I ask is that I typically use Lightroom only in the last step of my workflow to perhaps correct perspective distortion or to eliminate unwanted items such as a telephone poles that can't be done using my primary software. I then export the image to a new file and remove the initial file from the catalog. Once I have done that, has Lightroom really embedded any metadata in my exported file?

[Colin Southern]

I'm going to rename it Eyestrain 5.3. Like many other recent image editors, AND THIS FORUM, black background and grayish font.

At the bottom of the page, you can select one of the light colour schemes.

[Manfred M]

Richard complains that Lightroom forces cataloging. Is this really true?

The reason I ask is that I typically use Lightroom only in the last step of my workflow to perhaps correct perspective distortion or to eliminate unwanted items such as a telephone poles that can't be done using my primary software. I then export the image to a new file and remove the initial file from the catalog. Once I have done that, has Lightroom really embedded any metadata in my exported file?

The only way to get things into Lightroom is to create a catalogue in the library module and the edit data is stored in the database and is not embedded in the file. Like Colin, I have found Lightroom to be a poor cousin to Bridge and Photoshop, but have been teaching my wife how to use it, as Photoshop is way beyond her editing needs.

I've spoken with more than one person who has lost a great deal of work with a corrupted database (the backups were corrupted too). Creating separate catalogue for each job seems to be a more prudent approach; that way one does not have all their edits in one risky location. The workaround to the database holding the edits is to output the processed file as a DNG, but I suspect that is not what most people do.

[pnodrog]

Learn more about it before you jump to conclusions....

There are very few new programmes that I have tried over the years that for the first 5 days I have not thought they have been designed by boffins without any clue about designing a decent user interfaces.

[Glenn NK]

I've been using it since LR1, and I'm not fully conversant with all of its power and usefulness. It has a "bit" of a learning curve. One day of use won't enable anyone to judge a programs capabilities.

There are many very good photographers that use nothing else. Check around on other photo forums.

As for corrupted databases, my first folder is 2006-09-25. Nothing has ever been corrupted to date. Perhaps failing to make backups has been the problem. But this isn't a software failure, it's a universal human failure.

Black BG's? Try a few hours of CAD with a white screen and then you'll know what eyestrain is.

[Colin Southern]

I've spoken with more than one person who has lost a great deal of work with a corrupted database (the backups were corrupted too).

If I'd said it once, I said it 100 times that that would happen.

The workaround to the database holding the edits is to output the processed file as a DNG, but I suspect that is not what most people do.

It's probably not what they do, but it's easy (trivial) to change the prefs so that that's the default.

[yauman]

Eyestrain 5.3 also violates another principle. Sliders should be able to be incremented numerically with arrow clicks, but noooooooooo. I would bet the UI designers for all these apps are geeks who have never heard of human engineering.

Hmm of course you can use the arrow key. There are 4 ways to change the numbers:
1. With slider - I use that when I have a tablet
2. With the "scrubby" finger - I use that when I have to use a mouse
3. Hover over the slider and use the up and down arrow key - each key stroke increase or decrease number by 0.10. Hold down Shift and up and down arrow will change number by .33 Hold down Opt key and up down arrow will change number by 0.02
4. Just type the number in that you want.

As for the dark interface, I guess that's what all the photo software and portfolio sites are going to also. Us, old dark room guys really do prefer the dark background! New Photoshop also defaults to dark background and yes it can be changed to lighter grey etc.
As for small fonts, I'm with you there - I guess they are trying to pack a lot of info on one screen and not having to go into multilayer submenus. I don't mind the sub and sub-sub menus but I guess all their focus groups people they consult with when designing the software must not like it!!! The "tab" key here is your friend - Tab and all the side menu distraction is gone. Tab-Tab and it's back. I like all the distraction gone when I'm reviewing my photos.

[davidedric]

I like the UI

[GrahamS]

Sigh....

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Manfred!

Creating separate catalogue for each job seems to be a more prudent approach; that way one does not have all their edits in one risky location. The workaround to the database holding the edits is to output the processed file as a DNG, but I suspect that is not what most people do.

If Lightroom was my primary editing software (it's not), it seems to me that outputting the processed file as a DNG would be a legitimate solution rather than a workaround and that creating a separate catalog for each shoot would be the workaround, though perhaps a workaround that is needed in addition to outputting DNGs.

[Manfred M]

If I'd said it once, I said it 100 times that that would happen.

Anyone with a basic IT background understands how and why this would happen. I continue to consider this one of the fatal flaws in the Lightroom design.

It's probably not what they do, but it's easy (trivial) to change the prefs so that that's the default.

It's a shame that this is even necessary. I'm not a DNG fan, but this solution certainly reduces user risk. I would have preferred that they offer the sidecar xmp file approach used by Bridge / ACR and left the RAW file untouched.



As for the UI, that is personal taste. I prefer the ACR one, if for no other reason that it uses more screen real estate, making it easier to use (and I do use a 27" monitor and still find the LR interface too small)

[Shadowman]

I've been using it since LR1, and I'm not fully conversant with all of its power and usefulness. It has a "bit" of a learning curve. One day of use won't enable anyone to judge a programs capabilities.

There are many very good photographers that use nothing else. Check around on other photo forums.

As for corrupted databases, my first folder is 2006-09-25. Nothing has ever been corrupted to date. Perhaps failing to make backups has been the problem. But this isn't a software failure, it's a universal human failure.

Black BG's? Try a few hours of CAD with a white screen and then you'll know what eyestrain is.

I'm using LR 4.1, had it for about two months. Slowly gone through earlier versions textural how to books, finally picked up the latest version. Still willing to give it a shot, although I do most of my editing in Elements.