Lightroom 6.4

[john beardsworth]

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2016/01/lightroom-cc-2015-4-6-4-now-available-html.html

Maybe the most important "feature" is that Nikon tethering works on Mac El Capitan (which broke the Nikon SDK which Adobe used).

There's also an interesting extension to panorama stitching.

John

[Paul2660]

Love the boundary warp idea, as I end up doing this manually all the time.  CC has added the ability to use content aware to fix this but most times it won't get a good fix.

Still, going to wait a few days and see if any negatives have appeared.

Paul C

[john beardsworth]

Yes, for some images it's a handy extension to an already-good feature. You should also find panoramas are faster - Adobe say it's merging, but I see most benefit in previewing.

Adobe also restored a small feature that used to be in Lr. In Export you used to be able to conveniently select Home, Documents, Pictures folders, but this was dropped in Lr4 because of Apple's App Store terms. It's now back.

John

[adias]

I see the PS 9.4 update in the CC control window, but not Lr 6.4...

To make it work I had to click the tools/settings wheel (top/right) and click Check for App Updates. Then it even decided to update Bridge, when I do not think there is an update...

[john beardsworth]

It sometimes takes a few hours to appear. Direct download links are:

http://swupdl.adobe.com/updates/oobe/aam20/mac/PhotoshopCameraRaw8-8.0/9.4.51/setup.dmg

http://swupdl.adobe.com/updates/oobe/aam20/win/PhotoshopCameraRaw8-8.0/9.4.51/setup.zip

[john beardsworth]

By the way, Paul, did you notice the IQ150 is now supported?

John

[fdisilvestro]

Hi,

It seems that the issue with the RGB readout in soft-proof mode has been fixed (I haven't tried it yet)

[Paul2660]

By the way, Paul, did you notice the IQ150 is now supported?

John

Hi John, yes I did see that in the notes.  Glad to see this for sure.

Paul C

[Rhossydd]

the boundary warp idea,

The demonstration video of this on the Adobe site doesn't look good at all. It seems to just distort the picture, in particular warping the horizon to a dished shape.
I want my panoramas horizon's to be correct, straight and level. If something gets cut off that's my fault for not shooting enough width.

[digitaldog]

It seems that the issue with the RGB readout in soft-proof mode has been fixed (I haven't tried it yet)

Yes, finally! Only took 9 months.

[Denis de Gannes]

The demonstration video of this on the Adobe site doesn't look good at all. It seems to just distort the picture, in particular warping the horizon to a dished shape.
I want my panoramas horizon's to be correct, straight and level. If something gets cut off that's my fault for not shooting enough width.

Then I guess its not a option you would need.

[Paul2660]

The demonstration video of this on the Adobe site doesn't look good at all. It seems to just distort the picture, in particular warping the horizon to a dished shape.
I want my panoramas horizon's to be correct, straight and level. If something gets cut off that's my fault for not shooting enough width.

Good point, I missed that it in the video, but they do curve it up.  But in some cases it might be a time saver.  The big question I have is loss of detail.  I lot of warping will tend to soften the file in the areas being warped, not an issue in sky, but in the landscape parts could be an issue.   

Paul C

[adias]

Yes, finally! Only took 9 months.

Could you check it, please? I noticed a profile I have showing a different behavior in this new version. I will have to make some proofs to see.

Also, why is it that Soft Proofing shows RGB values and non-soft proofing Lab? And Lab is never offered with any tool... I have been asking for offering Lab in Curves.

[digitaldog]

Could you check it, please?

Seems fine on this end (Mac). I get the same values in LR as I do in ACR. Previous to this new LR build, the two didn't agree.

Also, why is it that Soft Proofing shows RGB values and non-soft proofing Lab?

Because you have the readout set for  Lab
You can change that by alt/option clicking within the Histogram to provide a menu which has an option to show Lab or not. And yes, thats totally NOT intuitive from a company that used to be known for intuitive design.

[Chris Kern]

You should also find panoramas are faster - Adobe say it's merging, but I see most benefit in previewing.

I'm seeing a very dramatic performance improvement in pano merging on my Mac Pro 2013, but no apparent change when using my MacBook Air 2013; both machines are running OS X 10.11.3.  My guess is that the Camera Raw developers have found a way to better exploit the potential for using the more powerful GPU(s) of the former to accelerate the stitching process, although I haven't turned up any authoritative confirmation of that yet on any Adobe site.  The preview generation also seems somewhat faster than before on the Mac Pro, but, again, I don't notice a significant difference on the MacBook Air.  I haven't tried to do any rigorous before-and-after testing, but on the beefier machine with the third-party GPUs the increased speed to create the final pano is so apparent that I'm confident about reporting it.  (I would suspect similar results comparing MS-Windows machines with high-performance and embedded graphics processors, respectively, but I no longer have easy access to the hardware to perform that test.)

[adias]

Seems fine on this end (Mac). I get the same values in LR as I do in ACR. Previous to this new LR build, the two didn't agree. Because you have the readout set for  Lab
You can change that by alt/option clicking within the Histogram to provide a menu which has an option to show Lab or not. And yes, thats totally NOT intuitive from a company that used to be known for intuitive design.

I forgot about that and that the non-soft-proof view provides RGB %. i understand the reasons but an option to equivalent 8-bit RGB would be nice.

[kencameron]

The demonstration video of this on the Adobe site doesn't look good at all. It seems to just distort the picture, in particular warping the horizon to a dished shape.
I want my panoramas horizon's to be correct, straight and level. If something gets cut off that's my fault for not shooting enough width.

Warping the edges to create a rectangular shape (which is what the new feature does) is going to have an impact on the rest of the image, including the middle (or wherever the horizon is). This may or may not be noticeable. It certainly is in the demonstration video. If you use the warp filter in Photoshop to fix the gaps around the edges, you can adjust the horizon line at the same time. However, I do like the look of the new Lightroom feature. It seems to work well some of the time, and when it doesn't, manual lens correction within Lightroom could be used to fix issues with the centre of the image. If it didn't, then the warp filter in Photoshop would be my tool of last resort. I do like the fact that the Lightroom tool is a slider so you can adjust the intensity of the effect.


@Paul2660, loss of detail and local distortion certainly happen whenever an image is warped, but for most of my practical purposes, I find they don't matter, compared to the macro level "wrong look" which I am correcting.

[Paul2660]

I used the boundary feature on a few images last night, and the slider allows for a good bit of control over taking a horizon the wrong way or a similar subject. 

At least on D810 and X-T1 images, I am not seeing any loss in sharpness in the areas that were warped. 

Nice feature to an already good process.  LR does very well with single row pano's for me. 

Paul C

[Chris Kern]

After playing around with a couple of stitches that involved a well-defined horizon, I've concluded that keeping the horizon straight isn't so much the issue when using the boundary warp facility as maintaining the orientation of obvious verticals.  Attached, a quick rework of a sequence I made last August of the Vancouver skyline from North Vancouver.  The horizon looks pretty good, but after applying the warp the structures at the sides now lean toward the center of the frame.  No doubt there are images where this warping algorithm would be a quick and quite acceptable way to fill in the gaps.  But I think Photoshop's content-aware fill would be a better solution for a candidate like this one.

[digitaldog]

I forgot about that and that the non-soft-proof view provides RGB %. i understand the reasons but an option to equivalent 8-bit RGB would be nice.

Yes and the percentage option should be available in Photoshop. The two should behave identically! Both with the Photoshop proper Info Palette and the readout's in ACR. Why Adobe has provided this disconnect is something I can't understand nor accept.