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Author Topic: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here  (Read 46436 times)

Anthony.Ralph

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #100 on: January 12, 2012, 10:46:56 am »

Don’t even get me started!

Amen to that. IMHO, the ‘fix’ for this issue should be to adjust the display (which this ‘feature’ doesn’t do) not the data going to the printer which ensures that every other application that prints the same data produces a different and matching result. 

I have to say, the moment I saw this 'feature' I thought of you Andrew. And that thought was confirmed when I heard Matt Kloskowski and Scott Kelby saying how it would help with people's 'dark' prints: made me recall the contretemps about this subject a while ago...  :)

Anthony.
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #101 on: January 12, 2012, 10:52:50 am »

Seen a few people commenting LR4 Beta is very slow on Macs. I can run LR3 fairly well on my 5 year old windows Vista laptop, but LR4 makes the fan go mental and is very slow. 

It is a beta, that is to be expected. Optimization will not take place till the very end of the development process. 
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sandymc

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #102 on: January 12, 2012, 10:55:49 am »

The ability to do LCC is built into the DNG spec using what's called the "op code"...it gets embedded into the DNG and when in LR or ACR, the pipeline includes the correction into the image processing pipeline. Unfortunately, at this time, nobody is actually doing this. Capture One "could" if the adapted the DNG 1.3 spec and included the LCC correction into a DNG output. Alas, they don't.

There is the ability for somebody to build an app that could take a DNG then an LCC correction image and bind them into a DNG file. The ability is there in the DNG spec but somebody would have to write the app to do so.

Well, couple of things:

Capture One LCC (and CornerFix) have the ability to do correction for R,G,B independently. The DNG opcode system makes that very difficult to do. Not exactly impossible, but you have to use (big) tables, which isn't at all ideal.

I've looked at allowing CornerFix to do this anyway, but there's no point - (a) only Adobe apps support opcodes, so you still have to do something else for the other raw processors. And anyway, (b) you still have to run every image through CornerFix so there's no advantage to users, even LR users.

What Adobe should do, and I have suggested, is to build the correction capability into DNG camera profiles. That would be useful, and would allow something like CornerFix to build a profile, which could then be used in LR without running every image through a separate program. But you can't do LCC/CornerFix type corrections with the capabilities built into the current camera profile system (or the lens correction system either).

Sandy
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #103 on: January 12, 2012, 11:00:15 am »

And that thought was confirmed when I heard Matt Kloskowski and Scott Kelby saying how it would help with people's 'dark' prints: made me recall the contretemps about this subject a while ago... 

It will help, the prints will be lighter. Expect if you print them in any other application on the planet. Might as well just tell people to increase the lightness setting in the print driver, who needs the two LR sliders? It also places a Band-Aid on the initial issue of too bright a display compared to the print or some other similar issue. But keep in mind, neither Scott nor Matt think soft proofing is useful and they’ve said this on numerous occasions so it must be equally difficult for them to hock LR4’s major new soft proofing accomplishments unless it aids in selling their wares.

What I don’t get is this. IF the prints are too dark, why don’t they see this on-screen? If the prints are only too dark compared to the display, how come they are not too dark everywhere else? But we’ve been down this before.

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rcloud

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #104 on: January 12, 2012, 11:28:01 am »

Quote
It is a beta, that is to be expected. Optimization will not take place till the very end of the development process.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil. --Knuth?

luxborealis

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #105 on: January 12, 2012, 11:45:14 am »

While I agree the sliders for Print Adjustment (Brightness, Contrast) are a band-aid, what I've found is that the reason people find their prints on the dark side is the result of a few of factors:
  • Uncalibrated monitor (speaks for itself)
  • User Error: they aren't paying close enough attention while preparing the image; and/or
  • the difference between a transmissive-like computer display and a reflective print; and/or
  • the background in the Develop and Print modules is set to something other than white.

This last point is often the most contentious and hasn't yet been mentioned in the discussion. Bear with me for a moment...

During the wet darkroom days, the print was our only output so our key visual reference was the white of the paper we used. In fact we typically compared the brightest parts of our print to "paper white" to see how close we were getting.

Fast-forward to LR: In Develop module, if you don't have anything "white" around the image, you don't have that key visual reference (a white point) for brightness and this can cause images (on screen and prints) to appear too dark (icc profiles aside). In other words, they look great until they are matched up against paper white in a print. For those who pay attention to the histogram this is less of a problem, but not enough users do.

The same could be said about the Print module background - if it is other than white, you may not have a good visual reference. Although in most cases, users print with a white border and this helps to provide an on-screen visual reference, by the time they are in Print module, they may not be thinking about how bright/dark the print is since that's a "Develop module decision" and there are onto the myriad other decisions to be make in Print module. For me, I find I am visually assessing my image right up until I hit "Print". I fact, the Print module  is often where I take that last "uncluttered" global look at what I am about to print.

As a result, I've set both my Develop module and Print module backgrounds to white so that I always have a white point visual reference to help ensure my prints are bright enough.
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eleanorbrown

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #106 on: January 12, 2012, 12:00:28 pm »

Thanks Andrew.  Do you have a ball park estimate on the time this beta will be out before final release?.  thanks, Eleanor  PS- I am so impressed with the new develop tools...can hardly wait for final product!

It is a beta, that is to be expected. Optimization will not take place till the very end of the development process. 
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John R Smith

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #107 on: January 12, 2012, 12:18:41 pm »

As a result, I've set both my Develop module and Print module backgrounds to white so that I always have a white point visual reference to help ensure my prints are bright enough.

I could not agree more. Why LR does not set the backgrounds to white by default I really cannot imagine.

The other thing I cannot imagine is anyone making a really big print (you know, say 36 by 48 inches) without making a little 6x4 workprint on the same paper first, just to check how it is really going to look. And if you regularly make workprints (which I think you should) then soft-proofing is pretty redundant.

John
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #108 on: January 12, 2012, 12:18:44 pm »

While I agree the sliders for Print Adjustment (Brightness, Contrast) are a band-aid, what I've found is that the reason people find their prints on the dark side is the result of a few of factors:
  • Uncalibrated monitor (speaks for itself)

That is valid. So the print isn’t really too dark, it doesn’t match the uncalibrated display. So what if the sliders altered the display inside LR? User would make a print (hopefully a good reference print that they download or is supplied by Adobe). They alter sliders so that what they see more closely matches the print. At least they edit the RGB values to produce a decent print and said RGB values are also valid for printing from every applications.

And while I am a huge supporter of display calibration, I find many users don’t calibrate the display properly for that visual match. Calibration should update a device that drifts over time to a set behavior. If that behavior is wrong such that the print looks too dark, one solution is alter the calibration. But I’d have no issue if there were controls in LR that allowed the user to alter the display on top of the calibration to produce a visual match. At least for those that don’t have the time, knowledge or software to tweak the calibration. It would have to be very simple  a control for lumanice and something like Tint and Temp for color. Most hardware calibration products don’t really have a simple way to provide this tweaking (SpectraView does, I would not call it simple and intuitive). If the LR team feels it is OK to blindly alter numbers to the printer for this issue, then it should be OK to alter the display to produce a print match no? At least the correct RGB values are honored.

Quote
Fast-forward to LR: In Develop module, if you don't have anything "white" around the image, you don't have that key visual reference (a white point) for brightness and this can cause images (on screen and prints) to appear too dark (icc profiles aside). In other words, they look great until they are matched up against paper white in a print. For those who pay attention to the histogram this is less of a problem, but not enough users do.

I agree the UI and surround plays a role here. But again, is the print too dark or is it too dark compared to the display? Big, big difference here! There could be tools provided that tweak the UI or even display for a closer visual match that leave the supposedly good RGB values alone. The LR4 sliders do the opposite.

My take on most of those who complain that their prints are too dark (including the NAPP experts) is the print isn’t too dark. It is darker than the display. That is easily fixed.

IF indeed this is the case, how is making a lighter print that now matches a too bright display helpful when you move said print away from this condition? The result should be a print that is now too light! Will this slider and it’s adoption result in that complaint?
« Last Edit: January 12, 2012, 12:25:46 pm by digitaldog »
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AFairley

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #109 on: January 12, 2012, 12:32:13 pm »

It will help, the prints will be lighter. Expect if you print them in any other application on the planet. Might as well just tell people to increase the lightness setting in the print driver, who needs the two LR sliders? It also places a Band-Aid on the initial issue of too bright a display compared to the print or some other similar issue. But keep in mind, neither Scott nor Matt think soft proofing is useful and they’ve said this on numerous occasions so it must be equally difficult for them to hock LR4’s major new soft proofing accomplishments unless it aids in selling their wares.

What I don’t get is this. IF the prints are too dark, why don’t they see this on-screen? If the prints are only too dark compared to the display, how come they are not too dark everywhere else? But we’ve been down this before.



In defense of the feature, I will say that it will help those who have a cheaper monitor and challenging ambient light situation so that they can't bring the monitor brightness down emugh without messing up its ability to render colors properly. 
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #110 on: January 12, 2012, 01:39:15 pm »

In defense of the feature, I will say that it will help those who have a cheaper monitor and challenging ambient light situation so that they can't bring the monitor brightness down emugh without messing up its ability to render colors properly. 

Again, if the issue is a mismatch, and the print isn’t too dark (it is just darker than the display), how does this help when the print is taken away from this environment?

Every time this comes up, the question we need to ask is often ignored. Is the print really too dark? Or is it darker than the display. Or to ask another way, why don’t people tell us the display is too light? It seems the print is always at fault. And that is possible. But before the issue can be fixed, we need to know the facts. Take the print away from the display and examine it in differing conditions that are not over the top odd (blasted with a 10K spot or lit solely by a nightlight). Prior to digital, conventional prints could be too light or too dark and this is true today. We didn’t try to compare them to some other emissive device (in fact, we probably didn’t try to compare them to a transparency backlit by some undefined or poorly lit backlight). What is different today when asking, is the print really too dark?
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Jeff Magidson

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Brighness sliders in the Print Module
« Reply #111 on: January 12, 2012, 02:30:17 pm »

Actually there is another, more valid use for this feature: I love using LR for printing proof sheets. If I develop a set of images properly for printing at 17"x22" and then print them out 8 - 12 up on a letter size proof sheet they will often look too dark because of the size compression. The brightness slider will aid in my proof sheet printing!

~ Jeff

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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #112 on: January 12, 2012, 02:36:01 pm »

As a result, I've set both my Develop module and Print module backgrounds to white so that I always have a white point visual reference to help ensure my prints are bright enough.
So have I; and I found it to be the single most helpful step I took towards a solution to the "my prints are too dark" problem.

Jeremy
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #113 on: January 12, 2012, 02:39:59 pm »

So have I; and I found it to be the single most helpful step I took towards a solution to the "my prints are too dark" problem.

Makes perfect sense and something that Karl Lang has been advocating for years. It also points out, the prints were not too dark (sorry to keep harping on that). No matter what I calibrate my display at, all my prints look dark when solely illuminated by a 5w incandescent bulb <g>.
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Jeff Magidson

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #114 on: January 12, 2012, 03:01:41 pm »

It is a beta, that is to be expected. Optimization will not take place till the very end of the development process. 

Maybe/maybe not. When LR3 came out, If I worked on an image and employed the new features of "lens correction" and did extensive brush work, my computer with flip out due to all the extra processing required. My only solution was to upgrade my Mac. My former Mac did just fine in LR2.

With LR4, even more processing power is required when using the new features in PV 2012 tone mapping. We will see if this can be helped along with coding optimization or if we have hit the wall with parametric editing and current computing power.
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Farmer

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Re: Lightroom 4 BETA - Its here
« Reply #115 on: January 12, 2012, 03:59:39 pm »

all my prints look dark when solely illuminated by a 5w incandescent bulb <g>.

ROFL.  I'm going to use that the first time someone tells me that their prints look too light - I'm going to suggest checking against a 5w bulb and then report back :-)
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