What are you wishing for in LR5 ?

[John Cothron]

True, although I was thinking of it working more like the sharpening mask, the more to the right, the "less" of the image it applies to.  Meaning it would default to the far left (or close to it) so that noise reduction would be applied to all luminance levels.  i think that would be the case more so than not...for those that are shooting high ISO images.  For those of us that usually shoot very low ISO speeds, we rarely need it on the whole image... just in the deep shadows with very low luminance values.  Personally I'd rather see the default be the whole image, and any adjustment otherwise would be up to the user.

[John Caldwell]

Once the keyword list is large it's a great help to filter the list of KW displayed. I find my filter lists are often repeated depending on assignment type, but the filter list may contain up to 20 or so keywords. So the idea of creating, reusing and editing "filter lists" is very appealing to me. It's a considerable use of time to type those lists repeatedly.

Keyword Sets, which we now have, is not equivalent to Filter List presets.

John Caldwell

[Jeremy Roussak]

How about being able to delete just one history step. I haven't been able to figure out how to do that.

I mentioned that as a possibility just after LR1 was released. Jeff's response (on this site) was, well, very Jeff-like. I haven't held my breath for it since.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Roussak]

Another item:

A masking tool to deal with shadow noise.  This would work much like the masking tool for sharpening, but instead of looking for edges... it would look for luminance in the image.  Adjusting the slider to the right would move from applying noise reduction to the entire image, to applying it to the luminance values you really need it applied to.  Many images don't technically need much (if any) noise reduction overall, but the shadows do if you have brought them up to any large extent.  This would allow you to apply noise reduction to just those areas.

Yes, I realize you can use local adjustments to do the same thing, but it's much more tedious to do so.  Thoughts?

I agree it would be very useful.

Jeremy

[Rhossydd]

Yes, I realize you can use local adjustments to do the same thing, but it's much more tedious to do so.  Thoughts?

I don't really see a masking provision being much different in use to local adjustment.
The real star addition would be to add the HSL panel to the local adjustment options, the TAT option would open so many possibilities.

[stamper]

The problem I see with all of the above "wishes" is that most photographers see LR as a Raw converter and a fully blown photo editor. There was a thread on the forum recently about the meaning of editor but I don't want to open that can of worms again. It wasn't intended to be both and it won't - imo - be both? Therefore I take it that most of the "wishes" won't happen especially because some of them are already implemented and some photographers didn't realise they were there. I suspect about 10% of them will be implemented in LR5 and then another wish list will start for LR6. What would be interesting would be a wish list for the modules and functions that are already implemented and could be left out in future versions.

[John Cothron]

I don't really see a masking provision being much different in use to local adjustment.
The real star addition would be to add the HSL panel to the local adjustment options, the TAT option would open so many possibilities.

I agree HSL localized would be a very good addiition.  I still would like the masking provision for noise adjustment however.  One, I think it would be pretty easy to do, luminance data is readily available in the raw file.  Two, vx. the local adjustment brush... it's much quicker/efficient to drag a slider over with the ALT held down to see the masking, than it is to paint the adjustment in with a brush....in my opinion.

[John Cothron]

The problem I see with all of the above "wishes" is that most photographers see LR as a Raw converter and a fully blown photo editor. There was a thread on the forum recently about the meaning of editor but I don't want to open that can of worms again. It wasn't intended to be both and it won't - imo - be both? Therefore I take it that most of the "wishes" won't happen especially because some of them are already implemented and some photographers didn't realise they were there. I suspect about 10% of them will be implemented in LR5 and then another wish list will start for LR6. What would be interesting would be a wish list for the modules and functions that are already implemented and could be left out in future versions.

I don't think we will see much of this on Lr5 either, unless it just happened to be already planned by luck.  If they're reading this however, perhaps it will enter some thoughts for Lr6. 

[hjulenissen]

The problem I see with all of the above "wishes" is that most photographers see LR as a Raw converter and a fully blown photo editor. There was a thread on the forum recently about the meaning of editor but I don't want to open that can of worms again. It wasn't intended to be both and it won't - imo - be both?
...

I have the opposite view: Lightroom was (or should be?) intended as a "fully blown" parametric photo editor integrated with a sensible database engine. By "photo editor" I mean the kind of editing that is needed by "photographers" working on "photos". It should probably never include the flexibility and functionality of Photoshop geared towards "graphics artists" and other users that do visual work far removed from photography.

If Lightroom did close to 100% of what _I_ want to do to my photos without introducing usability "clutter", then it would be worth even more to me. I am guessing that much of Lightrooms success is based on many people having sufficiently similar needs, needs that were sufficiently covered by Lightroom.

-h

[mburke]

I mentioned that as a possibility just after LR1 was released. Jeff's response (on this site) was, well, very Jeff-like. I haven't held my breath for it since.

Jeremy

Thanks for the reply. Just the other day I was working on an old photo that had a bunch of edit steps. I wanted to warm it up and add some clarity. I didn't like the changes. It would have been nice to just highlight those 2 and hit delete. There have been times when I had a list of edits where I wanted to go back and highlight a couple steps and then delete. There may be a way to do this but I haven't run across it.

Mike

[madmanchan]

I don't think we will see much of this on Lr5 either, unless it just happened to be already planned by luck.  If they're reading this however, perhaps it will enter some thoughts for Lr6.  

Feature requests (like the ones in this thread) and Lightroom development happen on a "staggered timeframe".  By this, I mean that the feature set for the next Lightroom was actually determined long ago, shortly after Lr 4 shipped.  This feature set was in turn determined by requests that came in during the Lr 4 development cycle (yes, we had a similar thread on LL then!).

So, John's comment above is right on:  this thread isn't going to factor into the next major Lr version, but into the one after that ...

[John Cothron]

Feature requests (like the ones in this thread) and Lightroom development happen on a "staggered timeframe".  By this, I mean that the feature set for the next Lightroom was actually determined long ago, shortly after Lr 4 shipped.  This feature set was in turn determined by requests that came in during the Lr 4 development cycle (yes, we had a similar thread on LL then!).

So, John's comment above is right on:  this thread isn't going to factor into the next major Lr version, but into the one after that ...

Thanks for the confirmation Eric, now just give me my luminance mask for noise 

[Phil Indeblanc]

How about a simple Envoke backup NOW!!

It is tough to expect large catalogs to be backed up at all intervals and a manual backup is a must

[stamper]

Thanks for the reply. Just the other day I was working on an old photo that had a bunch of edit steps. I wanted to warm it up and add some clarity. I didn't like the changes. It would have been nice to just highlight those 2 and hit delete. There have been times when I had a list of edits where I wanted to go back and highlight a couple steps and then delete. There may be a way to do this but I haven't run across it.

Mike

If you were to delete two edits then that will have an effect on the others you made? I know that all of the edits are applied at the end but from a workflow point of view it changes everything. If you make a boost in contrast followed by a small boost in saturation and then delete the contrast edit then the saturation boost will be affected. Personally if I don't like what image looks like after it is "finished" then I would start over again.

[stamper]

I have the opposite view: Lightroom was (or should be?) intended as a "fully blown" parametric photo editor integrated with a sensible database engine. By "photo editor" I mean the kind of editing that is needed by "photographers" working on "photos". It should probably never include the flexibility and functionality of Photoshop geared towards "graphics artists" and other users that do visual work far removed from photography.

If Lightroom did close to 100% of what _I_ want to do to my photos without introducing usability "clutter", then it would be worth even more to me. I am guessing that much of Lightrooms success is based on many people having sufficiently similar needs, needs that were sufficiently covered by Lightroom.

-h

And how much more would you be willing to spend when buying the next version? Nobody seems to think about that when they make multiple wishes. It all costs money with regards to research and implementation.

[Rhossydd]

And how much more would you be willing to spend when buying the next version?

That, of course, depends on what's in it, or what's taken out.

I'd happily pay £250( $375) for an upgrade if it had all the features I'd like added, and the unnecessary resource wasting bits stripped out. The chances of the later happening seem pretty slim though.

[stamper]

I don't think that most users would be willing to pay that much? Many at the moment see LR as a cheap alternative to PS and wish for it to remain that way. There has to be a balance but finding it is difficult. I am sure Adobe knows where the balance is but obviously won't reveal it.

[Rhossydd]

Many at the moment see LR as a cheap alternative to PS and wish for it to remain that way.

An interesting way to think of it.
I don't see it as an alternative to PS at all. It does so much more and has become the core of my photographic workflow and as such I'm prepared to pay a significant amount to pull it up to what I'd like to see it do.
Whether I'd pay that much for another couple of minor additions is a different matter.

I've pretty much given up upgrading PS at CS4 after which they started taking things out I used. I can't see myself upgrading PS again now. The few things I can't do in LR now, can be done in CS4 or ID4 (or even The Gimp, Scribus or Booksmart).

The only thing that will kill LR for me is if they move it to being a cloud based operation, then I'll be looking elsewhere.

[John Cothron]

Many at the moment see LR as a cheap alternative to PS and wish for it to remain that way.

That may very well be true, I don't know.  I tend to look at Lr for what I believe it was intended to be...A tool for photographers to edit images/convert from RAW, and an asset management program.  Personally I think it does both of those very well as is, in ways...much better than Ps ever did.  That may not be technically true (better than Ps), but it is certainly geared toward those things that a PHOTOGRAPHER wants to do with their images.  Ps on the other hand, covers a very wide gamut of image creation and/or manipulation.  I think the balance you spoke of is just that, the line between actual photography vs. electronically created art. While Ps will do either, Lr focuses on the photography end of things.

While I use Ps from time to time, those needs are reduced to something like stitching images, or removing a distracting highway sign in an otherwise very nice image.  Things that step outside the normal bounds of "photography", at least in my opinion.  Sure there are tweaks I'd love to see, both on the asset management side as well as the development side.  I don't need layers in Lr however, while I understand that some do.  The edits in Lr are already not destructive, which is part of why layers came into existence isn't it? (perhaps I'm wrong about that).  I recently got the set of Nik plugins, mainly for Silver Efex.  I DO like the UPoint method of selection it is much easier/faster than an adjustment brush.  Again that is above and beyond the normal photograph in my opinion (much like HDR), so I'm quite comfortable either moving to Ps or some plugin to accomplish those.

Things like I've mentioned above though; tools for noise control, keyword management, EXIF data field management, etc. are things that relate specifically to what I believe the core purpose of Lr is and was supposed to be.  If I have to pay a little more for those things, so be it.  It is still more useful (therefore more valuable) to me than Ps will be.

***Qualify all of the above as someone that started with Lr, as opposed to a convert from Ps, etc. to an application like Lr.  I'm sure that gives me a different perspective from some.

[hjulenissen]

And how much more would you be willing to spend when buying the next version? Nobody seems to think about that when they make multiple wishes. It all costs money with regards to research and implementation.

Adding features in itself costs nearly nothing in software products (just check the near infinite feature-list of many low-cost embedded products such as TVs). What seems to have a development cost (or, equivalently, enable companies to charge a higher price from the customer) is delivering a well thought-out product consisting of just the right (working) features without the distracting bloat.

I am fully aware that feature-creep would be the result if every single customer had their saying in the next version of Lightroom. With 3000 sliders, check-buttons, pop-ups and whatnot working in a non-intuitive manner (is this not a good description of Photoshop?). Thus, Adobe are no doubt aware that improving Lightroom is a balancing act between the stuff that customers claim that they want, what they are willing to pay for, and what will actually make them happy.

As a paying customer since version 1.0, I have opinions on how that balancing act should be carried out, no doubt biased by my own interests and background. I allow myself to be quite vocal about it, hoping that it pushes Adobe (ever so slightly) in a direction that would benefit me personally.

I do photography as a hobby, and spend some time in front of Lightroom. If I felt that I could do significantly more in less time, and/or get significantly better results, a price of $150 vs $300 would be of less importance.

I do feel that the price of Photoshop has less to do with the man-hours spent writing the code (at least the added code in the later versions), and more with the price that Adobe are able to get from a market where they have a practical monopoly, and where people have devoted careers to knowing every quirk of that particular application.

-h