Please tell me I am not nuts... (Highlight and Shadow Sliders)

[Schewe]

If I were an experienced software developer with extensive background with UI and usability, I would get the UI design aspect info from a group of professional photographers in different fields of photography (around 12 would do it), from landscape fine artists to production studio commercial photographers, to give input with all the different situations and needs. It would be up to me (and likely others) to come up with a flexible solution.
I would take that info and do what I know best as a software developer.

Which is exactly what Mark Hamburg (founding engineer) and Phil Clevenger (UI designer) did...BTW, Mark was the second engineer hired to work on Photoshop (around 1990) and Phil worked with Kai Krause on a number of applications and Photoshop filters MetaCreations did in the 1990's. There is a reason why the UI design and usability was designed the way it was...Lightroom was specifically designed to be the "Un-Photoshop".

[Phil Indeblanc]

I understand the "Un-Photoshop" approach, and the general reasoning. It makes sense. I get it.
Yet I don't think they thought anything about "a flexible solution" in the UI.
There is nothing flexible about LR. There are plenty tools and over the revisions to add feature sets, yet nothing flexible to maximize the UI abilities.
On the contrary, I see it being restrictive and stiff. Taking away from technology/programming that is available.

The UI flexibility would not make it in anyway more like Photoshop than it would make it like Ai, InDesign, or like C1, or Corel Painter, or any program. UI is User Interface. LRinterface is LR. There isn't anything a user can do to help adapt it to the way one works...  Well you could change a few colors and name badge. But this doesn't allow "mental ergonomic flexibility". (Understandably one of C1 marketing points they push).
UI is a core foundation of the way someone works, and hard to ignore no matter how adaptable a user is.

While I LOVE LR for MANY and most things, I have a gut feeling and doubt that 12 or so different industry professionals all thought LR should only have 1 screen usage, and that the tools should be locked as part of the view screen.
Obviously this changed over a couple versions... I forget, as I adopted LR as my main image app after v3-4. Did v1 have the limited dual screen feature?
If that is the situation, I have to say that obviously Mark Hamburg and Phil Clevenger didn't select a well rounded pool of photographers.
This is not to take away from everything that has been achieved, and all the excellent thought gone into it! My intention is simply constructive.(and this is something of an OPTION, NOT a change in the UI).
Just that an overall dynamic of the UI usability has been completely omitted. I say this as there are few professional shooters I now in photography, let alone commercial/studio/production work that use a single screen.
You can even see this outcome in another post of LuLa-folks/photographers that chimed in on dual screen usage. I know this is something I have brought up before, and I simply do so again...sometimes on the occasion that it applies. :-)

[JeanMichel]

Here are my few comments on the LR tools setup. When I went digital, I used Bridge, ACR and PS, since I already had these programs. I started using LR when I purchased a Leica M9, and was immediately in familiar darkroom territory! It all made sense.
As in the darkroom you:
Look at the negative or file and make general observations as to what to do next;
Stick the neg in the enlarger -- go to LR Develop module
Focus and crop the image on the easel -- LR Crop tool
Expose and develop a test strip for the exposure -- LR Exposure
Evaluate and choose exposure and contrast -- LR Contrast
Straight print
Dodge, burn, etc -- LR Highlights, Shadows, White, Black
All the other LR tools are bonuses.

I vary only in that I usually first apply the camera/lens profiles in a batch (and colour temperature for colour images). And do input sharpening, and any noise reduction early on.
Then it is a matter of fine tuning the adjustments, soft proofing and printing.

My main wish would be to be able to go lights out and still be able to see the tools, even just faintly.

Jean-Michel

[Isaac]

If I were an experienced software developer with extensive background with UI and usability, I would get the UI design aspect info from…

If that is not what you are, how do you know that's how UX design would be done?

It would be up to me (and likely others) to come up with a flexible solution…

You've assumed "a flexible solution" but the extent to which the solution should be customizable is one factor in the requirements, not a given.

It makes sense. I get it. Yet I don't think they thought anything about "a flexible solution" in the UI.

You don't think they thought about it? You are being silly!

Obviously a great deal of thought has gone into the coherent design of LR and that included thinking about the extent to which the LR interface should be customizable.

And for some functionality -- "Using Two Monitors with Lightroom"

[bwana]

"as long as you have understanding of what the sliders do and remember that the tonemapping sliders also exist in the brush, grad filer and radial filter!" --Kruse

I also would like curves and colors adjustments in the brush, grad and radial filter. These filters act like quick layer masks and having more control over the image would be great.