Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: stingray on June 15, 2016, 05:28:30 am
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I just came across this video clip by Tony and Chelsea Northrup, requesting Adobe to ...... "Please Fix Lightroom"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCbzgKleBpM&feature=youtu.be
The video clip has prompted me to consider what I would like to prioritise.
1. Remember the image I last viewed / editied in each folder. I do not want to search thru 1000 images each time. Basic usability.
2. Please give us a basic Book module so I can place images and text where I want on a page, thus avoid creating intermediate files for round trips to InDesign.
3. Allow me filter by Date and File Type on Import.
4. It would be nice to lock an image from further processing and be able to use this flag in searches and smart collections.
I can think of lots more.
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If everybody's wishes were incorporated into the program then it would become over bloated to the point of impossible to use and would be very expensive to purchase. This type of thread is a regular recurrence on the forum and achieves very little. One wonders why you started this thread. ::)
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TN is suggesting that most of the modules -- Book, SlideShow, Print, Web -- be dropped/reworked (as they are based on a 199x view of the world).
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a 199x view of the world
What does that mean in English?
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And the title is misleading. This is not about fixing anything; it's about "feature requests", which can be made through the appropriate forum on the Adobe website: Feature requests (https://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom/lightroom_feature_requests).
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What does that mean in English?
Good question - from what I found, I think one needs an immersion in games culture to understand it - there may be no simple translation into English as we normally use it! I'll continue enjoying the Lightroom Modules as they are, because they are well documented in English, reasonably intuitive and do their jobs very well indeed. :-)
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And the title is misleading. This is not about fixing anything; it's about "feature requests", which can be made through the appropriate forum on the Adobe website: Feature requests (https://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom/lightroom_feature_requests).
One FR sprang to mind while watching the video - an Auto Fake Tan tool. Applies or removes tan with a single click. Or have I missed it?
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1. I used "Please Fix Lightroom" in the title because that was the title TN used for his video. Note that I used quote marks.
2. I also agree that we do not want bloatware. We need refinement, using the structure and features that already exist. There are years of good suggestions on Adobe forums, which would significant improve usability, do not require major effort, which have been completely ignored.
If you look at the suggestions I made, they are all refinements of existing functionality.
I am not agreeing or disagreeing with the specific points TN has made, but I am pleased he has made the effort to put his perspective forward.
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There are years of good suggestions on Adobe forums, which would significant improve usability, do not require major effort, which have been completely ignored.
Sure. There is only so much application development per year that even Adobe can manage, in a context where decisions need to be made taking many technical, usability and market factors into account. It's inevitable that some ideas will be adopted and many others not.
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More click-bait from TN. Just as useful (not) as the rest of his videos.
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Sure. There is only so much application development per year that even Adobe can manage, in a context where decisions need to be made taking many technical, usability and market factors into account. It's inevitable that some ideas will be adopted and many others not.
I agree ... but the key word is Manage. It is difficult to remain patient when we have to endure situations such as the disastrous Import module debacle, which displayed a total lack of understanding and ability to deliver real user needs. That is the core of my frustration with Adobe and this goes beyond Lightroom.
I am slightly encouraged, for example, by the hint of an improvement in performance in the last point release and keep hoping we will see light at the end of the tunnel.
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I agree ... but the key word is Manage. It is difficult to remain patient when we have to endure situations such as the disastrous Import module debacle, which displayed a total lack of understanding and ability to deliver real user needs. That is the core of my frustration with Adobe and this goes beyond Lightroom.
I am slightly encouraged, for example, by the hint of an improvement in performance in the last point release and keep hoping we will see light at the end of the tunnel.
They listened, they fixed the so-called "debacle" and it's history - to forget about. The latest CC update is superb, there is no tunnel, but there is Light :-) Let us enjoy what we have; there will surely be more to come. Never forget the wisdom of the late Alfred E. Neuman - "Me Worry?" More important things in this life are "disastrous", so let us view things in due proportion.
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As he says in the video a 1990s view of the world means that you show people slideshows of your work, upload html-based web pages to show off your work.
He is asking for fewer, better executed features, in the main.
The current update has some performance tuning, but at the expense of memory use.
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More click-bait from TN. Just as useful (not) as the rest of his videos.
+1
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1. Remember the image I last viewed / editied in each folder. I do not want to search thru 1000 images each time. Basic usability.
Never thought of hunting for previously viewed/edited images which forced me to hunt for this in CS5 Bridge since LR4's "File" menu only lists Export/Import options through the Catalog system.
In Bridge's "File" menu it lists it as "Open Recent" but not "View" with a side menu arrow showing the image's file number which doesn't help jog my memory on what that looked like.
I never realized how useful a feature that would be trying to remember an image I previously edited out of the 100's of folders in my Picture folder. But now on further investigation I can see how impossible it would be to make it work seeing you'ld have to have a thumbnail representation of what I would be looking for.
File name numbers don't help.
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What does that ["199x"] mean in English?
As he says in the video a 1990s view of the world means that you show people slideshows of your work, upload html-based web pages to show off your work.
Ah, 1990s makes sense. Like Mark, I had googled "199x" and found gaming references that meant nothing. But for everyone who dismisses these features, there are many more who use them. Slideshows - well, only yesterday I was coaching someone who needs to use it for a job. HTML - very frequently used, and the presenter failed to distinguish between Lr1 and the new HTML5 galleries apart from "that looks nice" and so couldn't even make the point that Adobe had replaced the very 200x era, sorry 2000s Flash galleries.
I do actually agree with a lot of his points, but there's plenty that's contentious, at best.
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Never thought of hunting for previously viewed/edited images which forced me to hunt for this in CS5 Bridge
This happens to me regularly. Say I am editing images in a folder with several hundred images ... say a model. I am looking for an image to suit a particular need. I am aware I shot the same model (or landscape or subject) last year some time. I navigate back and find the folder from last year. Navigate through the alternative folder. Find the previous set of images. Decide they do not suit. Now I have to navigate back to my previous folder. Once I find it I have to start searching again for the image I was working on. Lots and lots and lots of clicks.
In all browsers we have Back and Forward buttons that allow us go back to previous pages. Why not have something similar in Lr. However, if we click on a folder then the last image which had the focus in that folder is presented. Get the computer to do what they are good at (ie the boring, repetitious stuff).
I do actually agree with a lot of his points, but there's plenty that's contentious, at best.
And that is a valid and healthy perspective. The more input the better the output.
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The more input the better the output.
Agree, but input in the right place might even be better and certainly more productive.
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Agree, but input in the right place might even be better and certainly more productive.
Sometimes though putting in feature requests reminds me of Kafka's (very) short story Before the Law (http://www.kafka-online.info/before-the-law.html)....
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Sometimes though putting in feature requests reminds me of Kafka's (very) short story Before the Law....
Excellent reference, very thought provoking and open to many interpretations. Thanks for the link.
One view might be that "the Law" is Adobe, the Gatekeeper is their Marketing Department and "the man from the country" is the Customer.
Of course another view might be that the Gatekeeper is the customer, because without the customer there would be no Adobe.
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The Library and Develop modules ARE Lightroom. The rest is fluff. At some point you have to make a cut between a word processing and publishing software. Same with image processing and book publishing.
There are a host of usability fixes that I would like to see and some of those could be viewed as "feature requests", but when something is intuitively obvious and needful, that it should have been available in the first place, it really moves to usability fix.
I love that Lightroom lets you filter on simple aspect criteria of portrait or landscape, but it if a real usability issue that I can't filter on whether an image has been cropped or not. Or has been developed or not.
I struggle with the totally interactive nature of the Lr Develop Module. That is, there is no "OK" button. Lr appears to have no concept of the baseline state of an image when it is opened in Develop. If you open an image in Develop that has previous settings applied, it does not understand that new baseline are those settings and not NO settings (Lr Defaults/Ground Zero). Hence, when you decide the tweaks don't work, do you 1) want to go back to the way the image was before you tweaked it or 2) go back to the way it was when it was captured?. In addition, because no marker is laid down when settings are "applied" Lr has a dubious idea of "Previous" settings. Rather than the previous settings applied to the last image "developed", it uses the settings of the last image viewed.
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The Library and Develop modules ARE Lightroom. The rest is fluff.
Maybe for you. I print. The Print module is worth price of admission for me alone.
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The Library and Develop modules ARE Lightroom. The rest is fluff. At some point you have to make a cut between a word processing and publishing software. Same with image processing and book publishing.
There are a host of usability fixes that I would like to see and some of those could be viewed as "feature requests", but when something is intuitively obvious and needful, that it should have been available in the first place, it really moves to usability fix.
I love that Lightroom lets you filter on simple aspect criteria of portrait or landscape, but it if a real usability issue that I can't filter on whether an image has been cropped or not. Or has been developed or not.
I struggle with the totally interactive nature of the Lr Develop Module. That is, there is no "OK" button. Lr appears to have no concept of the baseline state of an image when it is opened in Develop. If you open an image in Develop that has previous settings applied, it does not understand that new baseline are those settings and not NO settings (Lr Defaults/Ground Zero). Hence, when you decide the tweaks don't work, do you 1) want to go back to the way the image was before you tweaked it or 2) go back to the way it was when it was captured?. In addition, because no marker is laid down when settings are "applied" Lr has a dubious idea of "Previous" settings. Rather than the previous settings applied to the last image "developed", it uses the settings of the last image viewed.
I agree with Andrew. The "rest" is absolutely not "fluff". I do ALL my printing except for targets needing ABSCOL RI from LR. I create web galleries in LR routinely, either for publication or to share family photos. I've used the Book Module and it works, for those who want an easy way to make photobooks, an industry segment of growing interest to a growing number of photographers, amateur and professional alike.
You are vastly misunderstanding the whole philosophy and architectural intent of this application, and then applying that misunderstanding to undervalue the capabilities that LR really gives you. For example, there is no OK button, because there doesn't need to be one. Every setting gets saved automatically to your catalog (and to XMP sidecars if you work in raw and have that enabled); every setting you make in Develop is PRESERVED in the history of the steps in one of the left-side panels, starting from the moment you imported the photo until the latest step that you implemented, including printing; and you can save a print set-up in the Print module so you can reprint that exact construct just by going back to the saved print in the history panel. At any time, you can trace back the whole evolution of your photo editing by clicking through the steps you made. If you want to capture an intermediate stage of the image's preparation, you can click on the last relevant step and create a Virtual Copy with which you can proceed to edit down a different track, and all those edits will be preserved and forever accessible by association with that virtual copy. I don't know what could be more intuitive, more flexible and more user-friendly than this. And your raw file is never disturbed one iota from its initial imported state because all this is meta-data, not bent pixels.
And as for the complaints elsewhere in this thread about finding photos , there are umpteen ways provided in Lightroom for keywording, tagging, organizing and labeling photos to make this very easy once you set-up your preferred system for managing your digital assets. Consult Martin Evening's, Victoria Bampton's or Peter Krogh's books for all possible instruction on how to make your archiving and retrieval life easily manageable in LR.
To assist with the distinction between "fixes" and "feature requests", let us be clear that a "fix" is to repair something they programmed but fails to work as intended. A feature request is to develop functionality that wasn't programmed before. For example, my main usability complaint with LR is with the syncing of catalogs between computers for those who work between a laptop and a desktop. This is doable, but awkward. There are other applications that manage to sync between devices much more easily, but they are different kind of applications. Perhaps it poses special issues for LR, I don't know; but if I ask them to improve this, it would be a feature request and not a fix.
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The Library and Develop modules ARE Lightroom. The rest is fluff.
No, Lightroom is a tool that brings together most steps of the typical photographic workflow - and that's wider than just managing and adjusting pictures.
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Maybe for you. I print. The Print module is worth price of admission for me alone.
Ooops, forgot print! My bad!
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You are vastly misunderstanding the whole philosophy and architectural intent of this application, and then applying that misunderstanding to undervalue the capabilities that LR really gives you. For example, there is no OK button, because there doesn't need to be one. Every setting gets saved automatically to your catalog (and to XMP sidecars if you work in raw and have that enabled); every setting you make in Develop is PRESERVED in the history of the steps in one of the left-side panels, starting from the moment you imported the photo until the latest step that you implemented, including printing; and you can save a print set-up in the Print module so you can reprint that exact construct just by going back to the saved print in the history panel. At any time, you can trace back the whole evolution of your photo editing by clicking through the steps you made. If you want to capture an intermediate stage of the image's preparation, you can click on the last relevant step and create a Virtual Copy with which you can proceed to edit down a different track, and all those edits will be preserved and forever accessible by association with that virtual copy. I don't know what could be more intuitive, more flexible and more user-friendly than this. And your raw file is never disturbed one iota from its initial imported state because all this is meta-data, not bent pixels.
And as for the complaints elsewhere in this thread about finding photos , there are umpteen ways provided in Lightroom for keywording, tagging, organizing and labeling photos to make this very easy once you set-up your preferred system for managing your digital assets. Consult Martin Evening's, Victoria Bampton's or Peter Krogh's books for all possible instruction on how to make your archiving and retrieval life easily manageable in LR.
To assist with the distinction between "fixes" and "feature requests", let us be clear that a "fix" is to repair something they programmed but fails to work as intended. A feature request is to develop functionality that wasn't programmed before. For example, my main usability complaint with LR is with the syncing of catalogs between computers for those who work between a laptop and a desktop. This is doable, but awkward. There are other applications that manage to sync between devices much more easily, but they are different kind of applications. Perhaps it poses special issues for LR, I don't know; but if I ask them to improve this, it would be a feature request and not a fix.
I'm not misunderstanding it, I said I'm struggling with it because it requires a complete shift in how you not only execute, but how you think about executing. I will eventually get the hang of it.
Cropped/Not-Cropped and Custom Settings/No Custom Settings are attributes of the image. They appear to be attributes that Lr does offer a way to filter on. At least not in any direct manner.
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I'm not misunderstanding it, I said I'm struggling with it because it requires a complete shift in how you not only execute, but how you think about executing. I will eventually get the hang of it.
Cropped/Not-Cropped and Custom Settings/No Custom Settings are attributes of the image. They appear to be attributes that Lr does offer a way to filter on. At least not in any direct manner.
No doubt you will get the hang of it easily with some practice and experience. If you need to reference different versions of the same photo, you can do it by keywording, or by creating virtual copies of the different states.
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Cropped/Not-Cropped and Custom Settings/No Custom Settings are attributes of the image. They appear to be attributes that Lr does offer a way to filter on. At least not in any direct manner.
Yes, it would be good if Lr's Library Filter could filter on more than simply portrait/landscape, like Bridge. But Lr filters on more other fields than Bridge, and does so better - you can do both "and" and "or" queries.
Smart collections add more filtering options such as whether an image has adjustments or whether it is cropped. Yes, I'd like the filter and smart collection criteria to be identical, but there is an easy solution if it's important to you to know if an image is cropped.
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I struggle with the totally interactive nature of the Lr Develop Module. That is, there is no "OK" button. Lr appears to have no concept of the baseline state of an image when it is opened in Develop. If you open an image in Develop that has previous settings applied, it does not understand that new baseline are those settings and not NO settings (Lr Defaults/Ground Zero). Hence, when you decide the tweaks don't work, do you 1) want to go back to the way the image was before you tweaked it or 2) go back to the way it was when it was captured?. In addition, because no marker is laid down when settings are "applied" Lr has a dubious idea of "Previous" settings. Rather than the previous settings applied to the last image "developed", it uses the settings of the last image viewed.
I've had the same struggles. Just fired up LR4 to get a refresher before reading your post (that Kafka link was way too enthralling) to apply further tweaks on an image in Develop and couldn't find a way to save the current edits since I'ld cleared its history state months back. I had to stop and think forensically how LR functions as an app that presents images in a continuous state of edits where the history state is your only bread crumbs that lead back to where you started even though it can be a long trail to follow and too time consuming.
Then I thought of the Snapshot feature and created one at the start, tweaked some more, clicked back to Snapshot, tweaked some more and noticed by control clicking on the Snapshot that a drop down menu gives options to update the Snapshot to the current state without going down the long list of tweaks.
I JUST FOUND THIS OUT TODAY! WHY!?
Because LR has way too many options, preferences and nested menu features that are scattered about the interface that don't allow learning them in a real world image editing situation. It's a cluttered mess of an image editing toolbox. Just go through the menus and try to figure out whether you can use all that's listed. I don't know what they are or why I would need them.
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I've had the same struggles. Just fired up LR4 to get a refresher before reading your post (that Kafka link was way too enthralling) to apply further tweaks on an image in Develop and couldn't find a way to save the current edits since I'ld cleared its history state months back. I had to stop and think forensically how LR functions as an app that presents images in a continuous state of edits where the history state is your only bread crumbs that lead back to where you started even though it can be a long trail to follow and too time consuming.
Then I thought of the Snapshot feature and created one at the start, tweaked some more, clicked back to Snapshot, tweaked some more and noticed by control clicking on the Snapshot that a drop down menu gives options to update the Snapshot to the current state without going down the long list of tweaks.
I JUST FOUND THIS OUT TODAY! WHY!?
Because LR has way too many options, preferences and nested menu features that are scattered about the interface that don't allow learning them in a real world image editing situation. It's a cluttered mess of an image editing toolbox. Just go through the menus and try to figure out whether you can use all that's listed. I don't know what they are or why I would need them.
If you're just finding out about such stuff today, I suggest you buy and study a good book on how to use this application. I highly recommend Martin Evening and Victoria Bampton. These resources should give you an adequate comfort level with LR's very considerable capabilities and the logic of the workflows, which are well represented in the menu structure. And BTW, NEVER delete history. History is one of LR's key strengths.
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If you're just finding out about such stuff today, I suggest you buy and study a good book on how to use this application. I highly recommend Martin Evening and Victoria Bampton. These resources should give you an adequate comfort level with LR's very considerable capabilities and the logic of the workflows, which are well represented in the menu structure. And BTW, NEVER delete history. History is one of LR's key strengths.
Books don't work for me, Mark, because it's written by someone who followed their own journey to get to where they are and now assume how easy it should be for others. LR's interface and menu structure is not very intuitive for me because it is laid out by someone who has other ideas on how to work that works for them by them following their own sense of structure, discipline and planning. If LR was designed for one way of working then there shouldn't be so many menu drop downs and preferences to futz with.
The more options and tools cluttered about an app interface or any tool (i.e. airline cockpit) the more one has to retrace the steps of the designer of such a tool on how THEY think is the best way to work. Not going to waste my time figuring that out especially with an interface that is this busy and compartmentalized.
Why would I ever want to save the history state if I've already made up my mind that the final edit is what I want? And if I go back to the image later to do further tweaks, it means I didn't like what the history state recorded anyway. I know my eyes have adapted after long edits fighting LR's interface and returning to seeing the image differently. And the blurring of the preview as it refreshes each edit is a big slow down as well. At some point in the long list of history tweaks the preview stops doing this but I never know when it will kick in. A book isn't going to tell me how to avoid or fix that.
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So what I've learned from this experience today is, when in LR I should now try control clicking on every interface element just to see what other options it gives that the designers thought shouldn't be part of the way I work but throws it in there just in case.
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Well, sorry books don't work for you, because they contain heaps of helpful information.
You want to save the histgory so you don't need to reinvent the whole wheel every time your taste, judgment or purposing of the photo changes.
I don't know what kind of computer set-up you use, but on mine, dating from 2010, there is no troublesome slowdown of preview refresh. Most of them are pretty instantaneous. Maybe if you are using the feature that has much of the processing done in the graphics card you should switch that feature off. Perhaps your graphics card is not well-adapted to the latest versions of LR that make more intensive use of it.
By the way, the design and layout of this application started back before Version One as a highly interactive process between Adobe and many thousands of eager application testers, along with live sessions in several venues, followed up with forums for reporting bugs and requesting features. The design and improvement of LR has probably been one of the most customer-interactive experiences of application design in the industry. Yes, there was a screw-up with the Import dialog recently, but they've understood and repaired. It's simply not correct to portray LR as "laid out by someone who has other ideas". These things are designed by large teams of people with extensive oversight and QC, aided by massive amounts of feedback from customers who they listen to. Yes of course, they may have other ideas than you have, but then again, they are professional digital imaging application designers and we learn from them and educational resources (books, video tutorials) how to maximize the benefit we can derive from their creativity.
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Well, sorry books don't work for you, because they contain heaps of helpful information.
You want to save the histgory so you don't need to reinvent the whole wheel every time your taste, judgment or purposing of the photo changes.
I don't know what kind of computer set-up you use, but on mine, dating from 2010, there is no troublesome slowdown of preview refresh. Most of them are pretty instantaneous. Maybe if you are using the feature that has much of the processing done in the graphics card you should switch that feature off. Perhaps your graphics card is not well-adapted to the latest versions of LR that make more intensive use of it.
By the way, the design and layout of this application started back before Version One as a highly interactive process between Adobe and many thousands of eager application testers, along with live sessions in several venues, followed up with forums for reporting bugs and requesting features. The design and improvement of LR has probably been one of the most customer-interactive experiences of application design in the industry. Yes, there was a screw-up with the Import dialog recently, but they've understood and repaired. It's simply not correct to portray LR as "laid out by someone who has other ideas". These things are designed by large teams of people with extensive oversight and QC, aided by massive amounts of feedback from customers who they listen to. Yes of course, they may have other ideas than you have, but then again, they are professional digital imaging application designers and we learn from them and educational resources (books, video tutorials) how to maximize the benefit we can derive from their creativity.
I'm not looking for an argument, Mark, so I'm perplexed by your insistence to convince me with rehashed information I already know.
Erasing history state does not take me back to reinventing the whole wheel. Where are you getting this from? When I quit LR and relaunch after several months the same image that has its history state erased opens in Develop where I left off after I had saved to xmp (Command 'S').
In fact the length of the history state of an image reminds me how I struggle with LR's interface to give me what I want working intuitively with the preview.
I know quitting LR loses things that have to be turned back on upon relaunch months later, but I can never narrow down what it loses. Command Z with a new history state list shows the bezel over the preview but doesn't blur the preview. That only happens when adding more tweaks on the same image after relaunching several months later sans history state. Maybe leaving the history state intact before quitting LR will prevent the blurring after later edits. I don't know but it's just one of several little frustrations that add up to one big feeling of dread going back to LR after several months away.
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So what I've learned from this experience today is, when in LR I should now try control clicking on every interface element just to see what other options it gives that the designers thought shouldn't be part of the way I work but throws it in there just in case.
To my knowledge, this applies to any application sold rented by Adobe. To be sure not to miss any potentially useful function, you should do this for every possible combination of SHIFT +/or CTRL +/or ALT + left Click (on a PC).
This might be puzzling at first, but there has to be a way to cram so much keyboard shortcuts on a standard 104+ keys keyboard.
Ideally for people like me, who have trouble remembering all these shortcuts, there ought to be a way to perform the same action with a set of context menu + click actions.
Cheers,
Fabien
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To my knowledge, this applies to any application sold rented by Adobe. To be sure not to miss any potentially useful function, you should do this for every possible combination of SHIFT +/or CTRL +/or ALT + left Click (on a PC).
This might be puzzling at first, but there has to be a way to cram so much keyboard shortcuts on a standard 104+ keys keyboard.
Ideally for people like me, who have trouble remembering all these shortcuts, there ought to be a way to perform the same action with a set of context menu + click actions.
Cheers,
Fabien
Agreed, in addition I get a strong impression that the LR designers must think photographers by and large are obsessive multi-taskers extraordinaire. At least LR makes photographers appear very busy and technically advanced.
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Agreed, in addition I get a strong impression that the LR designers must think photographers by and large are obsessive multi-taskers extraordinaire. At least LR makes photographers appear very busy and technically advanced.
I think everyone including Kafka will agree that it was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the candelstick.
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I'm not looking for an argument, Mark, so I'm perplexed by your insistence to convince me with rehashed information I already know.
Erasing history state does not take me back to reinventing the whole wheel. Where are you getting this from? When I quit LR and relaunch after several months the same image that has its history state erased opens in Develop where I left off after I had saved to xmp (Command 'S').
In fact the length of the history state of an image reminds me how I struggle with LR's interface to give me what I want working intuitively with the preview.
I know quitting LR loses things that have to be turned back on upon relaunch months later, but I can never narrow down what it loses. Command Z with a new history state list shows the bezel over the preview but doesn't blur the preview. That only happens when adding more tweaks on the same image after relaunching several months later sans history state. Maybe leaving the history state intact before quitting LR will prevent the blurring after later edits. I don't know but it's just one of several little frustrations that add up to one big feeling of dread going back to LR after several months away.
Hi Tim - for avoidance of doubt, let me clarify I'm not looking for an argument either and frankly I don't know you or what you know or don't know. I'm just responding to what I read with no other context. In fairness, very few of us know everything there is to know about this application. I just think it's being under-estimated and simply making the point that the more one knows about its functionality and gains experience, the better it is.
Yes, we both know that if one quits LR and re-opens it, we are where we left off. What I meant by re-inventing the wheel is that once the history track is gone and if you want to re-analyze what you've done, or jump in and change something part way through the previous editing sequence, this becomes no longer possible if one had erased the history steps.
I have not experienced LR losing anything done to an image when the application is shut down and relaunched at a later date. This seems very strange to me. Nor have I seen any incremental blurring. I do get momentary fuzziness during the loading period when a preview is being magnified from standard to 100% because I only make standard previews to start with - takes less time. The only other tool that produces really momentary fuzz is the sharpening filter, when increasing the parameters. But these things are very short-lived and really trivial - at least on my set-up, which as I may have mentioned is now six years old but still "performing".
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Hi Tim - for avoidance of doubt, let me clarify I'm not looking for an argument either and frankly I don't know you or what you know or don't know. I'm just responding to what I read with no other context. In fairness, very few of us know everything there is to know about this application. I just think it's being under-estimated and simply making the point that the more one knows about its functionality and gains experience, the better it is.
So as not to show I under-estimate LR how should I post my experience using the app? I see something, I say something. I can't control if someone sees it as a negative statement. What I posted was specific small annoyances of the day to day use that isn't going to be fixed after gaining experience using the app.
So, you don't know a thing about me or what I know after my 1797 posts using my real name anyone can google as a LuLa "Sr. Member" offering other LuLa members solutions (that I've been told helped them) spread across 11 years? You think I don't have enough experience to know what I'm doing in LR? Sorry, I over estimated your confidence in me.
What I meant by re-inventing the wheel is that once the history track is gone and if you want to re-analyze what you've done, or jump in and change something part way through the previous editing sequence, this becomes no longer possible if one had erased the history steps.
You've misunderstood the way I use the history state in that I base my analysis of edits in relation to image quality viewing the preview. The history state is just recording my intuitive responses going from point A to point B with that in mind. Once I've reached my goal, I don't need to rehash or go backwards on a process designed to move forward.
The length of the history state list tells me LR tools and previews force me to edit the image to the PV2012 way of adjusting/judging tonality where I have to rely a lot on the point curve to make the image look the way I want. Do you know how many history state tracks that generates, Mark? The time it takes to scroll down that list I could start over from scratch and be farther ahead.
The only other tool that produces really momentary fuzz is the sharpening filter, when increasing the parameters. But these things are very short-lived and really trivial - at least on my set-up, which as I may have mentioned is now six years old but still "performing".
This momentary fuzz in the preview for me creating new edits with the sliders doesn't happen all the time, but I can't narrow it down to when in relation to the cause. On my 2010 Mac Mini/OS 10.6.8 I think it might have to do with completely shutting down the computer and unplugging it during the numerous thunderstorms here in Texas. It seems or feels like it might also be related to when the OS runs its cron scripts and what gets refreshed or rebuilt in cache relaunching LR.
I have similar issues just not as often with CS5 Bridge but it appears related to how many adjustment & spot healing brush edits and Lens Profile/Transform extremes applied on an image by image basis. But I suspect with both apps it is preview related.
Thanks for making the effort to respond to my concerns, Mark.
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Then I thought of the Snapshot feature and created one at the start, tweaked some more, clicked back to Snapshot, tweaked some more and noticed by control clicking on the Snapshot that a drop down menu gives options to update the Snapshot to the current state without going down the long list of tweaks.
I JUST FOUND THIS OUT TODAY! WHY!?
That is what I meant about thinking about how you execute. Lr offers the snapshots and versioning options, but you have to think to do them first. Once you use Lr for some time and build the brain memory to do it that way, then no problem. Its the same with the copy and paste of settings. It makes you think up front about what you want to copy and paste where in Br you can just copy and then while looking at the new image decide what you want to paste.
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So as not to show I under-estimate LR how should I post my experience using the app? I see something, I say something. I can't control if someone sees it as a negative statement. What I posted was specific small annoyances of the day to day use that isn't going to be fixed after gaining experience using the app.
So, you don't know a thing about me or what I know after my 1797 posts using my real name anyone can google as a LuLa "Sr. Member" offering other LuLa members solutions (that I've been told helped them) spread across 11 years? You think I don't have enough experience to know what I'm doing in LR? Sorry, I over estimated your confidence in me.
You've misunderstood the way I use the history state in that I base my analysis of edits in relation to image quality viewing the preview. The history state is just recording my intuitive responses going from point A to point B with that in mind. Once I've reached my goal, I don't need to rehash or go backwards on a process designed to move forward.
The length of the history state list tells me LR tools and previews force me to edit the image to the PV2012 way of adjusting/judging tonality where I have to rely a lot on the point curve to make the image look the way I want. Do you know how many history state tracks that generates, Mark? The time it takes to scroll down that list I could start over from scratch and be farther ahead.
This momentary fuzz in the preview for me creating new edits with the sliders doesn't happen all the time, but I can't narrow it down to when in relation to the cause. On my 2010 Mac Mini/OS 10.6.8 I think it might have to do with completely shutting down the computer and unplugging it during the numerous thunderstorms here in Texas. It seems or feels like it might also be related to when the OS runs its cron scripts and what gets refreshed or rebuilt in cache relaunching LR.
I have similar issues just not as often with CS5 Bridge but it appears related to how many adjustment & spot healing brush edits and Lens Profile/Transform extremes applied on an image by image basis. But I suspect with both apps it is preview related.
Thanks for making the effort to respond to my concerns, Mark.
Tim, when I respond to what is said in one thread I don't take account of the 1797 previous posts. Life's too short for that and I truly don't doubt your varied photographic experience or your helpfulness on the Forum. I simply wasn't sure you were appreciating certain aspects of *this* application based on the content of *this* thread. As I now know you do, it boils down to different people having different ways of using it and different expectations, so let us leave it at that. Peace and goodwill.
Getting back to the technical side, we are both using what is now 6 year old "vintage" hardware, but mine is a MacPro with 24GB RAM, 24 virtual cores and quite a good graphics card, and I have updated the system to El Capitan, making the OS and latest versions of software running on it perhaps more copacetic. This may explain why you seem to experience more processing lags than I seem to. At some point, software-driven hardware upgrades become inevitable. I'm holding off as long as I'm not taking a performance hit, but perhaps you are closer to that threshold - I don't know. Martin Evening has some useful stuff on ideal computer configurations for the latest versions of LR. Could be worth checking out.
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It strikes me that a lot of these discussions about LR originate with people who have more or less jumped into using the software without taking the time to actually read the "manual" - in this case the many printed books and video guides that are out there. This strikes me as somewhat like a Cessna pilot who tries to fly a Boeing Dreamliner cold and complains how it's not like what he's familiar with.
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Keep striking, AFairley. You're still off base and speaking about an issue you have no evidence to support your opinion.
You really think LR is as complicated as flying a Boeing Dreamliner? That's so telling but I'm not sure if it's about LR or AFairley ability to assess and empathize with folks who are just stating their experience using LR. Why does this seem to bother people here? Why should you be so concerned about someone posting real information about an app you didn't design and sell to the public?
I really wish educated folks here (or at least they come across educated) would refrain from having to reply with useless opinions to others having real issues with a piece of software. No one is asking you for solutions especially those that blame the user who paid good money to use the software.
We're not idiots! So stop talking to us as if you think we are.
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Why would I ever want to save the history state if I've already made up my mind that the final edit is what I want?
Well, not all users are you. There is a very good reason for History, Lightroom tracks it whether or not you make it visible to see. If you don't like History, you are welcome to hit that little arrow to hide it. For some users such as scientific and industrial users, having an EXACT list of EVERY step is useful for proving the provinance of an image and how the user arrived at the final result.
It seems to me that rather than trashing the history of your image's settings, you might simple want to not actively use the feature. There's nothing that says you must anything but this doesn't seem to be something to argue about.
If you want to know WHY History is in LR, it's there because LR tracks and stores everything it knows about an image and the adjustments made. It has to. Back when Mark Hamburg created LR, there was discussion about exposing the History to the users. There were some users (like me) that found History interesting and useful so Mark Exposed it to the user. If you don't like it, hide it...
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For some users such as scientific and industrial users, having an EXACT list of EVERY step is useful for proving the provinance of an image and how the user arrived at the final result.
...............
Of course, but I would broaden it with additional examples of other users and situations. There are (perhaps many) photographers for whom this is extremely useful. And I would further broaden the concept of "result". Some results may well be "final", but a great many others may not - for example the various instances when we re-purpose a photo; often we find that re-purposing is most efficiently done as a combination of existing history steps to a point, beyond which there is a fork in the road, we make a virtual copy and tweak it for other end-uses, other media, more up-to-date processing options etc. Having this kind of efficient flexibility provided in part by the ever-present history track is one of LR's major strengths.
Your comment on Mark Hamburg and the decisions made in the early days is indeed a propos. I think it useful to have some perspective on the philosophy underpinning the development and evolution of this application, and the very broad and diverse user base to which it is oriented. A good application has a judicious blend of the application adapted to the users and the users adapting to the application. Personally I think LR strikes a nice balance with this, especially considering the diversity of the client base. In a way, it's a bit of a beguiling program because on the one hand it appears quite intuitive by design, but on the other hand it's pretty deep, warranting 700 no-nonsense pages of instruction from Martin, for example! I've been using it since Version 1 and am still learning this and that as I tug and pull at it to keep myself out of Photoshop and still get the result I want - kind of a challenge game and a big saver of storage.
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Well, not all users are you. There is a very good reason for History, Lightroom tracks it whether or not you make it visible to see. If you don't like History, you are welcome to hit that little arrow to hide it. For some users such as scientific and industrial users, having an EXACT list of EVERY step is useful for proving the provinance of an image and how the user arrived at the final result.
It seems to me that rather than trashing the history of your image's settings, you might simple want to not actively use the feature. There's nothing that says you must anything but this doesn't seem to be something to argue about.
If you want to know WHY History is in LR, it's there because LR tracks and stores everything it knows about an image and the adjustments made. It has to. Back when Mark Hamburg created LR, there was discussion about exposing the History to the users. There were some users (like me) that found History interesting and useful so Mark Exposed it to the user. If you don't like it, hide it...
Jeff, you didn't read through the entire thread, did you?
I'm not knocking LR's history state. I'm knocking the fact that when I relaunch LR after 3 months away the last image worked on shows up (THAT'S A GOOD THING!).
However, when I do further edits there's no way to go back to when I started except by hitting Command Z to go down the long list of history states of newer added edits (this is why I deleted the history state 3 months prior to shorten the list for future edits)
Alternatively continually hitting Command Z can take me all the way back INTO LR's LIBRARY! WOW! That's one hell of a memory list for a Command Z function. I'm back in the Library where I first started. I wonder if I continued to hit Command Z if it would quit LR and take me back to the desktop! ;D
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I fixed my problem with the history states by first creating a Snapshot which is a good thing. See I'm all positive on LR.
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Well, not all users are you. There is a very good reason for History, Lightroom tracks it whether or not you make it visible to see. If you don't like History, you are welcome to hit that little arrow to hide it.
Correct.
For some users such as scientific and industrial users, having an EXACT list of EVERY step is useful for proving the provinance of an image and how the user arrived at the final result.
Whoa. LR isn't quite the platform for Scientifically oriented users to begin with ...
I should know, having been in both that position (as a local sales and trade representative for Kodak's line of Instrumentation, Photofabrication, Aerial, and Scientific line of products) since some 38 years ago, AND being a certified Professional photographer for approximately 40 years by now (and an amateur photographer for some 48 years ...).
It seems to me that rather than trashing the history of your image's settings, you might simple want to not actively use the feature.
I agree.
If you want to know WHY History is in LR, it's there because LR tracks and stores everything it knows about an image and the adjustments made. It has to.
Not really, it doesn't have to, it only has to remember the relevant steps taken, it doesn't NEED to record/display all of them (it could e.g. eliminate on/off, or before/after, attempts), and I therefore agree with Tim, it's also recording the (trial and error, and resetting) steps that are not essential to arriving at the final image. And even then, isn't the final attempt supposed to be the final attempt?
Snapshots can be used for alternative renderings, and they are better suited for the purpose of comparison, because they probably represent larger and more significant, stages of development.
Back when Mark Hamburg created LR, there was discussion about exposing the History to the users. There were some users (like me) that found History interesting and useful so Mark Exposed it to the user. If you don't like it, hide it...
Good advice, although it does occupy/waste space for those who do not need a track-record of all of their (temporary) trial settings.
People like Tim would like to, or should try to, like in Photoshop, backtrack to several intermediate attempts before progressing (AKA snapshots). I think that snapshots are the proper/better way to go about that, but wasted 'space' for on/off switches should not be recorded in history to begin with.
To mention but one of the improvements that could be implemented in LR
Cheers,
Bart
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You can economize on history steps in LR quite easily: (1) if you don't like what you just did, Undo it; (2) if you made say half a dozen edits that you want to "get rid of", click on the last good one and continue editing, the ones on top of the list will disappear.
You can make good use of prior history for re-purposing or further edits either with Snapshots as mentioned above, or you can go back to the point of the last edit in the history track you want to keep, click on that state and then create a virtual copy. The virtual copy will start a new history track keeping the previous edits in the list below the one you clicked on when you made the VC, and ready to continue on with the new edits. VCs are all metadata and a preview, so take little space.
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Well, I'm all glad you're in agreement. How was that useful information, Bart? You think no one realizes that not everyone uses LR the same way?
Hi Tim,
It would seem (to me anyway) obvious (and not unexpected) that there are different types of usage possible for LR. Apparently that is not the case for all readers ...
However, in an attempt to defend anything Adobe, some people tend to go overboard and dismiss all complaints/improvement suggestions without really considering if there might be some justified/useful aspect to them.
Cheers,
Bart
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And then again there are those who communicate quite regularly with Adobe about application improvements they would like to see introduced, but they don't broadcast this all over the internet. I frankly don't see this or many other discussions being defensive of Adobe - we have no reason to be. It's a matter of each one calling the shots as we see them. You know, much as different people use the program in different ways, which is all well and good, different people can see the glass as half full or half empty. That's just attitudinal; let's not start going down the rabbit hole of hidden agendas - not helpful.
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Since I believe Andrew Rodney mentioned something about LR's Snapshot getting deleted when something happens to LR's Catalog, another alternative to creating a starting point on new edits after returning to the image after 3 months would be (after deleting the history state at that time) just do one small edit that doesn't affect the preview. That one edit now in the history state list applied 3 months prior will be the new starting point for newer edits in the future to go back to.
I've tried Virtual Copies. I don't like having to sort through several thumbnails of the same image in Library where I have to remember how to distinguish the original from the copy by looking for the tiny VC icon dog eared on one of the corners.
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Hi Tim,
It would seem (to me anyway) obvious (and not unexpected) that there are different types of usage possible for LR. Apparently that is not the case for all readers ...
However, in an attempt to defend anything Adobe, some people tend to go overboard and dismiss all complaints/improvement suggestions without really considering if there might be some justified/useful aspect to them.
Cheers,
Bart
I removed my comment Bart because I thought it wasn't useful information.
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This momentary fuzz in the preview for me creating new edits with the sliders doesn't happen all the time, but I can't narrow it down to when in relation to the cause. On my 2010 Mac Mini/OS 10.6.8
What version of LR are you on? It's been a long time since Adobe supported lightroom on 10.6.x. Lightroom 6 to 6.1 is supported on OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), the current version of lightroom is supported on versions OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and higher. that doesn't mean it won't work, but it certainly could be causing some odd issues, especially with functions accessing the GPU. I believe LR 4 was the last version which was supported by 10.6.
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What version of LR are you on? It's been a long time since Adobe supported lightroom on 10.6.x. Lightroom 6 to 6.1 is supported on OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), the current version of lightroom is supported on versions OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and higher. that doesn't mean it won't work, but it certainly could be causing some odd issues, especially with functions accessing the GPU. I believe LR 4 was the last version which was supported by 10.6.
This is the kind of thing I was trying to get at in reply #40 - could be issues of how OS, LR and hardware versions are working together or not.
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History steps and snapshots are very similar in LR, even if they are stored in separate tables inside the catalogue. You may think of each history step as an automated snapshot that is created every time you do anything in the develop module, and LR put the performed action and values as the "snapshot" name. In the case of snapshot, you can edit that name. Both history and snapshot record all the current develop settings, not just the one that have changed.
The history table also records the date/time when the adjustment was made, but this information is not shown in the LR interface. I believe showing the date and time would satisfy many request I have seen on online forums. The snapshot table on the other hand, does not record the date/time when the snapshot was created.
Since I believe Andrew Rodney mentioned something about LR's Snapshot getting deleted when something happens to LR's Catalog,
I really doubt this happens. Snapshots are stored in the database in the same way as the history steps. If something happens to the LR's Catalog it might affect any table, not just the one that has the snapshots. In any case, backup the catalog as often as possible.
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Correct.
Whoa. LR isn't quite the platform for Scientifically oriented users to begin with ...
So, you don't know ANY scientists using Lightroom?
I'll be sure to let my friends down in Antarctica that are documenting climate change by photographing erosion of glacial ice they aren't real scientists because they are using DSLR cameras to document the changes and Lightroom to catalog the images. Not everybody who is documenting scientific work photographically are using special "instruments" ya know.
Do you have another cataloging application that would be better suited to scientific use?
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So, you don't know ANY scientists using Lightroom?
So when a scientist uses a (any) tool, then the tool is a scientific instrument, that's your reasoning? Like e.g. a coffee cup, or a pen to write a note, becoming a scientific instrument? That's too silly. They are just tools.
Of course one can use a tool like LR as part of science project and keep track of images and some relevant metadata with it, but that doesn't make it a scientific tool. It can't be used to perform photogrammetry, or measure temperature, or pressure, do spectral or radiometric analysis, or record sound or seismic events, to name a few. Those would be candidates (after calibration) for being called scientific instruments/tools.
LR is just an image catalog and creative image processing utility, and quite useful for that generic purpose. In fact, the Process 2012 tonal compression makes it very hard to do meaningful photometric work on the resulting images. One would need to do that in linear gamma space anyway, and with special scene referred camera profiles if recording in color.
Cheers,
Bart
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If we want to talk about "fix", how about glacial speed when starting up, and when creating Standard Previews? Maybe it is just a problem for LR6 (nonCC) users to encourage them to switch, but I have found it takes a veeeeery long time to launch the program. I have a 2015 MacBook Pro with 16gb of RAM, no other programs running, all components on the MBP, about 1k images in library.
It is a heck of lot slower to launch than it used to be, and the Import progress bar showing Standard Preview creation gets stuck at about 5% and takes forever to create Previews (standard) for even a dozen iPhone photos; I try clicking on some of the images in the filmstrip to "wake it up", which "seems" to help a bit, but it can take several minutes to create Standard Previews for even the dozen images. It's enough to drive me to seriously considering alternatives. Demos of other image processing applications run speedily.
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It strikes me that a lot of these discussions about LR originate with people who have more or less jumped into using the software without taking the time to actually read the "manual" - in this case the many printed books and video guides that are out there. This strikes me as somewhat like a Cessna pilot who tries to fly a Boeing Dreamliner cold and complains how it's not like what he's familiar with.
Yes, I agree. But there are 2 parts to this. First is learning what features are available and how to use them. But the other is how well executed is the Human Interface design for the software. Did the designers respect established conventions? When not, is there a valid reason and was it well documented? Is the interface intuitive and does it guide you to correct operation while staying out of the way?
It would be very helpful to newbies to the software for longtime Lr users to explain WHY a particular feature had to be executed a particular way as opposed to following the more intuitive or established mechanism rather than just blindly defending how the software was executed. Don't get me wrong, one must use the software as it exists, but it would be nice to push for fixes where it would make the software easier to use, even when it breaks the conventions of how Lr did it in the past.
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In fact, the Process 2012 tonal compression makes it very hard to do meaningful photometric work on the resulting images. One would need to do that in linear gamma space anyway, and with special scene referred camera profiles if recording in color.
Cheers,
Bart
Well, I'm steering clear of the semantic business about what is or is not scientific, except to say that all kinds of tools can be used for scientific purposes up to the limits of their capabilities relative to the scientific task at hand; but I do appreciate the point about linearity. LR can accommodate custom-made camera profiles, so that isn't an issue. But the point about the absence of linear gamma is. While I understand what they did in PV2012 and why they did it, personally I preferred "starting from scratch" dialing in the contrast I wanted for each photo. Their new starting point is probably closer to where I'd want to end-up a good part of the time; nonetheless, I would have liked a General Preset that is truly linear because it helps with certain kinds of work, for example correctly rendering camera captures of negative film for which I now revert to Perfect Color for the linear rendition of the raw file, then to SilverFast Negafix for the reversal, then back to LR for further editing. This is just one example of, doubtless, numerous others where gamma = 1.0 could be helpful.
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If we want to talk about "fix", how about glacial speed when starting up, and when creating Standard Previews? Maybe it is just a problem for LR6 (nonCC) users to encourage them to switch, but I have found it takes a veeeeery long time to launch the program. I have a 2015 MacBook Pro with 16gb of RAM, no other programs running, all components on the MBP, about 1k images in library.
It is a heck of lot slower to launch than it used to be, and the Import progress bar showing Standard Preview creation gets stuck at about 5% and takes forever to create Previews (standard) for even a dozen iPhone photos; I try clicking on some of the images in the filmstrip to "wake it up", which "seems" to help a bit, but it can take several minutes to create Standard Previews for even the dozen images. It's enough to drive me to seriously considering alternatives. Demos of other image processing applications run speedily.
You have a bespoke hardware or system problem. This is uncharacteristic behaviour even for the latest release.
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Yes, I agree. But there are 2 parts to this. First is learning what features are available and how to use them. But the other is how well executed is the Human Interface design for the software. Did the designers respect established conventions? When not, is there a valid reason and was it well documented? Is the interface intuitive and does it guide you to correct operation while staying out of the way?
It would be very helpful to newbies to the software for longtime Lr users to explain WHY a particular feature had to be executed a particular way as opposed to following the more intuitive or established mechanism rather than just blindly defending how the software was executed. Don't get me wrong, one must use the software as it exists, but it would be nice to push for fixes where it would make the software easier to use, even when it breaks the conventions of how Lr did it in the past.
I would hazard a view that LR is probably one of the better designed applications in these respects. Try using X-Rite's i1Profiler for which there isn't even a manual and see what kind of learning curve you need to confront for managing that program. Don't get me wrong, it makes great profiles, but the GUI is worse than a dog's breakfast (because at least the dog gets nourished) and the context Help is as close to useless as it can get. And how intuitive is Photoshop? Or Acrobat Pro? I could go on but you get the point - it's all relative and on a scale of 1-10 LR is pretty decent.
Recall again the history - this application was and still is developed by people a number of whom happen to be first-rate photographers with leading-edge mathematical minds, and it has probably had more input from the photographic community during and since the initial design phase than any other such application on the market. So it really isn't objectively correct to view this product as something developed in a non-photographic context or insulated from the real world of photography. It was intended to be a photographer's application, so if it has failed in that, it has failed, but personally I don't think so.
Yes, one can always argue with the placement of this or that on the interface, but we're talking refinements, not train-wrecks. E.G. (1) the right side of the Develop Module - the intention is that one progresses logically in terms of editing granularity from the top down. It was configured that way on purpose. I could argue that I would like to see the Transform functions move right up ahead of tonal functions, because transforms can affect what the photo includes, which then affects the histogram and the tonal adjustments one would make. But this is a quibble, because quite nicely, we can process in any order and it doesn't matter. unlike in Photoshop where it does. It just alters whether we scroll a bit more or a bit less. E.G. (2) In the Print Module, I wouldn't mind seeing a complete integration of Page Set-Up with Printer Settings, because ALL those settings need to be correct and consistent for it to print properly and I often find myself forgetting to deal with Page Setup until mysterious error messages pop up when I click Print, and then "Oh ya - I forgot....", but again, a quibble rather than a smash. For most of us, there are more troublesome things in real life to deal with.
Now, if we want to talk about making changes to the layout or the workflow, this is one area that quickly becomes difficult. Recall that hundreds of thousands of users become accustomed to "how the program works" and "where things are". We develop almost a "vested interest" in the status quo. You start tinkering with that - even if it is a change for the better in some objective sense - and the moaning and groaning could be colossal as well as costly. Recall the debacle with the Import dialog. Not to say that every change would be as drastic or silly as that one was, but you get the point. Application designers are inherently conservative because they know this, and it is often a balancing act between objective improvement and annoying the user base. Lot's to think about when we put ourselves in the shoes of the developers rather than the users - the perspective objectively changes from gazing at ourselves to gazing at the universe, so every change needs to be carefully considered from a number of angles before it is allowed to happen. Personally, I think on the whole LR has evolved considerably and very positively from the time it was launched to the tool set we now have, with all of its considerable and integrated functionality.
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Since I believe Andrew Rodney mentioned something about LR's Snapshot getting deleted when something happens to LR's Catalog...
I did? News to me.
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Since I believe Andrew Rodney mentioned something about LR's Snapshot getting deleted when something happens to LR's Catalog...
I did? News to me.
If I recall it was concerning whether Snapshot is saved to xmp sidecar [That's how I have xmp setup in LR] when I hit Command S (Save) or if Snapshot is only saved in LR's Catalog. Snapshots and History States are recorded in the Catalog so if I was to toss the Catalog and create a new one I'ld lose all the Snapshots and HS to all my images.
Or something to that effect. It's hard to remember LR's functionality with its Catalog system and saving edits to xmp sidecar.
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It strikes me that a lot of these discussions about LR originate with people who have more or less jumped into using the software without taking the time to actually read the "manual" - in this case the many printed books and video guides that are out there. This strikes me as somewhat like a Cessna pilot who tries to fly a Boeing Dreamliner cold and complains how it's not like what he's familiar with.
The goal of software should be to enable the target audience to get their job done with minimum effort. Minimum effort in training, minimum effort in execution, maximum quality. Some seem to think that having to read books and watch Julieanne Kost videos in order to use a piece of software somehow makes makes it more "noble". I think that is silly. It may be unavoidable or hard to avoid, but we do image processing as a means to an end, not to get bragging rights (like lugging 20kg of photo equipment to some freezing mountain top).
This is a very challenging goal, as on the one hand, you want to offer advanced features that allows advanced users to get advanced chores done efficiently. At the same time, you want the threshold for getting the basic stuff (both for inexperienced users, but also for efficiency in experienced users) to be as low as possible. And avoid clutter.
Basically, this means (in my view) to put the "core functionality" (stuff that 99% of the users do 99% of the time that they launch an application) in a spot where it is really visible, really easy and really fast. The more exotic stuff should be slightly less visible. At the same time, you want UI-things to "make sense". By using established OS conventions and sorting stuff that "belongs together", people will be able to find things that they have never used. That is (in itself) a great thing, but it runs counter to the idea of a "list of functions sorted by popularity".
So user interaction is complex, (I would guess) based on handicraft more than science, and you can't make everyone happy.
You should still strive to make your users happy, and I think that Lightroom has some potential for improvement.
1. A big gripe that I have with Adobe is that they tend to follow "Adobe conventions" instead of OS conventions. This may not be a problem for hard-core Adobe users, but for the rest of us it creates an additional obstacle to be efficient with their tools. It reminds me of websites that wants to be "different", and ends up causing endless confusion. For UI, "boring" is much better than "novel". To justify using a novel approach to UI, there has to be significant gains to compensate for the drawbacks.
2. Also, with Lightroom they seem to favor long dropdown lists of e.g. pair of parameters rather than just exposing the two parameters directly in certain modules. I think that is incredibly annoying.
3. Being fundamentally a "database" based on homogenous and well-described elements, I would hope for a program like this to offer search functionality second to none. Basically any (meta-data) characteristic I can imagine should be easily filtered on without having to spend 20 minutes on Julieanne (though she is a great tutor). I don't think that LR is quite there.
-h
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Or something to that effect.
Well whatever it is, neither of us are familiar with the details! :o
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Some seem to think that having to read books and watch Julieanne Kost videos in order to use a piece of software somehow makes makes it more "noble". I think that is silly. It may be unavoidable or hard to avoid, but we do image processing as a means to an end, not to get bragging rights (like lugging 20kg of photo equipment to some freezing mountain top).
Is there another software solution ... for any serious task ... on an equal level to Lightroom that does not require at least some level of study to achieve a comfortable level of competence in it's use as a "means to an end" ... noble or otherwise?
Pointing new users to legitimate, well-received options to smooth out the learning process is not silly or expressing faux nobility ... it's just common sense to steer others seeking knowledge to long-stablished trustworthy sources.
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If I recall it was concerning whether Snapshot is saved to xmp sidecar [That's how I have xmp setup in LR] when I hit Command S (Save) or if Snapshot is only saved in LR's Catalog. Snapshots and History States are recorded in the Catalog so if I was to toss the Catalog and create a new one I'ld lose all the Snapshots and HS to all my images.
Wow...
Well, Image setting (including snapshots) and IPTC/EXIF metadata are stored in the .xmp file. History, virtual copies and I think flags are only stored in the catalog. So, if something went south with your catalog but you had saved the xmp metadata you wouldn't loose settings, snapshots or metadata like keywording but you would loose VC's and image adjustment history.
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And if something went wrong with your catalogue, your first call would be backups of it.
If you like VCs and like xmp, look up a plugin called Snapshotter which converts VCs to snapshots.
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Well, Image setting (including snapshots) and IPTC/EXIF metadata are stored in the .xmp file. History, virtual copies and I think flags are only stored in the catalog. So, if something went south with your catalog but you had saved the xmp metadata you wouldn't loose settings, snapshots or metadata like keywording but you would loose VC's and image adjustment history.
Thanks, Jeff. Now if I can just remember that about Snapshot 3 months from now. Don't need VC's.
I'm just getting the hang of Snapshots in ACR. I'm sure they're saved to xmp as well.
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...but you would loose VC's and image adjustment history.
So in a DNG with an updated preview, you'd still have that last 'edit', preview, but not the editing history, correct? And you've got snapshots.
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Is there another software solution ... for any serious task ... on an equal level to Lightroom that does not require at least some level of study to achieve a comfortable level of competence in it's use as a "means to an end" ... noble or otherwise?
Comparing the complexity and "seriousity" and UI of photography software to word processing software on a photography oriented forum is bound to fail.
Generally, expensive "expert" software that is sold to a small user base of highly trained users tends to (in my view) have poorly designed user interfaces/user experience (but sensible engineering behind the scenes). When a mass-market actor become interested in that segment, UI is one area where they can differentiate, and in the case of MS Word vs Wordperfect, UI won.
One might suggest that the iPhone was a worse phone than Nokias offerings at the time in most respects except user interface and design. Apple won.
I am a Lightroom user, have been since the initial beta program. Obviously, (at least) up until now I have thought that staying with LR is better than switching. This does not mean that I think that LR is flawless or non-annoying.
If there ever is some sort of "app" that just magically does what I currently spend hours doing manually, at the click of a button, I'll jump. I don't see how such an app would ever become reality, but that is how emotionally attached I am to spending hours of my spare time in front of a computer.
Pointing new users to legitimate, well-received options to smooth out the learning process is not silly or expressing faux nobility ... it's just common sense to steer others seeking knowledge to long-stablished trustworthy sources.
I am not sure how to relate this to what I actually wrote?
The idea that things _should_ be a little difficult, that having to lug 20kg of gear to a photo location makes you more of a photographer (or a man), that the path is as important as the end result is a common one. It is found (at least) in litterature, in music and in photography. And (in the case that I am describing at least), I claim that it is silly.
Now, _you_ might not be one of those guys. You might not look down at people who just want good-looking images without investing heavily in comprehending a user-interface. Good for you.
-h
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Generally, expensive "expert" software that is sold to a small user base of highly trained users tends to (in my view) have poorly designed user interfaces/user experience (but sensible engineering behind the scenes). ...............
-h
Indeed, a very good example of this has to be X-Rite's rather buggy i1Profiler with the annoying absence of even a basic user manual, offering only telegraphic context help that provides varying experiences alternating between usefulness and frustration. This too is a product that can produce fully satisfactory results and offers many useful features, along with unnecessarily large amounts of time and work learning how to use it properly and working around the glitches - wasteful effort that could have been averted if this company had any ethical sense of responsibility to its clientele.
No comparison whatsoever with Lightroom which has a comparatively intuitive GUI, very few bugs which Adobe fixes when they confirm them, and a plethora of educational material from numerous authors given the huge size of the user base.
One really needs to put things in perspective to see how good we have it in the one product, compared with how poor it can be in others.
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Apparently there are new bugs and therefore new fixes needed for LR CC 2015.5: newer CMYK profiles do not show up any longer but older one's that did load in the past still do. What a mess. Print to JPEG to CMYK is still broken like the last version. On Mac, I only get a document exported that's fully black. So that wasn't fixed from the last version.
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Now, _you_ might not be one of those guys. You might not look down at people who just want good-looking images without investing heavily in comprehending a user-interface. Good for you.
-h
No, I don't look down on anybody ... I also don't try to pigeon hole others into classifications.
if you are suffering self-esteem issues that some may consider you less of a photographer (or a man) because you take offense when others advise users to seek further education on their tools ... that's a whole other issue and this discussion thread couldn't possibly solve that problem for you.
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Now, _you_ might not be one of those guys. You might not look down at people who just want good-looking images without investing heavily in comprehending a user-interface. Good for you.
-h
No, I don't look down on anybody ... I also don't try to pigeon hole others into classifications.
if you are suffering self-esteem issues that some may consider you less of a photographer (or a man) because you take offense when others advise users to seek further education on their tools ... that's a whole other issue and this discussion thread couldn't possibly solve that problem for you.
I'm not surprised those that have posted as long time contributors to this forum who clearly show they already have a pretty good grasp on how to get what they want out of their software editing tools would do take offense to not so well thought out backhanded advise stating the need for further education as the only way to provide help.
Just because someone makes a statement about software annoyances doesn't necessarily mean they're asking for help, anyway, just empathy and maybe an alternate workaround to avoid the annoyances. Show some effort for cryin' out loud!
Read a book?! Are you kidding me?! Is that all you educated guys can come up with on issues that would take days to hunt for solutions within an 800 page future paper weight/door stop? Come on!
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Read a book?! Are you kidding me?! Is that all you educated guys can come up with on issues that would take days to hunt for solutions within an 800 page future paper weight/door stop? Come on!
Read a PDF (and search the content), watch a video, go to a seminar? Not sure how many people here were born with an understanding of a single software product on this planet. Most of us had to work and learn somehow.
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Read a PDF (and search the content), watch a video, go to a seminar? Not sure how many people here were born with an understanding of a single software product on this planet. Most of us had to work and learn somehow.
Thanks for providing a perfect example of a backhanded unhelpful comment, Andrew.
Did all that reading and writing provide a solution to some of the annoyances discussed that you can share? I'm not holding my breath on you sharing that since I know your book and others don't provide those solutions, so what's the point of your comment anyway?
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Thanks for providing a perfect example of a backhanded unhelpful comment, Andrew.
I guess you prefer RTFM Tim?
Not sure how you ever learned anything about anything if you're opposed to book learning, PDF learning, video learning or being taught by a human. Perhaps you gained your 'impressive' ideas on imaging and photography though osmosis? The rest of us leaned the old fashion way: we earned it. And while learning how anything works doesn’t automatically make us prefer all the interactions necessary to use the product, we do in fact end up using the products! Easier to bitch about then (and for some, far more enjoyable) then to learn to use them, that's for sure.
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Read a book?! Are you kidding me?! Is that all you educated guys can come up with on issues that would take days to hunt for solutions within an 800 page future paper weight/door stop? Come on!
How did you solve problems before the advent of the internet forum? Has instant gratification come this far?
If it would take you days to use a book to answer your questions or solve an issue ... that says more about your skills as a student than if anyone on this forum is as helpful as you would desire.
Give a man a fish he eats for a day ... teach a man how to fish ... well ... you should know the rest of the parable.
My whole point on my last few comments in this thread is some folks invest too much effort in subjective classification of the intent of the advice offered and spend far too much valuable time in psycho-analyzing the motives of the person who offered it. Yes, the aforementioned books can achieve 'paper weight' status ... but they shouldn't reach that point without the reader wringing out every last morsel of information the tome can offer.
I have several books on my office shelf ... and by the Lr/Ps/ACR version numbers printed on many of the covers ... time has passed them by ... but ... they still can offer invaluable knowledge about the basics of all those solutions that can still be considered applicable to current tech in many situations. Especially where the authors discuss the 'WHY' and 'WHEN' we should do certain tasks before they explain the 'HOW' ...
Quite often I am tasked to offer up a product that requires a function in Ps or Lightroom I haven't utilized recently and realize I need to refresh my 'learning' to replicate something I have done in the past. It doesn't take days or even hours because I already invested in a solid foundation of study over the past 24 years of using imaging software. That's not bragging ... that's just the reality of the effort it takes to keep up to date. It's a never-ending process of education.
In the end, forum participants can take or leave the advice about further educating themselves or utilizing recommended resources. However, the books (and the advice) in consideration only truly become a door stop material if the reader deems them so. Though if they never take up the opportunity to crack the cover ... they'll never know the true value of the information on the pages within.
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No, I don't look down on anybody ... I also don't try to pigeon hole others into classifications.
if you are suffering self-esteem issues that some may consider you less of a photographer (or a man) because you take offense when others advise users to seek further education on their tools ... that's a whole other issue and this discussion thread couldn't possibly solve that problem for you.
I do think that valid criticism of a piece of software is important and relevant, and that _defending_ a piece of software against any criticism with "buy the book" is a poor defence. I might say "learn how to properly program and you can solve any SW problem a lot more flexible than any Adobe product will ever offer". The thing is, learning to program takes considerable time and effort. For most most, it simply won't be worth it.
Now, buying the book might be a good advice anyways, but it does not solve the issue that software should be designed to minimize the time and effort needed to get a certain output. If people need to read an 800 page book to do relatively simple and/or common operations, I would be ashamed of my work if I was the responsible UI/UE designer.
-h
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So you don't look down on anyone, but you suggest that I have self-esteem issues?
Classy...
-h
It's called satirical expression to illustrate a point.
You inferred (incorrectly, I believe) that the advice offered was done so to make the recipient to feel less than adequate, or the that the person offering the advice did so to feel intellectually superior. (The term you used was 'noble' as I recall) I simply pointed out how silly that premise is.
I read the same suggestion and did not see any reference that was condescending or belittling ... just sound advice ... we ALL need to continue our course of study for our software of choice as it is updated and it evolves over time. That's just common sense. Of course you are free to disagree with or not to accept any advice offered on an internet discussion forum ... but to question the motives and intent of the individual offering the advice seems a bit peculiar as you have no way of actually knowing what that intent was.
Sure it would be nice if Lr was so simple that we could telepathically instruct it to accomplish our RAW imaging tasks ... but we are some time away from that point. ANY software that has the capabilities of Lr will take some time to learn and master ... continuing that investment of further education to update that knowledge as it grows and matures over time. If you are personally offended because someone points that out, or see ulterior motives in such advice ... well ... as I said earlier, that is a whole other issue.
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Now, buying the book might be a good advice anyways, but it does not solve the issue that software should be designed to minimize the time and effort needed to get a certain output. If people need to read an 800 page book to do relatively simple and/or common operations, I would be ashamed of my work if I was the responsible UI/UE designer.
-h
Let's see ... most automobile owners would love to minimize the time and effort necessary to achieve a certain level of competency to operate a modern marvel transportation device. Does that mean the engineers should be ashamed for being responsible for creating such an intricate contraption that most end users only care to simply travel from Point A to Point B in relative comfort and ease?
My car's owner's manual is 834 pages long. Does that mean they got it wrong? Secondly, am I required to read, comprehend and ultimately retain all the information on all 834 pages in order to achieve my transportation goals? Or do I simply refer to the specific information I desire to learn for the specific task at hand?
Yes, Evening may be a little long winded offering up 744 pages ... especially when you consider he isn't offering a 'how to move a slider' approach ... but the 'why and when to move a slider'. Which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with UI. You need not suffer for infinite hours of study for topics of little use or interest. Just as I do with my car's owners manual ... I use the ToC and Glossary and head straight to the topics I want to learn now ... and save the rest for later if I ever desire to learn more about other facets or topics..
You are unfairly portraying it as an unnecessary Herculean task ... it is not. Plus, you don't necessarily have to 'buy' any book. That is where public libraries or your local camera club can come in handy. We share quite an extensive list of books with members at the club I participate in. Most folks appreciate the opportunity to learn more and don't blame the engineers for their UI/UE design as the cause for the study time.
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OK Butch, in LR's User's Guide/Owner's (oops, we don't own the software) Manual, er Licensee Manual tell me where in its TOC do you find a way to turn off the annoying Bezel that flashes over every edit in the preview you want to see change after hitting Command Z?
Trick question. You can't turn it off. It's designed that way because the software designer thought ahead that users should be reminded of every minor point curve tweak that can run easily over 15 that its just better to start over from scratch. So much for efficiency.
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find a way to turn off the annoying Bezel that flashes over every edit in the preview you want to see change after hitting Command Z?
I can't replicate this behavior at all, can anyone else? I don't see any Bezel and what do you mean by preview (the image displayed in the Develop panel?)? Pressing Contrl-Z (Command Z for MAc addicts) doesn't cause anything to "flash".
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I can't replicate this behavior at all, can anyone else?
Nope. No flashing anywhere using Command Z.
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I can't replicate this behavior at all, can anyone else?
Don't see it either, can you post a screenshot of what's bugging you? We might be able to help turn it off (or avoid it).
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OH MY! You guys must have a more recent version of LR.
Someone at Adobe must've listened to my complaints about Bezel in LR4 (my one and only current version). I guess this is why I need to upgrade just so I will no longer be annoyed.
They just couldn't put the Bezel over in a corner of the frame? Why right in the middle? Who thinks that way? I don't. I would've never designed a image editing app in that way.
BTW, the Bezel even shows up Command Z right back into Library mode.
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OH MY! You guys must have a more recent version of LR.
I've got both recent version of CC and LR 5. Neither produce what I think (because you really need to do a quick video) you're talking about.
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I've got both recent version of CC and LR 5. Neither produce what I think (because you really need to do a quick video) you're talking about.
It's only a guess ... but I think the term bezel is being used to refer to the popup feedback notification that appears when the undo-redo function is employed.
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I've got both recent version of CC and LR 5. Neither produce what I think (because you really need to do a quick video) you're talking about.
What do you mean, Andrew? Did you see my screegrab with the "Redo" lozenge (that's the Bezel, a word that was told to me is the name of that annoyance)? This happens with me in LR4. Or do you have a tip you're waiting for me to go see in a LR video? If this can be turned off, how about being helpful and tell me how to do this?
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What do you mean, Andrew? Did you see my screegrab with the "Redo" lozenge?
Tim, again, I'm not at all clear on your issue. I don't know what a Bezel is supposed to mean and I'm not alone.
LR4, really? Time to upgrade.
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You can't turn the undo bezel off. That's because it's good information if you do more than one undo.
In Develop, View > View Options, you can turn off the "loading" bezel.
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If this can be turned off, how about being helpful and tell me how to do this?
Sorry ... it can't be turned off as far as I can tell.
But, you are not the first to be annoyed by the process of informing the Lightroom user that Undo/Redo has been invoked.
There is a 5 year old 'idea' discussion over on the Photoshop Feedback Forum specifically about this problem ... so far the idea has accumulated a whopping 7 votes for consideration.
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_avoid_status_messages_on_images (https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_avoid_status_messages_on_images)
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Tim, again, I'm not at all clear on your issue. I don't know what a Bezel is supposed to mean and I'm not alone.
LR4, really? Time to upgrade.
The Bezel is the lozenge shaped icon ("Redo") that's in the middle of the image preview. While back when I first brought this up in a LR discussion some expert chimed in and told me "Bezel" is the name for it. GEEZ! Andrew, read a book on LR. It should tell you this, RIGHT?!
Just checked and found out the only way to keep this from flashing in front of the preview is to click on each individual History State listing. That slows me down so I use Command Z.
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In Develop, View > View Options, you can turn off the "loading" bezel.
Where? You mean "Show message when loading..."?
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The Bezel is the lozenge shaped icon ("Redo") that's in the middle of the image preview.
OK understood. FWIW, doesn't show up in the middle (much lower down), never thought it was an issue whatsoever.
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You can't turn the undo bezel off. That's because it's good information if you do more than one undo.
In Develop, View > View Options, you can turn off the "loading" bezel.
It goes down the list generated by the History State with each Command Z and Shift/Command Z stating the name of each edit. So if I do a lot point curve tweaks it just flashes "Point Curve" in the Bezel. Not very informative IMO.
Hasn't anyone found this out in all the tutorials, 800 page Martin Evening books and YouTube videos? Come on! Anyone?
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While back when I first brought this up in a LR discussion some expert chimed in and told me "Bezel" is the name for it. GEEZ! Andrew, read a book on LR. It should tell you this, RIGHT?!
Nope, because whoever told you that probably didn't know what it's called and without due diligence on your part, you just believed that's what it is called. I've got a number of books on LR, I can't find any that use that term for the Undo message you complain about. Best I could find, searching a PDF (LR Missing FAQ from Victoria Bampton) has ONE and only 1 inclusion of the term bezel:
• In Loupe view there’s a bezel with editing controls.
As the Chinese proverb says: "The first step towards genius is calling things by their proper name".
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Hasn't anyone found this out in all the tutorials, 800 page Martin Evening books and YouTube videos? Come on! Anyone?
No, you won't find out how to turn off any function that does not have the capability of being turned off in ANY reference material ... for ANY software solution.
Why would there be books, tutorials or videos explaining how to turn something off ... that can't be turned off?
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Nope, because whoever told you that probably didn't know what it's called and without due diligence on your part, you just believed that's what it is called. I've got a number of books on LR, I can't find any that use that term for the Undo message you complain about. Best I could find, searching a PDF (LR Missing FAQ from Victoria Bampton) has ONE and only 1 inclusion of the term bezel:
• In Loupe view there’s a bezel with editing controls.
As the Chinese proverb says: "The first step towards genius is calling things by their proper name".
The best I could recollect it might have been a software designer that called it a "Bezel". I'm going to start calling it the undo/redo lozenge.
So you couldn't find an Adobe official name for this GUI element in all the books available, Andrew?
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No, you won't find out how to turn off any function that does not have the capability of being turned off in ANY reference material ... for ANY software solution.
Especially using a term that's made up (bezel).
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In my version (6.6) the "bezel" shows up and automatically disappears after a few seconds. It now also tells you what you undid or redid which makes it more useful.
It never entered my mind to try and turn it off and don't think this is a big deal, but YMMV.
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If you told people something was a bezel it probably wouldn't help them know what it was or help them use Lightroom.
But the official name for this information panel is indeed a bezel, even if many people (me included) had never noticed the word before hearing it used by Adobe. It's used three times in the SDK documentation under LrDialogs.showBezel, for example.
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No, you won't find out how to turn off any function that does not have the capability of being turned off in ANY reference material ... for ANY software solution.
Why would there be books, tutorials or videos explaining how to turn something off ... that can't be turned off?
How about a GUI exploded view diagram naming every LR graphical element? That doesn't exist?
I know it can't be turned off. I'ld at least like to know what it's called.
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The best I could recollect it might have been a software designer that called it a "Bezel". I'm going to start calling it the undo/redo lozenge.
So you couldn't find an Adobe official name for this GUI element in all the books available, Andrew?
Well it's not Bezel Tim so hopefully you'll understand the confusion you caused for various posters here attempting to help you! And no, neither of us will find an official Adobe name that someone else made up that you took as factual.
bez·el
ˈbezəl/Submit
noun
a grooved ring holding the glass or plastic cover of a watch face or other instrument in position.
a groove holding the crystal of a watch or the stone of a gem in its setting.
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I would think something that flashes on the preview for every edit performed is not a minor graphical element that can be ignored to the point of not having a name for it.
I know what edit I performed. I don't need it told to me by flashing a black lozenge shaped icon obscuring my view every time I hit Command Z. Why it's an annoyance is that once it flashes on/off it causes my eyes to change focus on the area I'm editing and sometimes that area is right underneath the lozenge icon.
I found another way to avoid this using ACR's Snapshot feature. LR includes the creation of the Snapshot in the History State which flashes the lozenge doing an A/B edit comparison using Command Z. I could just click on the Snapshot but I have the history state collapsed and I have to open it by hovering my cursor on the far left edge of LR's frame.
In ACR I just click on each saved Snapshot and I see the edits change without affecting my focus.
You all can dismiss it as much as you want. It's an annoyance to me.
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You all can dismiss it as much as you want. It's an annoyance to me.
As I shared earlier ... there is already a proposed idea to address this ... make your thoughts known to the folks who can actually address the annoyance.
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_avoid_status_messages_on_images (https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_avoid_status_messages_on_images)
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I would think something that flashes on the preview for every edit performed is not a minor graphical element that can be ignored to the point of not having a name for it.
You used a name that doesn't exist for this on-screen text and did a poor job describing it as 'flashing' before providing the screen capture. Multiple poster's were confused by what you were asking about hence, OUR collective difficulty in assisting you. Further, I don't see anyone yet, besides you, that find this to be such an egregious UI burden.
Seems you probably shouldn’t upgrade to a newer version of LR or even continue to use the version you have; you seem mighty upset by how it operates.
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As I shared earlier ... there is already a proposed idea to address this ... make your thoughts known to the folks who can actually address the annoyance.
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_avoid_status_messages_on_images (https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_avoid_status_messages_on_images)
Butch, years of past attempts posting feedback issues with Adobe apps never brought fruit in future upgrades so I don't see how my 2¢ is going to make a difference. But thanks for providing that link. I haven't been to that site in over 3 years.
They really changed their interface. I guess I'm going to have to get reacquainted with the new design and try to remember my login info. Maybe later. Right now I'm too exhausted.
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I would think something that flashes on the preview for every edit performed is not a minor graphical element that can be ignored to the point of not having a name for it.
Don't worry, the name does exist, it is officially "bezel" and it's no big deal that not many people know its name. It's used multiple times in the thread Butch point to, as another example.
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Butch, years of past attempts posting feedback issues with Adobe apps never brought fruit in future upgrades so I don't see how my 2¢ is going to make a difference.
How do you feel about voting for elected officials? ;D
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Don't worry, the name does exist, it is officially "bezel" and it's no big deal that not many people know its name. It's used multiple times in the thread Butch point to, as another example.
Thanks for the confirmation, john. You're more helpful than Andrew, but that doesn't surprise me.
But really, "Bezel"?! Why? I'm going to continue to call it the lozenge. At least that name functions more as a picture word that describes the shape. Bezel sounds too much like bevel as in beveled edge in cabinet making.
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Call it a bezel or a lozenge - either way people won't initially know what you mean ;)
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OMG! I just looked up the definition of "Bezel" on Google choosing "Bezel Definition Computers". Here's what it says...
On a computer case the bezel is the front area of the case where devices protrude through the case. On a CRT computer monitor, the bezel is the outside frame area around the monitor glass.
The other non-computer definitions were not any closer nor did they give any indication of a shape.
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OMG! I just looked up the definition of "Bezel" on Google choosing "Bezel Definition Computers". Here's what it says...
The other non-computer definitions were not any closer nor did they give any indication of a shape.
Exactly, I've always considered bezel to be a hardware term.
As for the info display itself it's simply a "Text Box" with rounded corners. From an object oriented programming point of view, "Show Bezel" is probably an inherited class function that at it's root is probably a Text Box function with specific attributes.
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More LR Bezel talk (and apparently NOT what people here are calling Bezel; the word of the day):
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1410173 (https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1410173)
Q: When LR gets really slow, there are actual taskbar items called "Bezel" and "Shadow" that show as not responding. I am having this issue as well.
A: There are no tools by the name of Bezel or Shadowing in Lightroom
It would help if you used the actual names, and told us exactly what you were trying to do when you run into problems
Sound familiar?
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Let's see ... most automobile owners would love to minimize the time and effort necessary to achieve a certain level of competency to operate a modern marvel transportation device. Does that mean the engineers should be ashamed for being responsible for creating such an intricate contraption that most end users only care to simply travel from Point A to Point B in relative comfort and ease?
Thank you for bringing the car analogy into this discussion.
I got a new car one year ago. The Germans must have really thought about how their users use their cars, because I am perfectly able to do most*) of what I want to do without consulting a manual. The simple stuff like starting, accelerating, breaking and turning seems to follow established conventions so that I can spend my limited time on earth doing something else than consulting car instruction videos.
If most users were keenly looking at videos in order to understand how to start their new car, I would say that was a big "fail" on the designers of that car. If most people were able to get most of the things done without ever opening the manual, I would say that was a design win.
-h
*)Cars are becoming increasingly software-driven, and there are some quirks that I have been unable to solve. If anyone knows how to robustly bind BMW car key id to seat position preset, I would appreciate it. I.e. I want my key to cause the drivers seat to adjust to a 2 meter tall person, while the other key to move it to a 1.75m tall person.
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Thank you for bringing the car analogy into this discussion.
I got a new car one year ago. The Germans must have really thought about how their users use their cars, because I am perfectly able to do most*) of what I want to do without consulting a manual. The simple stuff like starting, accelerating, breaking and turning seems to follow established conventions so that I can spend my limited time on earth doing something else than consulting car instruction videos.
If most users were keenly looking at videos in order to understand how to start their new car, I would say that was a big "fail" on the designers of that car. If most people were able to get most of the things done without ever opening the manual, I would say that was a design win.
-h
*)Cars are becoming increasingly software-driven, and there are some quirks that I have been unable to solve. If anyone knows how to robustly bind BMW car key id to seat position preset, I would appreciate it. I.e. I want my key to cause the drivers seat to adjust to a 2 meter tall person, while the other key to move it to a 1.75m tall person.
Are you of the belief that you were born with the knowledge of how to start a car? Secondly, where does Lightroom break away from following established conventions for a RAW image workflow? I've used several options over the years including Aperture, Capture 1, RAW Developer, etc. There's not a dime's worth of difference when it comes to the basics. Sure there are subtle differences in the nomenclature and semantical references between apps, but an Exposure slider is still a slider.
Since when do you need to refer to learning materials to 'learn the simple stuff' for Lightroom? While some features and the RAW Process versions have changed a few times since 2006, you should still be able to handle the basics quite easily without investing any additional time and effort. Yes, new users, just like new drivers may have to consult the owner's manual or even view a video tutorial to lean how to start a car ... after all, they have never done this before. Same applies to software ... I have yet to see any RAW image software solution that can read the user's mind and apply those thoughts to achieve the desired outcome without any effort on the user's part. It's not mystical, magical powers from the ether ... it's computer application which requires input from the user. Hence the user needs to be aware of how to input their desires. That may require some effort on the end user's part until we do develop a computer that can read your mind.
The learning process does not advance purely through osmosis nor does it have to be a daunting, time consuming drudgery. You should not spend so much time and effort in building a straw man argument for your thesis that does not hold water in real world application.
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Are you of the belief that you were born with the knowledge of how to start a car?
The learning process does not advance purely through osmosis nor does it have to be a daunting, time consuming drudgery. You should not spend so much time and effort in building a straw man argument for your thesis that does not hold water in real world application.
+1
Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. -Abigail Adams
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I started this discussion hoping, as a community who use Lr extensively, we might have an intelligent exploration re what we might like improved in Lightroom.
I am so disappointed it descended into a debate on the semantics of what is learnt and what is inherited with our dna.
While I do not agree with all the points made by TN in his video clip, I thought it was an interesting perspective. I hoped we may have learned from others who would have a different background and experience.
Unfortunately not. I probably should not have used TN's title. Apologies for that.
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I'm a former Aperture user. I thought that program was the end all, be all of editing and file organization. When I switched to LR only a year and a half ago, I knew I needed to study books, watch videos, join forums, etc. just to get up to the basic operational speed.
I was and am still amazed at the great performance of Lightroom. It's like never having had a microwave oven and not realizing how much I needed it. I get it that some of you see clearly into the future of what you want LR to become. I'm hoping Adobe doesn't read this forum and incorporate all these niceties. I'll never get ahead of the curve:)
I, for one, really enjoy the capabilities of the Library and Develop modules. That's where I started my learning adventure. So, I'm just trying to bring us back to the reality of Lightroom. It's a pretty damn sophisticated piece of software that (from my point of view) works really well.
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It's a pretty damn sophisticated piece of software that (from my point of view) works really well.
Exactly! We've had an amazing amount of trivial knit picking and I'm at a loss trying to understand why.
LR is a well written package and it's basic modules, Library, Develop, and Print work exceedingly well.
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I guess it's all what someone is after.
For me, I would prefer to have less features added, and have Adobe take some time and fix the processing power issues behind LR, at least on the windows OS side.
Open CL, that support really seems to do nothing but slow things down.
Overtime, 1 to 2 hours, the entire program bogs downs to a point where you no longer can use it reliably without a restart of the program or reboot of PC
Time to load a large file say D810 K1 import tif from a IQ100, etc or multipart pano from said cameras can take as long as 10 to 15 seconds to fully load,
(display the image at 100%), and moving around the file drags and can seemingly take the same amount of time. The more local adjustments, the longer
it takes to zoom to 100%. I use a lot of local adjustments as many as 6 to 8 per image along with ND filters. Tool sets are there, might was well use them
This has been the case for me for over a year now.
Same issue on 4.0i7 Asus and 3.4 i7 Asus both machines running 32GB of ram, one win7 the other win10. Both running GTX970 4GB cards with latest drivers.
Same files opened in Photoshop CC, 2015.5, no problems, zooming take seconds, 1-3, moving around takes the same time, no matter how many layers are on the image.
Paul C
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From what you report, it could perhaps appear that Windows is causing different issues for LR than for OSX, because I'm running a six year old MacPro having "only" 24GM RAM (with 24 virtual cores) and not experiencing the kind of overall performance drag you report here. But these are a sample of two, so not necessarily determinative of a general issue.
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Hi Mark,
I would tend to agree that the Mac version seems to both run faster and seems to have more ability to work with open CL.
Both of my windows machines are 8 core i7, 32GB of ram, with SSD for both OS and separate SSD for cache/catalog.
Process for me starts pretty much the same each time.
LR starts out fast, and as my work continues, it slowly drags down to where it is taking 8 to 12 seconds to zoom a larger file to 100%, and movement around the file when zoomed to 100% is slow and clunky. Smaller files from Fuji or Nikon seem OK, but Phase One or large multiple segment Nikon or Pentax files really drag down the system.
I generally start with open CL enabled, (I keep hoping that it will work some day for me), but sadly the best performance for me is turning it off and just running on the i7 processors for now.
My overall impression of open CL for both LR and C1 is that it's too complicated to cover many platforms or there are just too many issues between machines to get a standard that seems to work across multiple platforms.
Paul C
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Paul, this begins to sound more like a graphics card limitation. My card is an "oldie" by now (the same one that came with the computer): ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB. You may wish to check the specs of this card compared with cards in the computers you are using to see if there could be enough capability difference to cause the issues you are experiencing, and if so, perhaps a graphics card upgrade would solve your problem.
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Hi Mark
I am running GTX 970 nvidia cards both are less than 6 months old. Nvidia makes new gen cards but the 970 series is pretty solid.
It might be that LR just can't work with the Cuda and open CL of nvidia.
Paul C
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I believe you can verify this on Adobe's website. If my memory serves correctly, they have a page of tested or compatible video cards.
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Thanks
I will give it look.
Paul
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I believe you can verify this on Adobe's website. If my memory serves correctly, they have a page of tested or compatible video cards.
Are you also using a Wacom tablet.
I decided to buy a new graphics card, approx 2 years ago, for my Windows Pc. I double checked the Adobe site, so I could select one that was recommended. Subsequently, I ran into problems with Wacom and discovered the graphics card I was using was not on their recommended list. [I may have this vica versa]. I also found that Nik software at that time had a different set of recommended graphics cards.
So, it might be worth also checking the compatibility of your graphics card as per both Adobe and Wacom recommendations.
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No Wacom, installed. But the GTX970 is currently a pretty state of the art card, only 980 and 1080 are current above that I can tell and 1080 is just shipping. Heck for Adobe the power of a correctly used GTX970 is overkill (for the card).
For the record, the GTX970 is support, and LR sees it and agrees it's supported. Just not the best implementation for me I guess.
Paul C
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FWIW, I am using the Intuos 4 L and the Intuos Pro M on Windows 10 Pro with the GTX970 with no issues.
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Are you of the belief that you were born with the knowledge of how to start a car?
No. But in the not-so-distant future, I hope that all people will have what it needs without any training, using self-driving cars. A great future, I think, based on car manufacturers spending R&D man-years on solving their users challenges.
-h
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No. But in the not-so-distant future, I hope that all people will have what it needs without any training, using self-driving cars. A great future, I think, based on car manufacturers spending R&D man-years on solving their users challenges.
-h
We have had that in photography for years ... it's called the Program setting on your camera ... simply point and shoot. And if you shoot jpeg ... no need for any further thought or concern on the photographer's part. Why bother yourself with the knowledge and concept of how the image is captured or the technology that produced it? If that is the case ... just use a smartphone only and be done with it. Then you won't need to be encumbered by Lightroom at all.
As for the self-driving car ... yes ... it's a great future as long as the occupants of those vehicles are well-informed as to what they must do when the tech fails and they must once again become the driver.
One should always strive to be the master of technology ... then they can avoid being enslaved by it.
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I am having the same issues as Paul with a mac, ssd and these specs...( two graphic cards!!! )
it is really annoying
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......... For example, my main usability complaint with LR is with the syncing of catalogs between computers for those who work between a laptop and a desktop. This is doable, but awkward. There are other applications that manage to sync between devices much more easily, but they are different kind of applications. Perhaps it poses special issues for LR, I don't know; but if I ask them to improve this, it would be a feature request and not a fix.
This, this, a thousand times, THIS! That is what I've been saying since the release of Lightroom Mobile... I would even be happy with a Lightroom Mobile application that ran on my laptop. Seems like it should be a no brainer, especially given the fact that "Cloud" has been a part of the name for years now.
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No Wacom, installed. But the GTX970 is currently a pretty state of the art card, only 980 and 1080 are current above that I can tell and 1080 is just shipping. Heck for Adobe the power of a correctly used GTX970 is overkill (for the card).
For the record, the GTX970 is support, and LR sees it and agrees it's supported. Just not the best implementation for me I guess.
Paul C
Paul, have you tried disabling GPU acceleration? I had issues with quality/speed (albeit on my less-capable Nvidia card) and have since gone back to CPU-only operation in Lightroom and don't suffer any such slowdowns. May be worth a try.
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I guess it's all what someone is after.
For me, I would prefer to have less features added, and have Adobe take some time and fix the processing power issues behind LR, at least on the windows OS side.
Open CL, that support really seems to do nothing but slow things down.
Overtime, 1 to 2 hours, the entire program bogs downs to a point where you no longer can use it reliably without a restart of the program or reboot of PC
Time to load a large file say D810 K1 import tif from a IQ100, etc or multipart pano from said cameras can take as long as 10 to 15 seconds to fully load,
(display the image at 100%), and moving around the file drags and can seemingly take the same amount of time. The more local adjustments, the longer
it takes to zoom to 100%. I use a lot of local adjustments as many as 6 to 8 per image along with ND filters. Tool sets are there, might was well use them
This has been the case for me for over a year now.
Same issue on 4.0i7 Asus and 3.4 i7 Asus both machines running 32GB of ram, one win7 the other win10. Both running GTX970 4GB cards with latest drivers.
Same files opened in Photoshop CC, 2015.5, no problems, zooming take seconds, 1-3, moving around takes the same time, no matter how many layers are on the image.
Paul C
Paul are you using ssd's as disks? If that is the case then that can be a cause of slow down of LR. I have LR in use all day mail forcpriinting. And experienced slw down. So I wet to a samsung sm863 enterprise grade ssd for my catalog and acr cache. No longer these slow downs.