Adobe's Tom Hogarty Apology for LR CC 6.2 release

[ButchM]

One last point.  This controversy has nothing to do with the "subscription service."  I have a perpetual license, and I'm impacted as much as any CC user. 

Tom

Yes, and no. While both licensing models were impacted by the drastic changes in the Import dialog, it was precisely the subscription model that at least partially enabled Adobe to release v6.2/2015.2 in the state it was. With the protectionist income model, there is little to fear as far as loss of income. Especially over the near term. With so many customers locked into annual agreements, Adobe will see a fairly balanced bottom line regardless of what they produce or errors they commit.

I think it is safe to say, that if any of the decision makers had their next pay check riding on the success and acceptance of 6.2 like it was in the old perpetual license only days ... I don't think it would have left the building in the state we witnessed last week.

[john beardsworth]

I think we're talking about an issue that's about 6 days old here. And yes, I know you keep repeating that every function removed needs to be evaluated on its own merits (that's not a broken record yet  ) but if Adobe isn't listening to it's own beta-testers the issue is that a lot of people don't have faith in the evaluation of what gets removed.

At least my almost-broken record is relevant to the 6 day old issue and not just the warmed-up bitterness of a 3 times-spurned lover (Aperture and Apple's Photos app also dumped Butch). Beta testers can't say much about what they told Adobe (Jeff goes further than most feel comfortable) or about the response. They are often cautious and try to manage or contain their risks - ie if you're beta-testing Adobe software, you may not want to install beta El Capitan or rush to update OSX when it is released - so they may not have seen the instability problems caused by 6.2 being released so close to El Capitan's release. Nor do they see the evidence which led Adobe to make changes. But they do have longer to get over any shock, adapt aspects of their own workflow, and view change more rationally.

[David Grover / Capture One]

Quote from: Doug Peterson on October 11, 2015, 12:13:15 AM
From my hugely biased point of view...

Capture One Pro on the other hand has been pushing even further in the direction of professional and advanced users. The most recent updates added features that qualify as borderline-obscure, unless they are needed for your workflow. For instance you can now build your output/destination folder based on tokens like "Image Folder" and "Session name" and "Star Rating" - a huge time saver for digital techs processing large jobs.

I can't remember how long you've been able to do that in Lightroom. I think Publish Services arrived in version 3.

You're completely missing the point John.  Doug isn't talking about publishing services.  He is referring to tokens that can pull some aspect of meta data from the image to automate an export destination or an import destination.

I.e Auto split images on import based on Date, Camera Serial Number, Location, Iso... etc etc into their respective folders

Or Auto split images into different folders based on their colour tag and star rating, file type (and more more more) on export.

You can educate yourself about it here..

http://blog.phaseone.com/how-to-automate-your-workflow-with-tokens/

It can save a busy studio / photographer an inordinate amount of time in their workflow, so its probably not a subject to poke fun at.  A recent quote from a photographer attending one of my weekly webinars...

"What really blew our minds was when we were shown that we could automate the export multiple recipes of images across a number of folders simultaneously (i.e.; one export group for web based images, a second for full-res JPG and a third for TIFF's). We did a rough estimate and figured out it should save us around six hours a week or roughly 39 days of additional computer time. "

And yes, this is a timely totally biased mention of Capture One on my part.  Don't forget you can download a 30 Day Trial as well.

We even have an Eject Card option. 

David

[john beardsworth]

You're completely missing the point John.  Doug isn't talking about publishing services.  He is referring to tokens that can pull some aspect of meta data from the image to automate an export destination or an import destination.

I.e Auto split images on import based on Date, Camera Serial Number, Location, Iso... etc etc into their respective folders

Or Auto split images into different folders based on their colour tag and star rating, file type (and more more more) on export.

Thank you, David, but I am getting the point - though I appreciate you may not understand why I mentioned publish services. It's because that's how one accomplishes those tasks with Lightroom. I just use a publish service (hard drive option) and as many smart and dumb collections as I wish to employ.

So I can split exports exactly as you describe, and I've been able to do so for the last 6 years.

[David Grover / Capture One]

Thank you, David, but I am getting the point - though I appreciate you may not understand why I mentioned publish services. It's because that's how one accomplishes those tasks with Lightroom. I just use a publish service (hard drive option) and as many smart and dumb collections as I wish to employ.

So I can split exports exactly as you describe, and I've been able to do so for the last 6 years.

From what I can see in Lightroom you can publish a 'Smart' collection of images to a folder on your hard drive.  If so, thats about a 10th of whats possible in a Capture One recipe.

i.e  I can sub divide my exports into different folders based on the metadata.  Multiple dynamic folders in multiple locations.

Plus I can also manually create folders within the automated structure as well.

[john beardsworth]

From what I can see in Lightroom you can publish a 'Smart' collection of images to a folder on your hard drive.  If so, thats about a 10th of whats possible in a Capture One recipe.

Lightroom lets you set up published services that generate folders based on smart collections including conditional or nested criteria (have those in C1 yet?) with others based on purely-arbitrary groupings. That's been available since 2009.

i.e  I can sub divide my exports into different folders based on the metadata.  Multiple dynamic folders in multiple locations.

The dynamic aspect is good. On the other hand, is it necessary for many people? Those who want it just use one of the Lightroom plugins that have done similar jobs for the since about 2007.

Plus I can also manually create folders with the automates structure as well.

Fine, if that's what people want (some DAM authors would question its sense though). Lightroom just doesn't need those manually-created folders - you just filter and group irrespective of physical folder locations. But for 8 years it has been possible to implement import to folder by metadata criteria as a Lightroom plugin. If it had been wanted by Lightroom's far-bigger user base, I'm sure it would have been done by someone somewhere. I can't think of anyone, but put coding efforts there if you really think it's worthwhile.

Anyway, I don't dispute that C1 offers some features that aren't just different, but better than the nearest Lightroom equivalent. But I see Doug likens running C1 under El Capitan to "like eating wild mushrooms in the forest without knowing much about mushrooms. Most of the time it will be fine, but if you get a bit sick you only have yourself to blame." Maybe you've been trying that if you think this is a thread about promoting C1?

John

[David Grover / Capture One]

Lightroom lets you set up published services that generate folders based on smart collections including conditional or nested criteria (have those in C1 yet?) with others based on purely-arbitrary groupings. That's been available since 2009.

The dynamic aspect is good. On the other hand, is it necessary for many people? Those who want it just use one of the Lightroom plugins that have done similar jobs for the since about 2007.

Fine, if that's what people want (some DAM authors would question its sense though). Lightroom just doesn't need those manually-created folders - you just filter and group irrespective of physical folder locations. But for 8 years it has been possible to implement import to folder by metadata criteria as a Lightroom plugin. If it had been wanted by Lightroom's far-bigger user base, I'm sure it would have been done by someone somewhere. I can't think of anyone, but put coding efforts there if you really think it's worthwhile.

Anyway, I don't dispute that C1 offers some features that aren't just different, but better than the nearest Lightroom equivalent. But I see Doug likens running C1 under El Capitan to "like eating wild mushrooms in the forest without knowing much about mushrooms. Most of the time it will be fine, but if you get a bit sick you only have yourself to blame." Maybe you've been trying that if you think this is a thread about promoting C1?

John

Thank you for conceding that Capture One has indeed more powerful features for a professional user base, without requiring plugins.

Thats a good description of Capture One.

[jrp]

[Beta testers] are often cautious and try to manage or contain their risks - ie if you're beta-testing Adobe software, you may not want to install beta El Capitan or rush to update OSX when it is released - so they may not have seen the instability problems caused by 6.2 being released so close to El Capitan's release. Nor do they see the evidence which led Adobe to make changes. But they do have longer to get over any shock, adapt aspects of their own workflow, and view change more rationally.

1. Adobe ought to get Beta testers that are going to put the product through its paces, not just give it a gentle prod

2. El Capitan has been in Beta for months.  Whether or not the Beta testers tested on the Beta, Adobe, whose product this is, ought to have done before shipping

3. In any case, Adobe chose to ship, for marketing reasons, knowing that the product was "crashy".  That tells you all that you need to know about the relative priority that Adobe attaches to acquiring new subscribers over the needs of existing ones, for all the cant about customer focus, and the need to restore trust.  The supposed tyranny of a revenue-driven 18-month upgrade cycle, to which the subscription model, was supposedly an answer has not gone away.

[ednazarko]

When I opened it up my first thought was, holy crap, Fisher-Price has now taken over Adobe system development.

It's so dumbed down feeling, and it took me a long, long time to figure out what to do to get what I wanted done.  THAT is a huge sign of failure.  No matter how much you may think you're improving things, if the mass of your core users now stumble to get work done, you've failed.

And as I opened it up again just now, I realized - what they've done is the equivalent of a camera maker saying, there's only one exposure mode now, P, and if you should happen to want to use Aperture mode or Shutter mode, you fossil, you can get to them in the menus...

[john beardsworth]

Thank you for conceding that Capture One has indeed more powerful features for a professional user base, without requiring plugins.

Thats a good description of Capture One.

Thanks for twisting my words, David. My summary would be good but overpriced.

[David Grover / Capture One]

Thanks for twisting my words, David. My summary would be good but overpriced.

I just don't like misinformation around.

The Export capabilities of Capture One cannot be compared to Lightroom.  Its two very different ways of solving a problem.

[john beardsworth]

I just don't like misinformation around.

The Export capabilities of Capture One cannot be compared to Lightroom.  Its two very different ways of solving a problem.

Well, as the misinformation is the claim C1 does something that isn't possible in Lr, it really doesn't justify you twisting my words.

Yes, two different ways of solving a problem (and non problems) that Lightroom has been solving since 2007-2009.

[David Grover / Capture One]

Well, as the misinformation is the claim C1 does something that isn't possible in Lr, it really doesn't justify you twisting my words.

Yes, two different ways of solving a problem (and non problems) that Lightroom has been solving since 2007-2009.

Ok John, Ok. 

But I would still argue that Lightroom simply cannot do what Capture One does in terms of a power workflow of import / export.   Plus I assume the photographer I quoted (who was using Lightroom) wasn't making his statement up.

But this is hijacking the thread, and I have no wish to behave badly, so bowing out now.

[john beardsworth]

Ok John, Ok. 

But I would still argue that Lightroom simply cannot do what Capture One does in terms of a power workflow of import / export.   Plus I assume the photographer I quoted (who was using Lightroom) wasn't making his statement up.

But this is hijacking the thread, and I have no wish to behave badly, so bowing out now.

OK, peace. I don't dispute the honesty of his statement - but I doubt his knowledge of Lightroom. The grass is always greener....

[jjj]

Thank you for conceding that Capture One has indeed more powerful features for a professional user base, without requiring plugins.

Thats a good description of Capture One.

That is certainly not what John said.

Anyway, I don't dispute that C1 offers some features that aren't just different, but better than the nearest Lightroom equivalent. But I see Doug likens running C1 under El Capitan to "like eating wild mushrooms in the forest without knowing much about mushrooms. Most of the time it will be fine, but if you get a bit sick you only have yourself to blame." Maybe you've been trying that if you think this is a thread about promoting C1?

 

[jjj]

But I would still argue that Lightroom simply cannot do what Capture One does in terms of a power workflow of import / export.   Plus I assume the photographer I quoted (who was using Lightroom) wasn't making his statement up.

But this is hijacking the thread, and I have no wish to behave badly, so bowing out now.

So how professional is a programme that doesn't even bother to support all cameras that pros may use?
Or not even support DNG files. Supporting a few cameras that use DNGs is not the same as supporting DNG before anyone tries to argue 1 does.
Why would any professional commit to a piece of software that may well not support camera equipment that he may purchase or may already have purchased?

I'd seriously consider C1 as an alternative for certain imagery, but not if I may end up being stranded with a camera whose files my software won't open.

[ButchM]

At least my almost-broken record is relevant to the 6 day old issue and not just the warmed-up bitterness of a 3 times-spurned lover (Aperture and Apple's Photos app also dumped Butch).

Really, John? Was it Apple that released an update for Lightroom before it was properly tested? Was it Tim Cole that decided that come Hell or high water Hogarty would have something shiny to show off at Max? Was it my fault Hogarty chose to, and approved of, stripping so much functionality from the Import dialog without warning because he knows better than his users what they should use?

This whole issue, and any subsequent user response that you find disconcerting or unnecessarily repetitive is purely the result of Adobe's poor decision making. It's not my fault they produced an epic failure.

Eject After Import is gone. Do I care?

Seems you share Hogarty's cavalier attitude. Though, apparently more than a few of your fellow users ... who pay the same price you do for their software licensing ... seem to disagree with you on the arbitrary unannounced loss of functionality.

Or is it because v6.2/2015.2 reflects your personal vision for the app and you are now distraught that so many other users don't appreciate your vision for Lr? Are your feelings crushed that throngs of users didn't embrace this update?

You may have established yourself as a power user of Lightroom. You may have some good points on why certain methods and pathways offer better options for efficiency of workflow ... but by no means are you on this journey alone. There are a myriad of users and genres that employ Lr to an end. A one-size-fits-all attitude may not be the best method to please even the majority of users. These issues and my response to them that causes you so much discomfort is not the result of any effort on my behalf. You need to look elsewhere for the cause.

Like I said before. Had Adobe done their job properly, this thread and many others around the world like it, would have never existed.

If the skipping of the record on the turntable is truly annoying to you ... better make a call to San Jose, they are the ones who caused your annoyance. Not I.

[john beardsworth]

Or is it because v6.2/2015.2 reflects your personal vision for the app and you are now distraught that so many other users don't appreciate your vision for Lr? Are your feelings crushed that throngs of users didn't embrace this update?

Same tired old record, Butch. Stop personalising it, please - isn't someone allowed to disagree with the herd?

[ButchM]

Same tired old record, Butch. Stop personalising it, please - isn't someone allowed to disagree with the herd?

Sure, John, I'll stop personalizing the issue as soon as this other fellow does ...

At least my almost-broken record is relevant to the 6 day old issue and not just the warmed-up bitterness of a 3 times-spurned lover (Aperture and Apple's Photos app also dumped Butch).

Speaking metaphorically and hypothetically of course. Was it you that dumped the herd? .... or did the herd dump you? ....   (Not associating the preceding expression with any specific individual living or dead. Any correlation of same is purely coincidental.)

[David Grover / Capture One]

So how professional is a programme that doesn't even bother to support all cameras that pros may use?
Or not even support DNG files. Supporting a few cameras that use DNGs is not the same as supporting DNG before anyone tries to argue 1 does.
Why would any professional commit to a piece of software that may well not support camera equipment that he may purchase or may already have purchased?

I'd seriously consider C1 as an alternative for certain imagery, but not if I may end up being stranded with a camera whose files my software won't open.

Which cameras Jeremy?

Plus DNG support has been improving steadily in recent months. I.e we can now read the DNG 1.4 standard. Not just native DNG if you were not aware.

Improving that support more is an ongoing story which certainly isn't over yet!

D