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Author Topic: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?  (Read 40326 times)

Robert Katz

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #20 on: June 16, 2013, 10:19:59 pm »

I upgraded to LR5 and I think it is great
1. Runs faster; presumably taking advantage of my 16GB RAM
2. I have used the radial filter a lot and think for me it is a very useful tool
3. The ability to import in the background and keep working elsewhere is very nice
4. The tweaks to the Book Module are very helpful. I have used that module for several books and the additions will make it even more useful
All in all in my opinion worth the $79.00
Robert
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Glenn NK

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #21 on: June 17, 2013, 01:27:41 am »

I think that what this thread is confirming is that many of us really want to ditch CS6 (or whatever version we still use) and be able to do most of our photo-processing in Lightroom.

Amateur photographers like us probably use only 5% of the capability of CS6. If that 5% was available within LR we would all be very happy, I suspect.

You may be right - I really don't know as I'm likely in the minority here having never used CS, and only used PS elements a bit and the last time was about three or four years ago.   Since then it's been only LR.

I've worked within the limitations of LR because I had to, and when one knows nothing else, it's not limiting - one learns how to get results with lesser tools.

But I don't know of another software that comes close to LR, so if this ones goes south a la CS, I'm up the creek.

Glenn
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PhotoEcosse

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #22 on: June 17, 2013, 04:15:46 am »


I've worked within the limitations of LR because I had to, and when one knows nothing else, it's not limiting - one learns how to get results with lesser tools.



That's only true if one doesn't look at other folks' photographs and think "wish I could do that". Simple, commonplace things like replacing a drab grey sky with nice fluffy clouds or adding a moon to a nightscape. I agree that for straightforward record shots, the combination of "getting it almost right in-camera" and Lightroom give us most of what we need. But for more creative work, the lack of layers can be a handicap. The day they give us layers in Lightroom it will become a very powerful tool.
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Rhossydd

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #23 on: June 17, 2013, 04:26:43 am »

But I don't know of another software that comes close to LR, so if this ones goes south a la CS, I'm up the creek.
Capture One Pro is very good and has a similar feature set and way of working to LR.
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Hans Kruse

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #24 on: June 17, 2013, 06:35:11 am »

Subject says it all..

Going from LR3 to LR4 brought with it a new process that was remarkable in how it treated highlights.

But from LR4 to LR5 ... I'm stumped. I want to like the "straighten" feature but it just doesn't work as well as DxO. I've seen some say that LR is easier to use than DxO for this but I suspect that they don't understand what they need to do with DxO than it being a failure of DxO to deliver.

The most interesting addition to me (after the perspective correction attempt) is the Advanced healing brush. I think this should be a winner but PS already does this.

The most comprehensive list of new features appears to be here:
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/2013/04/15/whats-new-in-lightroom-5-0-beta/

which has much more information than any other 1st google page hits for Adobe's website when searching for "what's new in lr5".

What do others think?
Does LR5 bring with it killer feature/s that have you salivitating?

Compared to the LR4 update LR5 is a bit disappointing. For the price of an upgrade it is a no-brainer to upgrade in my opinion. I was disappointed about the new healing brush as it too often leaves behind part of what I brushed over as if opacity is not quite correct (I always use 100) and the selection is often not that good (however pushing the / key is a geeat help to find a better match sometimes). Comperared to content aware in PS CS6 (which maybe unfair) there is a huge difference and that's really what I would like to see at some point or at least something that comes a lot closer to that (realizing that it will be difficult to represent the needed parameters in metadata to do this). Radial filter, nice to have but not highest on my list. Many small improvements. The performance is better in some cases but I do have a jumpy cursor at times where I didn't in LR4 (using a 2012 15" MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and i7 quad core 2.6 Ghz). The new upright feature is great although it sometimes goes wild. In total the upgrade is certainly more than worth the upgrade price, but is there a killer feature? Well, not really, but still some very good ones.

Hans Kruse

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2013, 06:37:44 am »

Capture One Pro is very good and has a similar feature set and way of working to LR.


Capture One is very good in the editing part, but is way behind on total feature set compared to LR5. As an example I would really miss the publish feature of LR.

dreed

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #26 on: June 17, 2013, 06:56:25 am »

The 3 to 4 upgrade was so huge in terms of process version change, soft proofing, etc. that I think it set the version upgrade expectation bar higher than might be reasonable.

And I seem to remember thinking that the upgrade from 2 to 3 was also a big improvement but it escapes my mind escapes as to why.

1. Runs faster; presumably taking advantage of my 16GB RAM
...
3. The ability to import in the background and keep working elsewhere is very nice

Are there any data points on (1) to show "with 4 it used xGB RAM, with 5 it uses yGB of RAM"?

(3) could be interesting but what I find is that the import process is usually a fairly disk/cpu hungry process because it applies an adjustment to every raw image that is imported, rather than just copying them and extracting the embedded JPEG.
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Glenn NK

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #27 on: June 17, 2013, 12:12:05 pm »

That's only true if one doesn't look at other folks' photographs and think "wish I could do that". Simple, commonplace things like replacing a drab grey sky with nice fluffy clouds or adding a moon to a nightscape. I agree that for straightforward record shots, the combination of "getting it almost right in-camera" and Lightroom give us most of what we need. But for more creative work, the lack of layers can be a handicap. The day they give us layers in Lightroom it will become a very powerful tool.

One of the limitations I've learned to work with is work with the sky that nature gave me that day;  if it's heavy overcast, landscape work may be out for that day (unless the heavy overcast adds to the mood).  If the sun is too bright and harsh, I use my diffuser for flower closeups, or find one in the shade.   There are times when I'm out of luck.  I'm not a religious person, but tend to approach photography with the attitude expressed in the Serenity Prayer.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

I'm in the fortunate position of having photography as one of my hobbies, and am not under pressure to produce anything, anytime.

For more creative work, layers would be useful for sure, but from what I've read and understand, layers in LR is about as likely as you and I flying to Mars tomorrow.

Glenn
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madmanchan

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #28 on: June 17, 2013, 02:20:16 pm »

A wee bit pee-ed off by the Jpeg export limitations bug, but assume that Adobe will fix that in v5.01

Yes, we definitely messed that up, and I apologize for that.  This will be fixed for certain in the next dot release.
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Phil Indeblanc

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #29 on: June 17, 2013, 08:14:26 pm »

I would think the radial grad would be the most important for my practical purposes.
As for Spot removal...I don't know why LR doesn't have an option to  "flatten" or perm this option. As LR has to calculate the info and from posts I have read and experience, this slows down LR significantly. Or just do it in a photo editor like Corel Paint, Gimp, and others...oh, and Photshop I think is able to do this also.

So some architecturral shooters are happy with the straighten tool, and all else is just blahh with a hic-up increase to performance. Cool.

Glen amd Rhossyd, Dreed make some good observations....
Why not have HSL in brush?
Why not have Duplicate brush?   (wish we can move the dot it makes so we can work in detail areas around it wouthout changing adjustnent. Slight peeve).
Why not more controls in the specific tools?

As far as the comparison to Capture One, yes maybe they are designed to do like functions, they go about file handling in very different ways. I find LR MUCH easier to work with than how shooting moving and managing files method works in C1.

I wonder if LR can reach the quality C1 does in processing?  I have been using LR for some lower resolution demands on subjects I normally use C1 for.... but I find Capture One to hold more detail and "clarity"...significantly more than LR ...Unless there is a processing method that matches C1? (These are files shot in studio, still life, product, that are high detail, high everything. using a digital back). maybe the file format by default limits processors of different brands, or they are simply optimised to process these files much better?

I think for a major upgrade, it should have some quality increase in the most basic job as a raw developer. Or some significant new tool for better processing at the basic level. I can wait for 5.5 or 6 to take advantage of the radial tool added.
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Schewe

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #30 on: June 17, 2013, 09:03:56 pm »

I wonder if LR can reach the quality C1 does in processing?  I have been using LR for some lower resolution demands on subjects I normally use C1 for.... but I find Capture One to hold more detail and "clarity"...significantly more than LR ...Unless there is a processing method that matches C1? (These are files shot in studio, still life, product, that are high detail, high everything. using a digital back). maybe the file format by default limits processors of different brands, or they are simply optimised to process these files much better?

The only real thing C1 can do better than LR is have a better "starting point" at default. If you are experienced in both apps (as I am) I can match LR output to be equal to or better than C1 pretty easy (because I don't care about "defaults" at all).

LR has far better sharpening and noise reduction than C1, C1 has better starting color than LR. That is partially by design. If you are shooting with a P1 back and using C1 to process, C1 has an optimized default where LR has a normalized default. C1 goes out of it's way to optimize the capture while LR simply treats as just another raw capture. If you understand the differences, then you'll understand how to do some adjustments to optimize the LR output.

And no, the file format is not a factor at all.
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vfilepp

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #31 on: June 17, 2013, 10:18:59 pm »

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: I have to agree with the posters who suggested that LR5, like every microsoft release, is in need of an update. I really liked the beta version, which worked well, now I seem to have difficulty with the cloning and brush tools being balky. Maybe its the size if the library, but I know there are many with far more images than I. The Upright tool is hit or miss (as mentioned), and while DxO's Viewpoint is much better, it cost the same as LR (I know, I missed the sale.)

So for now I proceed as best I can and wait for the updates.
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dreed

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #32 on: June 18, 2013, 02:57:54 am »

LR has far better sharpening and noise reduction than C1, C1 has better starting color than LR. That is partially by design. If you are shooting with a P1 back and using C1 to process, C1 has an optimized default where LR has a normalized default. C1 goes out of it's way to optimize the capture while LR simply treats as just another raw capture. If you understand the differences, then you'll understand how to do some adjustments to optimize the LR output.

Do you go into this in more detail in either any of the LR videos or your book? Or somewhere else?

Sometimes I think that LR4 has worse colour than LR3 due to the changes to allow it to accommodate more colour at the higher end.
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Schewe

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #33 on: June 18, 2013, 11:40:19 am »

Do you go into this in more detail in either any of the LR videos or your book? Or somewhere else?

Well, I don't do a head to head comparison between LR & C1, but I do go into great detail how to use sharpening and noise reduction in my books and tutorials. The statement I made is based on my personal experience...C1 v7 is better but it still doesn't reach LR5's capabilities.
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dreed

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #34 on: June 19, 2013, 12:49:19 am »

Well, I don't do a head to head comparison between LR & C1, but I do go into great detail how to use sharpening and noise reduction in my books and tutorials. The statement I made is based on my personal experience...C1 v7 is better but it still doesn't reach LR5's capabilities.

Sorry, I should have been more specific with my question.

Do you go into detail in either your book or videos on how to get better colour (i.e. C1 like colour?) out of LR? (I'm not so much interested in comparing LR with C1 but getting better results - especially colour - out of LR, you betcha!)
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hjulenissen

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #35 on: June 19, 2013, 02:22:38 am »

I just installed the LR5 trial and converted my database. I expect to purchase unless some compelling reason not to appears.

Subjectively feels slightly snappier (using the same hardware and the same database, converted).

Being able to press "f" for fullscreen seems like the most important update to me :-)

-h
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Phil Indeblanc

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #36 on: June 19, 2013, 02:41:42 am »

I wonder if dual screen mode finally takes advantage of what you could do in the main screen.
For instance, in Lib Mode, with the second screen in Grid mode, you can't rotate multiple images selected...among other things like this.
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Schewe

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #37 on: June 19, 2013, 02:42:00 am »

Do you go into detail in either your book or videos on how to get better colour (i.e. C1 like colour?) out of LR?

Yeah, well that's pretty much what I do...get the best image that I can from my raw captures. And...I'm pretty good at that.
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Phil Indeblanc

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #38 on: June 19, 2013, 02:50:39 am »

hehe...Yes, I think so Schewe.

1. Do you have a tweaked starting point for pushing LR to be more on the clarity of C1?
    I know different images require different settings entirely, so unless  doing like subject, or other than really working on the same file, this would be hard. But particularly for products.

2. Maybe there is some general Basic dev settings to get started with.
   I think I know how to use the sharpen tool, maybe it works much different than in C1? But, for product in C1, I would leave the radius at about .7 and then sharpen it in the 200+ range. With LR4, I know this is different,
3. I Would think the fundamentals are the same/?

4. What page is that covered on in the book(latest v)

Thanks
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Schewe

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Re: LR5: is there a compelling reason to upgrade from LR4?
« Reply #39 on: June 19, 2013, 03:15:38 am »

Maybe there is some general Basic dev settings to get started with.

Nope...there is no such thing as magic numbers...you need to have a high degree of competence in various applications to really know how to get the best of your raw captures. The LR paradyme is essentially different than any other raw processing other than ACR (which shares the same processing pipeline). What one can get out of C1 and what one can get out of LR will depend entirely on how well you can adjust the raw capture in a given app.

Quote
I Would think the fundamentals are the same/?

Nope...the fundamentals depend entirely on the algorithms being used. The controls in LR and C1 really don't relate to each other...can you get close to each other in LR & C1? Yep...but the tool set and adjustments needed are, well, completely different in nature.

As for what page? Well, the whole friggin' book...my books are all about ACR/LR (although I do show some C1 screenshots because I use C1 when I'm tethering my P1 camera).
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