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Given some comments I’ve read with in my Lightroom 2 review “Adobe Lightroom 2.0 - First Impressions That Impress” and across the web I thought it would be a good idea to share some Lightroom 2 optimization tips I’ve recently found. Hopefully this information and the respective web sites this information was found on will prove to be helpful for those that have made the plunge with their Lightroom upgrade. With out further ado here are…
4 Ways to Boost Lightroom 2 Performance
1. Drive Space
Have as much free space as possible on your start-up hard drive. If you don’t know how much free space you have check the Volume Browser.
Tip - The Volume Browser - Matt Kloskowski at Adobe Photoshop Killer Lightroom Tips
Although dated information and not Lightroom 2 specifi the core message is a good one…
Quickly clear space by deleting PSD files that you accumulate over time. Granted you’ll want to back them up first. Friday Tip - PSDs and Drive Space - via Matt K. again at APKLT.
2. Catalog Optimization
Utilize the Catalog Optimization feature (after backing up your catalog) and adjust the Preview Cache to the appropriate resolution. If you don’t need Metadata suggestions deactivate it to help boost performance.
Note: Changing the preview size will not impact existing images in Lightroom. To apply these changes to existing preview images use Library -> Previews -> Discard 1:1 Previews menu item. This can take a while so it might be best to conduct this overnight depending on the size of your catalog. Also note that such optimization steps need to be applied to each individual catalog you may have.
Lightroom Tip#17: Speeding Up LR 2.0 Catalogs - Outdoor Images Fine Art
3. Camera Raw Cache
Every time you open an image in Camera Raw the full resolution of the image must be loaded into Camera Raw…as you can imagine, this can be pretty processor intensive…the Camera Raw cache will cache recently opened images to make re-opening them faster. There’s a preference limit to determine the size and the cache will remain constant in size by flushing out older cache files when newer images are loaded into Camera Raw.
In the Camera Raw preferences, you can choose how large a cache to allow, where it is stored and you can purge the cache from there. If you have a large amount of free disk space on your drive, I would actually suggest increasing the cache for improved performance. If space is tight (like on a laptop) you can reduce the cache preference.
I would not be inclined to flush the cache if you have a lot of drive space…in fact I would suggest increasing the cache amount–if performance is important to you…
- Jeff Schewe via Luminous Landscape Forum
4. Viewing in Develop mode vs Library Grid mode
For example, on one of my catalogs, I only ever look in Grid mode if I’m in the Library module, or I’m switching to Develop module (which reads the full res file anyway), so on that catalog I have the smallest lowest quality previews - I don’t need anything bigger.
On another catalog, I often view the images in Loupe mode on a 23″ high res screen, so those I have set to a large preview and a medium quality.
When you say you’re having to wait 10 seconds for a preview to show up, I’m guessing you’re in Develop module? The thing you need to understand about that is that it first shows the preview file, then does a quick read of the raw file, frees up the sliders, and then finishes reading the raw file properly. Your preview setting will only affect the very first view you see, and after that it’s down to disc read speed, whereas in Library module you are viewing the previews you’ve already created. Best thing you can do in Library module is to render previews before you start looking at the files, either in the Import dialog or by selecting all and using Library menu > Previews > Render Standard Previews.
- Victoria Bampton - Lightroomforums.net
2 Quick Productivity Tips:
1. Use Shortcuts
Use Keyboard Shortcuts Mac Version (PDF) and Windows version (PDF) via “The Lightroom Queen” Victoria Bampton
2. Regularly Back Up Your Catalog(s)
Lightroom > Catalog Settings > General - Back Up Catalog
Once a copy has been made be sure to back it up to reliable media whether a second drive to keep off-site or to a DVD. Nothing can impact productivity more than losing your catalog.
.
Known Incompatibility Issues:
Nvidia 9600GT sluggishness with 3D Settings
3D Settings > Manage 3D Settings > Global Settings > Multi-display/mixed GPU Acceleration
By default it should be multiple display performance mode. Change this to a single display performance mode.
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Lightroom 2, performance, tips, optimization
The much-awaited Adobe Lightroom 2.0 was released July 29th after a brief 4 month Beta period. With out hesitation, for reasons I’ll explain later, I upgraded my copy of Lightroom to version 2 the day it was announced. Now that I’ve had a chance to use the application in real world conditions for the past week I wanted to share my impressions of it.
Since Lightroom went into its initial Beta I’ve been sold on the concept of non-destructive editing of my RAW files. Lightroom 1.0 for all intents and purposes was a great first step combining a state of the art RAW converter, basic digital asset management technology and thanks to Phil Clevenger a revolutionary user interface. Additional functionality to ease printing and web gallery output rounded out the application. Streamlined to help photographers more quickly manage large and small quantities of photography alike Lightroom’s release still seemed to confuse some diehard Photoshop users. What about localized edits and masks? For that Lightroom 1.0 users would still need to rely on Photoshop, initiating the editing of a file in Lightroom and working on a copy in Photoshop. All in all a great first step but far from reaching it’s full potential.
Enter Lightroom 2.0, building on the applications core functionality non-destructive photo editing has been taken to the next level. In version 2 the strengths of each core function has been enhanced. The new features that are making the biggest impact in my day-to-day use of the program include:
Smart Collections
This feature single-handedly was the biggest reason behind my upgrade. When I learned this feature was in Lightroom 2 Beta I knew I would upgrade to version 2 immediately. The manual collections with in the first version of Lightroom were helpful, but severely limiting. More times than I can count I’ve needed to generate collections based on specific keywords (location, subject, etc.), date or rating. The ability to dynamically pull together collections of images across multiple photo sets is incredibly helpful and a huge time saver. This is especially true when looking to create a new collection or build out existing collections as new photos are added to an image library.
Local Adjustments
Lightroom 1.x was all about global adjustments such as color correction, curve adjustments, vignetting, etc. Lightroom 2 now has the ability to apply local adjustments through the following editing tools: Crop Overlay tool, Spot Removal brush, Red Eye Correction tool, Graduated Filter mask, and Adjustment Brushes mask. The Crop Overlay tool provides a quick means of cropping and even leveling ones photo. The Spot Removal brush has been enhanced to clone or heal with a user defined opacity. The Red Eye Correction tool now provides a drag and correct feature to customize the shape of the correction area. The Graduated Filter mask enables gradient-based masks to adjust exposure, brightness, etc. (more on this below). Finally the Adjustment Brush mask enables you through a brush tool to adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness, color and even skin softness.
Knowing Adobe I can see the types of Local Adjustment tools expanding in the future and/or having the existing tools refined further. For images that require minor edits or tweaks these editing tools give photographers a greater degree of flexibility and saves time in cutting out the need to use Photoshop for relatively basic types of edits. I wasn’t missing localized edits too badly in the first version of Lightroom, but now that I have them at my fingertips I don’t know how I lived with out them.
Graduated Filter Masks
This local adjustment tool is worthy of noting individually due to the broad impact it likely will have on my work and the work of others. Managing scenes with a dynamic range beyond the capabilities of a cameras film or sensor has troubled photographers for decades. These days people are increasingly using HDR to deal with this or are double-processing RAW files. For those like myself that prefer pre-processing techniques Graduated Neutral Density Filters have been the solution.
The Graduated Filter masks provide a means to handle an image in a similar fashion to both double-processing and the use of Graduated Neutral Density filters. A Graduated Filter mask(s) can be applied adjusting exposure and/or brightness. Rather than processing the same RAW file twice to double-process or use a Graduated Neutral Density filter when taking a photo one can simply apply the appropriate mask to balance the exposure. It should be noted these masks aren’t just limited to exposure and brightness adjustments. Graduated filter masks can also be applied for contrast, saturation, clarity, and sharpness adjustments.
Does this function equate to the death knell of Graduated Neutral Density filters? I would argue no. Being able to manage light before it reaches ones film or sensor will never go out of style. Certainly use of the Graduated Filter mask can only help, but for my line of work it’s not a replacement. Over time perhaps my tune will change. In the meantime I look forward to experimenting with this adjustment tool to find its limits and sweet spot of use.
Centralized UI for Editing Tools
From a User Interface (UI) perspective the already streamlined Lightroom interface has been improved. When in the “Develop” module of the application, editing tools used for local adjustments are now tightly centralized in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Having the Crop Overlay tool, Spot Removal brush, Red Eye Correction tool, Graduated Filter mask, and Adjustment Brushes mask in one consistent location is a real time saver particularly if using a large monitor or dual screens.
Volume Management
Lightroom 2 now has a more intuitive means of visually displaying photo directories on their respective hard drives and the status of the drive to let you know if the files can be accessed. Seemingly simple in concept this was lacking in the first version of the application and was a pet peeve of mine. In the original version of Lightroom it was a common occurrence to navigate through your library find a photo set, load the set to view image previews, click on an image and then be told the image was off-line. For those with photos stored across multiple drives the inclusion of this feature now makes it easier to identify where content resides and whether or not the drive is connected or turned on saving you time and frustration.
CS3 Integration
Expanding on the “Edit in Adobe Photoshop” feature it is now possible in Lightroom 2 to select photographs and “Open as Smart Object in Photoshop”, “Merge to Panorama in Photoshop”, “Merge to HDR in Photoshop” or “Open as Layers in Photoshop”. Clearly the big take away from these added functions are Adobe’s willingness to streamline more complex image creation. I don’t expect Lightroom to pick up built-in HDR or Panoramic functionality, but the fact it is now easier and faster to utilize this functionality in Photoshop is worthy of praise.
Multiple Display Support
The majority of photographers dream of having a computer setup utilizing multiple monitors. For those lucky enough to have a multiple monitor configuration on their workstation or laptop this feature will make you very happy. In this version of Lightroom Adobe took multiple monitor support one step further by providing 4 multiple display functions to assist in image sorting, ranking and comparison. The multiple display functions include Grid, Loupe, Compare and Survey.
These display options should sound familiar as they’re the same display options available in the default single monitor mode. The loupe view for the second monitor does include 3 viewing mode options: Normal, Live and Locked. The Normal mode displays the same image on both monitors with the option to set a different zoom ratio. This is helpful when evaluating subtle edits. The Live mode turns the second monitor into one large loupe displaying the portion of the image your cursor is over in the scaled original on the main monitor. The Locked mode displays a fixed size preview of an image on the second monitor. Changing the image requires the use of keyboard commands “alt/option and Enter”.
Enhanced Sharpness Tool
The ability to make localized adjustments for sharpness is another time saving function, but what really makes this function note worthy is the ability to utilize Auto Masks. After specifying your brush size, edge softness and flow rate you can activate the “Auto Mask” option. When active brush strokes are confined to areas of similar color. This works particularly well when keeping sharpness adjustments to specific objects with in your image. As with other localized adjustments a circular point will mark the spot of the completed adjustment. Mousing over the circular point will activate a highlight of the effected area.
Other Features of Note
- 64-bit processing support - For those with the latest Mac OS and Windows systems Lightroom will take advantage of their advanced memory handling capabilities.
- Print Packages - Quickly choose and customize print package layouts to conserve paper and ink.
- Output Sharpening - Select from sharpening presets for different types of print and web output.
- Enhanced Batch Processing - In addition to naming and organizing photos on import from your CF cards it is now possible to apply preset adjustments.
- Camera Profiles - Lightroom 2 (and Camera RAW 4.5) now support alternate camera profiles that can be loaded and referenced in the Camera Calibration panel. Profiles that match camera manufacturer color appearances such as Canon’s Picture Styles (Standard, Landscape, Neutral, Portrait and Faithful) could be applied via this feature.
Concluding Thoughts
The Adobe Lightroom team has been exceptionally busy the past several months and they’ve done an exceptional job in hearing their users via the Beta program. Lightroom 2 has been one of the best upgrades I’ve invested in over the past year or two. As Lightroom improves so too does my end product and overall productivity. As a photographer striving to make the most of his limited time Lightroom has proven to be an essential asset.
Adobe Lightroom Features and Shortcuts - Lightroom Journal
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Lightroom 2, Lightroom, software, review
One of the best-kept secrets when it comes to making dynamic photo slide shows is Fotomagico. Fotomagico makes creating professional level presentations incredibly easy. I’ve been using Fotomagico since version 2.0 and since that time Boinx Software have been regularly releasing updates. Just this past week version 2.5 was released introducing some key enhancements.
Before getting too focused on the new enhancements its important to note what Fotomagico is and is not. Fotomagico is a presentation application for professional photographers. The software enables photographers to create dynamic viewing experiences with greater control and creativity than many other applications. Various display effects combined with music provide a means to wow your audience. Presentations can be exported for use on the web, DVDs, podcasts, etc. Fotomagico is an application for Apple computers (sorry PC users) and leverages Apple QuickTime. Two versions of the software are available including an Express and Pro version.
Features added in version 2.5 that are noteworthy include:
- Adobe Lightroom Support - FotoMagico 2.5 now supports the iMedia Browser framework
- Teleprompter - FotoMagico 2.5 Pro users can show their photos on one display and read their notes for every slide on another.
- YouTube Export - The Sharing Assistant feature adds a new export option, allowing to upload photo presentation videos directly to YouTube.
- Standalone Player - Self-contained movies can now be saved from Fotomagico presentations enabling a broader audience the ability to view presentations created with the software.
- Apple Screensavers - With the click of a button presentations can now be saved as screensavers.
- Watermark Layer - Custom branding slideshows is now possible with the addition of a flexible and persistent graphic layer.
I should note that in addition to the afore mentioned export features one can save out presentations via preset optimized settings for web , iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, HD, QuickTime and MP4 movies. These preset optimization settings make life very easy when you’re looking to produce presentations in a timely fashion.
This weekend I took the time to put Fotomagico 2.5 through its paces and as with previous versions I was impressed. Creating a presentation is simple. To do so you can either click and drag images to the project window from the Finder or from a pull down menu you can choose from image sets or collections with in iMedia Browser framework compatible applications such as iPhoto or Lightroom. The project window is intuitively designed and application menus are laid out in a very logical order. A general example of how the application works is available thanks to TroyPhoto via YouTube.
I put together two sample presentations to quickly show what is possible. The first video features some select photographs from my portfolio that were manually placed into the slideshow along with a custom watermark.
Landscape Photography by Jim M. Goldstein
Note: New link provided to higher resolution version
In the second video, photos from my recent trip to Utah and Wyoming were used from Lightroom 2.0:
Fotomagico 2.5.1 Lightroom Test
I did run into one snag with the Lightroom test. Fotomagico seemed to reference libraries on the startup drive only. My main Lightroom library is kept on an external drive for the time being and as a result I was not able to pull from it. I had to track down my local library and use images with in it. At the moment there does not seem to be a way to manually designate Lightroom libraries or any other application libraries if they exist outside of ones startup drive. Although an inconvenience a work around was possible. As new versions of Fotomagico are released I’m sure this will be addressed.
Fotomagico is a great application that I’ve used in the past and will continue to use in the future. If you’re a photographer who uses Apple computers I highly recommend Fotomagico. The application has several strengths including its simplified user interface and overall ease of use. The export options provide photographers an avenue of creating content for a variety of uses. The Boinx team has proven to have an eye for the future keeping pace with modern demands. I will admit I do wish there was the ability to directly export Flash video. For the time being if in need of Flash video one will have to make due with viewing exported movies to YouTube.
All that being said Fotomagico is well worth trying, but be warned in doing so you’ll quickly find how easy and powerful the application is. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself buying a copy as the Express version is only $49 and the Pro version is $129.
Technorati Tags: Fotomagico, review, photography
Some very exciting services and applications launched today including a new search engine Cuil.com and Adobe Lightroom 2. Having used Adobe Lightroom 2 Beta I’ve been very impressed and opted to buy Lightroom 2 at the first notice of its availability. Unfortunately after purchasing the Lightroom 2 Upgrade per the install PDF I was unable to get the program started. I was not given the option to reference my existing install and my Lightroom 1.0 serial number was not considered valid. Later I received an email that provided the upgrade serial number. Once entered then my old serial number was entered and then the application loaded. If only the install notes set my expectations correctly. Adobe gets the Good and the Bad reference in my post.
The Ugly is reserved for the new search engine Cuil. Cuil was getting tons of press today and was being blindly praised as the new kid on the block to challenge Google. As most found out today who tried Cuil it was far from impressive and probably could be considered to have one of the worst Web 2.0 lauches of all time. Why the hate on Cuil?
As noted in my first observation of the search engine via my post on FriendFeed:
“Not very impressed with Cuil.com and the seemingly random association of photos to results. Very confusing”
I wasn’t alone in thinking so. Later as I delved into the search engine even more I became even more troubled. When searching for my name in Cuil I knew it wouldn’t be pretty. There are two other Jim Goldstein’s that come up often when searching my name. Lucky for me! One is Jim Goldstein and his Band of Angels. Doh! The other is an eccentric Jim Goldstein with a house often featured in architecture magazines and in sports magazines due to his fanatical attendance to various pro basketball games. Flip a coin as to which is most inappropriate to my photography oriented web site. Sure enough the architecture/basketball Jim Goldstein has his image associated with my web site in Cuil search results. Even worse someone else’s photo of the Golden Gate Bridge is associated with a commercial site of mine.
My two biggest complaints…
First I don’t want another persons photo associated with my web site. The last thing I need is someone confusing my site with that of some eccentric.
Second I don’t want my commercial efforts being negatively impacted because inferior photography is being displayed and randomly associated with my commercial site.
I wrote Cuil about my concerns and due to the frenetic nature of their launch today they never wrote back. If and when they do I’ll follow up on this post. I later found out through another post that they were blaming much of what was being perceived as inaccurate results on technical problems due to a larger than expected spike in traffic. See Cuil shows us how not to launch a search engine via CNET
Today definitely wasn’t dull. Upgrade problems aside Lightroom 2 is worth a look and if you’re a glutton for punishment check out Cuil.com to see what kind of whacky results are being tied together for your site or photography.
Technorati Tags: Cuil, Lightroom, upgrade, search, technology, software
8
Jun
Posted in Photography, Software, Technology by Jim |
This weekend has been well for lack of a better term miserable. I’ve burned 90% of my weekend trying to figure out what has been causing some very odd behavior on my computer, as noted in my previous post Beware OS X 10.5.3 Bug That Destroys Adobe PSD Files. So what could I possibly be doing that has taken up so much of my time this weekend sorting through this mess?
First based on the corruption and disappearance of files on my production drive I’ve lost all faith in my previous OS and application setup. 10.5.3 and Adobe CS3 are not playing nice together. As a result I needed to generate a working environment that I could trust. Previously I had no problems working with CS3 in OS X 10.4.11. I decided to backup my second internal hard drive, erase it and install OS X 10.4 (AKA Tiger). That took quite a bit of time as the drive was full with about 230GB of data. Once backed up I tried installing 10.4 off the install disks only to face repeated kernel panics. I then tried to start up off of the 10.5 install disk also to face kernel panics. Eventually I was able to install 10.4 on my computer (a G5 Quad with 4GB RAM) by hooking it up to my older G4 workstation in target mode (essentially as an external drive). I then installed 10.4 and tried to restart it only to face another kernel panic. I got the G5 back in target mode and upgraded the 10.4 to 10.4.11. I was then able to restart my G5 on its own under Tiger (10.4) versus Leopard (10.5). It would seem that somewhere between 10.4 and 10.5.3 a change was made altering the firmware for my G5… I can only guess that is what happened to cause the kernel panics. After getting my computer up and running on its own I had to spend the time installing all my applications again. At a minimum I had to get CS3 with updates and Lightroom in place to get my work done this coming week.
That only took all of Saturday and into Sunday late afternoon.
Second I started down the path of digital detective to find out if things now work with out further corruption. Is it a bug with CS3 and 10.5.3 or is it a corrupt external hard drive. It’s now 11PM on Sunday and I still don’t have a definitive answer. With various tests conducted I’m not seeing any problems in 10.4.11 and I’ll need to go back in and test some file alterations in 10.5.3.
One thing is clear though being your own IT person is the pits. Over 2 days wasted not getting work done that I need to tackle. I’m not happy about it and its yet to be determined whether my frustration is going to be directed at Adobe, Apple or my hard drive manufacturer. Through it all I’m actually fortunate because even though I lost a weeks worth of work my paranoia and backup strategy has proven to be viable. I don’t have to go back very far to replace the files that are now corrupt or missing. It should be interesting to talk to Adobe technical support in the coming day or two.
Digital imaging… it sure is a time saver.
Technorati Tags: Adobe, CS3, Apple, 10.5.3, OS X, bug, photography
11
May
Posted in Software, Technology by Jim |
For some strange reason I started to experience really odd behavior with Adobe Lightroom this weekend. In the end I burned a good portion of my weekend dealing with reviving Lightroom rather than working on my photographs. This made me a very unhappy camper as I’ve been short on time to catch up on post-processing. How far this will set me back I have no idea, but its not going to be a short amount of time as my schedule is growing increasingly busy. What I’ve since learned is that I was not alone in dealing with this dilemma over the weekend. I’ve since read up that Dawn Armfield and Raoul Pop experienced problems recently. Raoul ended up putting out a video detailing how to fix his specific problem (Dealing with a corrupted previews catalog in Lightroom).
So what was the deal? I started up Lightroom only to have nothing appear. Thats right nothing, yet my computer (Apple G5 Quad with 4GB RAM running 10.4.x and Lightroom 1.3.1) showed that it was running. I tried looking online for all kinds of information describing this problem and ended up pushing forward with a much delayed upgrade to OS X 10.5 and Lightroom 1.4.1.
After backing up my internal drives and completing the upgrades I started up my computer only to experience the same weird behavior. Only this time the program was indeed running, just with no windows open. None of my catalogs (original or backup) could be opened via File > Open. In fact when doing so I received the following error “Error on Mac: An error occurred when attempting to change modules.”
I searched online with limited results but eventually found this thread of discussion aptly titled “Error on Mac: An error occurred when attempting to change modules.” Nothing worked until I brought over my last backed up catalog from another drive. The application still would not open it via File > Open, but being on an Apple computer I was able to drag the catalog to the application icon and it opened finally. Once open, per the support thread noted above, I went to “File > Catalog Settings > Relaunch and Optimize”. This seemed to do the trick once I got my catalog open. The challenge was getting it open in the first place. Such a pain in the ass.
Only after I got Lightroom up and running and ranting on Twitter did I learn that others were also having this problem. Seeing as how nothing changed on my computer when this first started and continued to be a problem even after my upgrades I’m wondering what could have caused the problem. Watching Raoul’s video I noticed something we have in common. We’re both using mirrored drives. I also noticed in the support thread that I found that many Apple computer users were experiencing similar problems while using external FW800 drives. I myself am using two external FW800 drives. My primary catalog is stored on my un-mirrored non-FW internal drive so I have no idea what the cause is. It is possible that I had a problem at some point and had to hard shut down the computer or the drives and perhaps that contributed to the problem. Either way I hope that Adobe is able to put out a fix and/or if you happen to experience this problem (or one that is similar) my experience helps you save a few hours of aggravation.
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop, Lightroom, corrupt, catalog, error
9
Apr
Posted in Photography, Software, Technology by Jim |
Over the past week I’ve received a few inquiries from readers wondering whether I use Apple’s Aperture or Adobe’s Lightroom. The answer… I use Lightroom. The decision is rooted back when Aperture was first released and Adobe put Lightroom out as a Beta. At the time I was about to purchase Aperture, but before I did I went to MacWorld to get a little more information on it. The 2006 MacWorld was one of the best ever because there was a huge push around photography so there were tons of organizations and software manufacturers that would have otherwise never been there. When I talked to an Apple rep about Aperture I asked questions around…
- How well does Aperture integrate with Photoshop?
- What color space does Aperture use?
- How flexible is the “vault” for image storage?
These three questions sunk my interest in Aperture.
How well does Aperture integrate with Photoshop?
Well it turns out at the time that it didn’t very well. I don’t recall the exact details but combined with the answer to the next question I felt the two didn’t play as nicely together as I would have hoped.
What color space does Aperture use?
This is what really turned me off. At the time Apple was using a custom color space that they created. When I talked to the Apple rep about this he was telling me how it supported more colors blah blah blah. When I asked him what hardware supported this color space he couldn’t answer. It all amounted to Apple creating a color space that went to 11 (a la Spinal Tap the movie). The only thing that he could say was that it must tie in to their on-demand print service. The discussion left me wary and unimpressed as most photographers at the time had begun to accept Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB as the standard color space to use.
How flexible is the “vault” for image storage?
At the time the “vault” storage model was very inflexible. The “vault” was tied to one drive. If that drive failed you were SOL and there wasn’t a meaningful system to back up the “vault” at the time. I believe Apple has since fixed this, but too little too late as far as I’m concerned.
So pretty straight forward about Apple’s Aperture… why Lightroom?
Lightroom was beta at the time and it too had its limitations, but…
1. Its ability to port files over to Photoshop with little hiccup was a big selling point to me. For the type of photography I focus on I still need to make localized edits in Photoshop.
2. The ability to start off with non-destructive edits and the space savings that afforded was huge.
3. Keywording and metadata… I really liked the system Adobe set up for this. Having a database to query and pulling images with certain keywords was huge. By the time the beta wrapped there was a backup mechanism in place as well.
4. Post-beta Adobe threw in mapping dust spot removal so you could carry over spot removal from one image to another, they expanded their web export features and they expanded the functionality of their RAW converter.
Additional feedback I heard from other pros was that Aperture had very unintuitive controls and this matched up pretty well to my initial demo experience at MacWorld.
Honestly I have no allegiance to one or the other. I’ll use the best tool available, but at the time Adobe had the edge even though it was beta and not all the features were baked in yet. As a result I’ve been on the Lightroom bandwagon ever since. Adobe did just release Lightroom 2 Beta and they’re expanding their feature set to include Smart Collections which is another huge feature I’ve been looking for & they’re expanding they types of non-destructive edits that you can make. Apple has never been open about their software so Adobe’s transparency and beta program makes it easier to stick with their software.
That’s the history behind my choice to use Lightroom.
What do you use and what factored into your decision?
Technorati Tags: Adobe, Lightroom, Apple, Aperture, software, photography, application, beta, post-processing, post, processing
Last week I discussed the Adobe Photoshop Express terms of use (ToU) and how the wording was nothing short of a rights grab (see Adobe Photoshop Express & The Mindless Photo Rights Grab). By weeks end John Nack posted an update, regarding the ToU, that “the Photoshop Express team has made some changes”.
Reading the paraphrased revisions on John’s blog post alleviated what concerns I had, but when I read the revised ToU I was left scratching my head wondering what the hell I just read.
First John’s post linked to the General ToU which I think has edits, but they’re not marked so I can’t be sure what they are. Text as seen at the top of the General ToU:
Last Updated on April 3, 2008.
Changes are not marked in red. Please read entire document. Please also note that these revised Terms will apply to all of Your Content as of the Effective Date.
If you do not agree with these revised Terms, please remove Your Content from the Service by the Effective Date.
What people need to certainly reread is the Adobe Photoshop Express Additional Terms of Use which has (2) two edits. On this page I get the edit about advertisements in Section 10, but I’m left confused by the most important edit to Section 8.
8. Use of Your Content.
- Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, and unless otherwise specifically agreed in any Additional Terms that might accompany individual services (such as Photoshop.com/Express), you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.
I’ve reread this at least ten times and each time and the edit in red makes about as much sense as when I read it the first time. Didn’t I just read this in the “Additional Terms of Use”? Why is the Additional ToU referring to the Additional ToU? Is this not circular loop? I still don’t see how this matches up to the paraphrased note from the Photoshop Express team as noted on John Nack’s blog.
- Adobe’s Rights - Adobe has retained only those limited rights that allow us to operate the service and to enable you to do all the things the service offers. If you decide to terminate your Photoshop Express account, Adobe’s rights also will be terminated. We don’t claim ownership of your content and won’t sell your images.
- Shared Content – We clearly state the rights you’re granting other users when you choose to publicly share Your Content.
Although the edit in red still confuses the hell out of me one element of my confusion was addressed, but only after some detective work. What isn’t in the edited license is (6) striked out words that were in the previous version of the ToU “derive revenue or other remuneration from”. Previously in the context of…
…you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content…
With these words out of the ToU I can see how the claims in John Nack’s post “We don’t claim ownership of your content and won’t sell your images.” are valid.
Perhaps this all makes sense to a lawyer, but the edit to the ToU was hardly an easy thing to figure out and to be honest I’m still not 100% on what the edit now means. At least the “distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from” text has been removed.
Once again this goes to show…
1. Terms of Use are hardly readable to the common user.
2. The photo community rallying for their rights can instigate change.
Now if only Adobe could make these edits a little more clear so they’re as easy to understand as the paraphrased text in John Nack’s blog post.
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