Lightroom Podcast 10

[Tim Gray]

Interesting conversation with Jonsson (Pixmantec).  That will be a bit of a culture shock moving from Copenhagen to California.

One topic of conversation raised an issue I hadn't considered before.  Since LR is simply a set of processing instructions applied to the original image the challange is going to be what happens as the processing algorithms that recieve the instructions evolve.  There will have to be a fair amount of infrastructure in place to insure that what I see when I pull up a processed image today will be what I see 2 or 3 or 4 releases from now.  

This explains, in part, the need to "get it right" from the beginning since it won't be a trivial exercise to make it "better" in the future.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/07/light...podcast_10.html

[paulbk]

Tim,
You beat me to it. This is a must listen.
Click the link and go to bottom, open most recent podcast, July 24.
LightRoom mp3 podcast

[rdonson]

I've gone back and listened to the Lightroom podcast series and the point you mentioned about #10 is interesting, Tim, but I'm also fascinated by the local adjustments discussion.  

In #8 I found myself yelling, "Go, Bruce Go!"

Today I see Lightroom as:
- Library (mini DAM)
- Slideshow
- Develop
- Web
- Print

but I'm trying to rationalize the Lightroom product with all the discussion in the podcasts about the intellectual assets of Lightroom being available in the next releases of Bridge and ACR.  

While I find a lot of Lightroom fascinating and potentially quite useful (well, other than performance on Windows   ) I wonder about its product placement with regards to CS3(?).  I know I'll upgrade to CS3 whenever that might be available but I don't know if I need to buy Lightroom 1.0.

[francois]

...
One topic of conversation raised an issue I hadn't considered before.  Since LR is simply a set of processing instructions applied to the original image the challange is going to be what happens as the processing algorithms that recieve the instructions evolve.  There will have to be a fair amount of infrastructure in place to insure that what I see when I pull up a processed image today will be what I see 2 or 3 or 4 releases from now. 
...

Apple's Aperture changed its RAW conversion engine when it was updated from the initial version. A pop-up menu was added so that one can choose the engine. I guess Lightroom could use a similar feature and expand it to other image settings.

[Tim Gray]

I'm waiting to see how the demand for local adjustments gets reconciled with the "not a replacement for PS" position.

Even if we assume it will maintain the non-destructive editing model, there's still no reason why you couldn't mirror 100% of PS functionality (relevant to photography) by simply recording the stream of keystroke and mouse events and playing back as a script or macro when the image is recalled (at least no reason other than perhaps performance).

Give current and reasonably expected functionality in v1 I'll still be making the trip to PS for all my images which means still managing both the raw and subsequent tif.  And I'll still probably be printing in Qimage (the new Studio release looks intresting).

[jeffball]

Hello Tim,
I agree with you on the reconciliation of the local adjustments and PSIII.  I personally have enjoyed Lightroom and feel that I am more creative and producing higher quality RAW conversions than I was with RSP, and I loved RSP.  If LR adds local editing it will really take me a long way to total image processing within LR.  Simply adding healing/cloning tool would go a long way toward making LR more complete.  I am working more in monochrome at the present time, but Vibrance was a nice control for color work in RSP that I would love to see in LR.  For BW conversion, I really enjoy LR and the creative possibilities it affords.  It really provides a comprehensive post-visualization opportunity that I haven't found in other RAW converters and that is very enjoyable.  I tend to use a RAW converter for a lot of post-visualization for seeing what is possible with an image.   I may not utilize all of the controls of the RAW converter, but I like being able to simulate what PS can do so I can "see" the potential that is there.  I felt that Vibrance did a nice job of simulating the effects I would get by utilizing Joseph Holmes various chroma color spaces to increase or decrease saturation.  I think it is an exciting time and LR will probably only get better.  Take care.
Jeff

[rdonson]

I think there are some other converters that do local adjustments so if Adobe is to keep up with the Joneses....    

I'm with you on using PS and Qimage (just updated to the new version and will probably upgrade from Pro to Studio) although to be fair I will test LR Printing once they have a beta with good color mgmt.