P: Ability to invert negative scans to positives (color and black-and-white)

I can think of 2 very GOOD reasons why Adobe doesn't want to add negative conversion. 1-costs developer time that's best used to make the damn program work right (V10, I'm looking at you!) 2- it makes an already huge resource hog (as it's a huge program) even bigger, taking up more and more RAM memory to run effectively (and the bigger they are, the harder they fall).

@steve_lehman 

Obviously you don't use or like Lightroom.  Most of your comments refer to Lightroom as it existed 6-8 years ago - not the current version of Lightroom Classic.  It's a pretty good editor - far better suited for most people than Photoshop Elements or Photoshop.

Is certainly viable for photographers to choose the editing tools they prefer.  Photoshop is a good editor for some workflows.  Elements can be used for some things, but that's still another piece of software.   

The entire reason for this discussion is for a group of us to propose a reasonable enhancement in a program we use regularly - Lightroom.  

The big advantage of negative processing as a Lightroom enhancement is it fits into existing workflows.  That means it supports non-destructive editing and eliminates duplicate files or making copies in different formats most of the time.  Lightroom also has a very good catalog functions with collections and other tools to support organization.

If we have LRC we have Photoshop, which is easy to invert also. But it's debayered, not raw.

True, but no use for a raw, non-destructive workflow.

My Nikon D850 has negative inversion built-in. Converts to jpgs in camera.

Bob frost

Anthony,

Photoshop Elements (Editor) has Filter>Invert to change slides from a negative to a positive and even back again, no matter if its in color or gray~scale.  The Editor has always been the mainstay and Light Room sometimes came along with Photoshop Elements as an add-on.  You guys are wishing upon a star for something that has already been made long ago.  Adobe will not include this inverter in Light Room, it's appropriate for Light Room which is  a basic developer and catalog program. 

Light Room only has light's and dark's but no editing.  You guys are asking about an inverter which is already a filer>Inverter in Elements in the Editor. 

Buy Photoshop Elements and get more bang for your buck and you will have the Inverter for slides and everything else as well.  I will not participate further, and will not further comment, this string is far below my aptitude.  

Steve Lehman, mcse and photography editor.  

I still fail to understand why the Adobe LrC development team are so reluctant to add this feature after all this time - 9 years Almost as old as Lightroom itself.

The open-source raw software Darktable 3.2.1 now has a module that handles colour negatives, so why is it so difficult for the clever Adobe software engineers?

Here are some screen shots of Darktable and a DSLR 'scanned' film colour negative processed with one click!

Not a bad start.

Functionality like this would be so good to have built into the core of LrC. Living in hope.

Incidentally, I forgot -- Using tools like Negative Lab Pro do not allow Face Recognition (and probably lots of useful tools) to work properly.  Again, not knocking NLP, it's a fundamental issue in Lightroom that needs an improvement.

Linwood is right.  If it can work as a plugin, why not add it as a Lightroom feature?  I'd like the integrated catalog, the non-destructive RAW editing, the ability to make virtual copies for different edits, etc.  

This is a feature request - a feature that is useful enough that people pay $99 for a third party solution.

*carlos_cardona I own it and like it and it is a good solution, but it is not the "right" solution. Earlier inversion so the lightroom sliders function correctly would be a solution truly integrated with lightroom rather than tacked on.  I like the plugin in that it allows me to keep raw, and not convert to TIFF, but it's still a kludge.   A very nice kludge worth the money; but Adobe should tackle this need.  They really missed the boat while so many people are home, often digitizing.