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

LR was meant as an add-on for Elements and Photoshop - not to keep adding functions onto it as if it was the only app to use.  In LR every setting is in half-steps compared to Photoshop so you get more to use, as you can dim or brighten in half steps. 

A link was added between LR and Photoshop.  LR remains to be what it is, an added measure to blend colors better.  Photoshop should be the one to use for your camera and LR should be your advanced blender or digital developer.  Those who have LR don't know how its to be utilized with the other Adobe apps.  You need to reach out to other apps to make everything work for you.  

Your question is like saying, why can't we have Windows as a slave to another package say, Word?  We can have Word be the go-to for EVERYTHING and Windows will just be out there somewhere for some other reason.    

The answer to that is, exact that.  Windows is out there - tying in all the apps to make all of them work together.  If you had ALL of the Office Production products from Microsoft, you would see lots of tools that do things you never thought of before.  It's the same as Photoshop or Elements tying all of the other apps together with it. 

Thing is, a lot of you are complaining because you never learned how to use them together.  Now you only want ONE to work everything for you when it should be the other way around. 

LR alone is NOT a useful tool compared to Elements and Photoshop and should have all of them working for you, together.  LR is lacking in many ways and none of you have really found the best of the two types of apps.  None of you have seen Elements in the same way the rest of us have.  Maybe you got used to the Elite class of Elements but never got to the PRO or advance class to know all the tools in Elements and especially a full version of Photoshop which has all of it in one app combined.   

Some of you have and you are still complaining that you are lacking tools which you probably haven't seen before which are actually in Photoshop.  If all of you had a full version of Photoshop you would find ALL of the tools there, like in Elements but MORE plus a converter for RAW to TIFF right in Photoshop.  DARE to spend more money for something greater- to get tools you will never have in Elements and you will NEVER have in LR. 

But all of you don't want to spend any money for them.  And THAT'S the real problem.  You'd rather have one that is cheaper.  Then you want it to be added onto so you can keep the cheap app and not spend any money. 

Adobe didn't push you into buying apps. YOU did.  But none of you are getting all of the tools you are looking for because you have never seen the full Photoshop.  If you had, you would NOT complain about ANYTHING and you would have ALL of the tools to do EVERYTHING.   

I'm not selling you apps.  I am settling a problem that you created by only using ONE app and getting so intense into it, that you won't buy another.  And you know they all work together but you don't want to spend the money to get the extra tools you want.  

So here's the bottom line - nobody is going to shape your app into a custom app that only YOU want.  No developer is going to work into it something other than it is already.  If you want more, you need to buy it because it is already made for you. Spend more money to get what you want.  Stop trying to manipulate a developer into putting something into LR that is already out there, in another app.   

SL

But why is it such a big issue if Adobe add the functionality in LR? Wouldn't that be easier for all instead of living with a workaround? Why is it being protested? It's not a bad thing to want a better way? If/ when this is provided and some feel the need to be less efficient, then they can continue to do so. 

LR was made to work with Elements as well.  And, Elements can convert RAW to TIFF with a DNG converter.  Also, having the full Photoshop you do not need LR or Elements DNG to convert RAW to TIFF.  And working with both apps is not a problem with most of us professionals who have many apps to work with.  But having the many apps as the rest of us do, WE don't need LR or Elements.  But we have them and WE know how to manipulate them further than you have described. 

So it's no skin off my nose.  I can get along with MY Photoshop very well, as the rest of us are more experienced.  Eight years?  I have been using Adobe products since 1992.  I was also on the Microsoft team when we developed PictureIT which was a bomb.  Before that I was on loan to Adobe as test engineer.  It was either that or be sent to marketing to teach technology which I did later anyway.  That's where the send ya when you're busy teaching the other engineers in development.  I am NOT in Adobe's development team, now.  

We don't have to be a rocket scientist to work these apps just have enough patience to work them.  I have intense patience.  The rest of you appear to not have that.  AND I will say what I want according to the 1st Amendment but thanks for the opp.  

Steve Lehman Windows MCSE engineer   

I have already demonstrated a year ago, with an example posted in this discussion, just how poor a result you get for digitised colour negatives using the round trip of Lightroom RAW to Photoshop TIFF and back to Lightroom TIFF.

All that is being asked for is the addition of native Lightroom functions to (1) Invert a colour image and (2) remove the orange Colour Mask. These need to be separate functions so that digitised B&W negatives can also be handled. Both must be applied early in the RAW processing pipeline to allow Lr Develop adjustments to work correctly. Including these two functions in Lr would allow users to maintain an uninterrupted RAW workflow for Lr processing of 'camera scanned' colour and B&W film/glass plate/etc. negatives.

I think that most Lr users who have contributed to this discussion over the past 8 years are very well aware that PS and PSE have an invert function, so continuing to suggest this as a viable alternative is not helpful.

You have your way and I have mine.  I don't mind working with PSE.  It will launch from LR and yes, I have LR and PSE in many versions, plus 5 others.  I am patient enough to wait for it to launch.  I heard all this the first time and didn't need 5 of you to tell me the same repeat of what Linwood said.  Thanks Linwood for your feedback.  

Among other things, Negative Lab Pro provides setting sliders that work as expected (i.e. it re-inverts the sliders), ameliorating the simple hack of inverting tone curves. (But still not as good as having it built-in.)

I watched the plugin you linked to and it inverts the Tone Curve too, just like the kludge we have now.  

Agreed - the whole point of LR is to have an efficient, non-destructive workflow.  IF a plug-in from another company can handle this feature, it's a prime candidate for Adobe to add this feature to LR.  While I own Elements, the last thing I want to do is needlessly have to create a TIFF and go to Elements to edit a basic negative.

"Extra hits don't mean anything to me."

Steve, but it does to everyone else replying in this post. What you're suggesting is a destructive workflow. The request being made here is for a true raw data invert function internal to LR that does not break the non-destructive workflow.

Steve, not sure which direction you mean.  If you mean that you don't mind going through the invert-to-positive-TIFF, OK, I get it.  And that indeed works fine, just more disk, more circuitous. But it works.  If that's your desire, great.  Doesn't mean that is the only possibility.

If you mean more work in LR to invert manually, it's more than just more work -- it breaks valuable features.   If you take that argument to the extreme, why use lightroom at all, just do everything in bridge and photoshop.  Many of us have been there, it works fine, it's just a lot of work.  Adobe knows how to fix it, they have said so.  It just isn't on the top of their list.

LR became so popular by being a convenient, non-destructive workflow.  Being able to do the inversion properly as a part of the LR workflow would be a useful addition to many of us.  Like other things ... say books for me... it might not get used by others.  But I suspect none of us use all of lightroom.