P: Please add red eye removal

*cmarcy Again: It was and still is in Lightroom Classic:

Please return red eye removal!  I used it all the time!

Hello everyone, what a lively thread we have going here!  Regrettably, I have no update to share beyond what I posted previously - we are still planning to add this feature at some point in the future, and I still don't have a specific date to share.

I know how frustrating it is when our own pet features that we can't live without aren't prioritized.  (My own is range masking - I'm still really missing that from Lightroom Classic.)  As others have mentioned, of course we need to prioritize our feature development, and we take a great many factors into account when doing that prioritization.  One of those factors is the feedback that we receive from customers such as yourselves in venues such as this, and we are very grateful for it, so thank you for taking the time.

One side note: suggestions that Adobe has been disingenuous, or somehow deceitful are very concerning.  Neither Adobe nor our customers are well served by anything less than completely accurate and honest communication.  If you can find anywhere on Adobe's site that claims that Lightroom and Lightroom Classic are "the same" please let me know and I will have it removed.  We have a great deal of information available on our site about the differences between the two products both at a high level and in great detail.

Thanks,

Ben

@nick_jensen  Software as a service, SAAS, has an interesting history. It has been driven by Apple, with their App Store offerings at extremely low prices, albeit not as complex programs as Photoshop or Lightroom.  The gap between license-purchase versions of Photoshop and Apps on the App Store was so huge that many people would not buy a license. Public perception of that gap drove a large number of software makers to follow Apple's lead in order to stay competitive, by using SAAS subscriptions. The list price of Photoshop 1.0 for Macintosh in 1990 was $895.! Over the years, I paid thousands for updated versions, so I was very glad to see the switch to subscription.

A downside to using SAAS is that that a flood of new users, able to pay $10 or $20 a month but not able to spring for many hundreds up front and also have to buy updates, introduced a new problem for companies: these newly attracted users were far less likely to have the training or interest in learning required to make effective use of such products. Admittedly there is a huge learning curve to be overcome, and folks who just want to fix redeye for example are less likely to make the effort to gain that knowledge. Therefore the cost of customer support rises considerably.

The Up side for adopting SAAS, is twofold: paradoxically upside IS that expansion of TAM, Total Addressable Market which lower cash outlay affords. The second and more important PLUS is that it smooths out and makes more forecast-able, cash flow which in turn makes it possible to do ongoing development R&D and to avoid "crisis financial management" for Treasurer of the company.

As to your comment "Obviously they need to keep ahead of the competition (which in Adobe's case is unfortunately almost non-existent)"  Adobe is the market leader, but in order to maintain that lead, there must be and is constant refinement of product. It is just that the requests and suggestions for change are numerous, sometimes in conflict, and must be triaged, as not everything everybody wants is practical or makes sense.

Not overly wanting to inject myself into a very heated discussion... But I think this is quite a common feeling in general with the overall move in the software industry to needing end users to pay ongoing subscription fees to use software.

Previously Adobe and other software developers would release a new version of their software, and it would have new features that you would decide whether or not to pay for. So they were directly incentivised to deliver new features which customers would willingly pay big dollars for. Then the cycle would continue - this cycle basically funded the company (obviously along with winning new customers).

Nowadays with subscription-based software, the direct incentive for offering new features existing customers are crying out for is not as apparent. Obviously they need to keep ahead of the competition (which in Adobe's case is unfortunately almost non-existent), but the direct correlation of upgrade versions to income is sadly gone.

Fair comment again, and while I apologise to DGrainger for using Market Cap'n as a proxy for value (which it is - the markets view of future cash flows / discount rate) . Market value is a function of EBITDA.

I may have chosen to use $4bn of EBITDA adobe squirrelled away from licence payers like us in 2019. I think customers warrant care and like for like products, irrespective of the platform. It doesn't do what we were told it would on the tin. That's why users/customers/licence payers/ebitda makers/shareholder enricheners i.e. us,  are aggrieved. 

The assumption based on my question is that I'm not a real photographer, or I don't know how to use Photoshop. I was a devoted student of Bruce Fraser's "Real World" books, and followed him (and Andrew, the Digital Dog) on color color management forums in the early 2000's, before Bruce's untimely passing. I've had some practice in the subject of color correction, but time moves on and I value easy features more and more the older I get. I was simply looking for a feature that exists in prior versions of Lightroom, and was scratching my head as to why I couldn't find it.

@martyn_williams_jd0oga3s57gp6  " Adobe has a market cap of $240 bn. They can work this stuff out, and resource it. "

Market cap has nothing to do with the underlying company. Market capitalization is simply the number of shares outstanding multiplied by the current market share price; it has zero to do with the finances of the company. Market cap is NOT the same as Net Worth.

No corporation "has the money" represented by shares which are HELD BY INVESTORS not the company itself. The only time a corporation receives cash is when the shares are initially issued. From there on,share price/value devolves upon holders of those shares.

Gosh, hope that helps you a bit!

So, you say that management decisions should be based on the amount of clamor by visitors to one forum, comprised of users from cell phone toting teens on up to those that have taken the time to study, rather than by actual research?  We are not voters in the inner city in this process!

ok. last post then I will shut up about this for another year. 

1) It took two years of lobbying to get this "under consideration"

2) The product was labelled as being "the same" as the old classic version. We were sold something that did not do what the classic version did, and surprise surprise, Adobe was disingenuous about this. That's a wrong that should be righted. 

3) Don't patronise us - "products are complex" Adobe has a market cap of $240 bn. They can work this stuff out, and resource it. 

4) "In the greater population of users, what percentage are sitting around on a puckered sphincter, full of angst about Red Eye," - actually I skipped thru the topics, and this is one of the most popular on the cloud community. Very few topics get close. Even including the ones complaining about duff rollouts. I don't know what % of course, but it is a higher % than any other topic, and it should be fixed. You should not claim a product has the same features when it doesn't that is plain wrong.

So over to you Ben?