Thanks for introducing LR11 in the middle of wedding season!!

"The fact that this new LR11 version was thrown on us at the peak of wedding season SUCKS! I am having to learn a whole new way of editing and I have way too many weddings to edit." You must be in the southern hemisphere because it's not peak wedding season here in the north which leads to others observation, when is a good time to release and update.

My suggestion is to revert back to 10.4 till you have time to dive into 11.

Rule one in Info Tech for a business

Never upgrade software on work critical computers without testing

Fix: Roll back, yes you will loose some work

Rule 1 about software manufacturers concerns over timing of releases. They do not care about individual cases, Bad time for Wedding Photogs, oops, spring bad time for Pro Landscape, oops Summer bad time for , oops Fall bad time for, oops , oops, oops. Cannot win.

Rule 2 about Adobe specifically, the fairly much always release major upgrades when Adobe Max comes around, as in now.

Do you have Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop set to automatically install updates? Bad business decision.

If you are creating multiple NEW masks of the Gradient then just use the interface to create the first Gradient and from then on just hit the N key.  It will create a new mask of the LAST used tool.  

Many professionals (doctors, attorneys, architects, etc.) take time out of their busy schedules to travel and attend conferences to learn about new technology and new techniques to enhance their professions. But as a wedding photographer, it seems that you expect Adobe or other software developers to innovate and improve without ever interrupting your workflow. Right? Amazing! Did you ever consider having an extra computer to install the new version on to learn and experiment with when/if you have a little extra time?

"because with the newest LR11 update, my weddings are taking twice as long to edit with the new "masking" feature"

While I do understand your frustration, you are not forced to use LrC 11.0 and reinstall LrC 10.4 if doing so saves you a lot of time. I definitely would if editing took me twice as long 😉

"Adobe, please keep in mind the different people that use your platform"

As you say yourself... keep in mind the different people who use Lightroom, i.e. those who are NOT wedding photographers. Personally, I couldn't care less about wedding season (I barely take any pics from my smartphone the rare times I even go to a wedding) and I guess it's always something-season somewhere for someone anyway, so by this logic Adobe should probably never make big changes to Lightroom.

The best thing you can do right now, besides maybe going back to LrC 10.4 if it allows you to work faster, is to offer a concrete suggestion in this Ideas section of this forum on how to improve the masking tool so it's more efficient. I doubt bringing back the old Gradient filter will ever happen, but masking could very well be improved upon.

Michael

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Michael Niessen - Photographer, photo-editor, educator (kelmond.com)

>>I am having to learn a whole new way of editing and I have way too many weddings to edit.

I can understand you're angry, but...

... if I worked as an professional on a project or an order I wouldn't change to a new version of the software I using for this. without any testing and I have time to ckeck and learn about changes and new function. 

In my mind it's uneconomical to develop and support different types of tools for the innumerable genres of photography and the personal preferences of all photographers. A firm must be tread a middle path in order to meet all requirements as far as possible.

>>The fact that this new LR11 version was thrown on us at the peak of wedding season SUCKS! 

When do you think the best time to post updates is? Every appointment is unsuitable for one or the other.