P: Failure to warn users of of damage to catalogues when upgrading to V.4

[EdwardJohnAllen]

Why has Adobe not proactively told users upgrading to V.4 of the damage to their back catalogues because of the loss of tone curve data?

Adobe are actively allowing people upgrading to cause significant damage to thousands of images through the loss of tone curve data. I can only imagine in the hope that not many upgraders notice their images being damaged. That is a truly reprehensible way to treat a loyal client base, and Adobe risk serious damage to their reputation as this issue become a real headache for more & more users.

Anyone senior from Adobe care to comment on this?

[john beardsworth]

See http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn... dated March 12.

[EdwardJohnAllen]

Yes, that paragraph acknowledges the issue in its own very quiet little way however it is very far from a proactive and clear warning to potential upgraders of the risks they run just by simply upgrading.

Tom Hogarty would be very aware that in reality a very small percentage of upgraders would actually read that post and despite my asking him via the forums if he would recommend holding off upgrading until the issue is dealt with he did not respond. His silence tells us a great deal.

[Lee_Jay]

The upgrade upgrades a copy of your catalog. Nothing is done to the original.

[john beardsworth]

I'm not sure what would ever be proactive enough for you - that article was immediately linked on other blogs, quoted in forums, tweeted etc- all the modern means. And not everyone would agree that this issue should make Adobe recommend people postpone upgrading.

Lee Jay, I think by "back catalogue" the OP means already-processed images, not the catalogue itself. The upgrade process does of course leave previous catalogues untouched, so existing images can always be output with their existing settings.

[EdwardJohnAllen]

Proactive enough? well lets think about that a little more.

How about a warning at the time of download that if you go ahead with this upgrade from a previous version you run a high risk of corrupting all images using tone curves.

They could have mentioned that corruption of potentially tens of thousands of images (if verified by Adobe) would allow a claim for compensation.

They could have placed paid for adverts alerting users to the issue (not relying on others to retweet it, and since when did Adobe rely on its user base to spread an important message?!)

They could have communicated more than once on the issue, and made it clear that they are not only working day & night to fix it, but are deeply sorry for the trouble it has caused us users.

They could have directly contacted all down-loaders with a clear message about the risks.

They could have appeared like the actually gave a damn! and they haven't

So..Proactive? No. Contrite? No. Arrogant? kinda looks like it!

Adobe knows full well that the simple paragraph of March 12th is no-where near enough of a "loud & clear" warning to dent sales, but does "technically" mean they've raised the issue. so job done? as we can see from the the above more proactive suggestions, hardly.

Nothing tees users off more than an unresponsive, defensive company when things go wrong, and that is what we have right now with Adobe on this issue. Tom Hogarty's personal tactics for handling this are pitiable, and his leadership should be questioned. Adobe should learn from other classic tales of failed/bungled product introductions that user confidence is a fragile thing, and very very hard to rebuild.

I'm all for supporting a company like Adobe when they do great things (and they can do them!) but this isn't a time to be defensive about them. Its a time for recognizing the betrayal of user trust, contrition, and working feverishly to put things right.

[john beardsworth]

Sorry, you've got a right to expect the upgrade would have handled the tone curve faultlessly, but your reaction verges on the ludicrous. I can think of one or two companies which swear blind that nothing is wrong with their new products and claim it's the user's fault - until hey presto they release an update. Comments like yours will be deleted from their forums. Well, Adobe made a proper and prompt announcement and a number of named employees are active in the user forums saying they regard this as a high priority. But you're obviously entitled to your opinion.

[Cornelia-I]

Hi Edward,

I would second Hamish Niven in his opinion voiced on http://forums.adobe.com/message/42890... that it does not make much sense to complain further inside Adobe forums, but on other really public social media platforms like Twitter, Google+, Facebook...

And for the sake of completeness we should remember that parametric tone curve edits were preserved, just not point mode edits. Linear tone curve for raws was also lost, or medium for jpgs.

Which means that essentially Michael Frye's followers from http://craftandvision.com/books/light... are bitten, to name a fairly recent example of people joining the develop fashion of point curve edits from a zeroed image, rather than using basic sliders.
Alas that is no longer really feasible in LR4, but it is anyhow discredited by Jeff Schewe in http://forums.adobe.com/message/42897... ("...little known "instructor" who advocated a rather minority approach; the "Curves First" approach which with PV 2012 is pretty much out the window.").
So we have much more examples of being arrogant, beyond Adobe.

Cornelia

[Lee_Jay]

"How about a warning at the time of download that if you go ahead with this upgrade from a previous version you run a high risk of corrupting all images using tone curves."

If that were true (and it isn't), they would likely have pulled it off the site. The catalogs aren't corrupted, the data is just hidden. It's all still there and it will be recovered.

[Bec Sowada]

Hi Edward,

The team is aware of this issue, and we are working feverishly to release a fix in a public RC of Lightroom 4.1 as soon as possible. Timing depends on getting the fix implemented and tested, so I don't have specifics on that. But I can promise to post back to this thread when a fix is available.

Becky

[Bec Sowada]

The public RC build of Lightroom 4.1 was just posted on http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/li.... Please install and give it a try. If this problem persists, post back and let us know. More information is available at http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/.