What new features in Lightroom 6 ?

[bitm07]

With Adobe Photoshop Lightoom 6 expected to be released later this year, what new featured would you like to see in the new version ?.

[areohbee]

In my copy, it's there in 'EXIF and IPTC' too (I just double-checked):

win7/64, Lr5.3

(a Mac thang maybe?)

In any case, Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Viewing Preset Editor will allow you to put that field anywhere you want it!

Or, if you prefer to edit your metadata field lists with a text editor, the field ID is:

"com.adobe.userComment",

~R.

[Bob Somrak]

As Rob said its in the "EXIF and IPTC" for me.  I am using Lr5.3    OSX 10.8.5.

[Geoff the kiwi]

Was blind, I see it now.... thanks. Was incognito before too!!!

[Bob Somrak]

Don't feel too bad, I was blind to this field too till Suzanne Mathia pointed it out in this post so you should thank her.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/6132675#6132675

[Geoff the kiwi]

Thanks Bob, I feel much better now!! Have a good weekend.....

Bob Somrak wrote:

Don't feel too bad, I was blind to this field too till Suzanne Mathia pointed it out in this post so you should thank her.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/6132675#6132675

[Guest]

AS macro photographer  : Photomerge / stacking would be on top of my list

[Awaken]

1) Layer Support -> But just on a very small scale. Brushes somewhat accomplish this, but I would love to be able to apply a setting (say Sharpening with Radius XX) and then apply another sharpening (Radius YY).

2) Built-in HDR support

3) Photomerge

4) Combining images into a single image. 4 back to back photos merged into 1 photo like a photobooth style strip. Vertical and horizontal support.

[bitm07]

Layers and HDR support are near the top of my Lightroom wish list as well.  I'd be surprised if we see them however as a major rewrite of an already great program would prabably be required.

[dj_paige]

This is not a statement of what I would like to see, but what I think Adobe might be working on

I first purchased Lightroom when the current version was Lightroom 2. In each major version, we have seen dramatic improvements in some of the tools in Lightroom regarding image quality. So, from LR2 to LR3, we saw dramatic improvements in Noise Removal. From LR3 to LR4, we got a whole new process version, which produced huge improvements in image quality leading one person (Rob Cole) to say it was like "seeing with new eyes". From LR4 to LR5 we got a lot of new tools, each one not particularly dramatic but useful in its own way: enhanced spot healing, radial filter, upright.

So, my reading between the lines tells me that image quality is one of the primary concerns of Adobe when deciding how to improve Lightroom. Furthermore, if you looks at competitor's web sites (DxO, Capture One, and so on), they all claim to produce outstanding image quality, and I can understand how Adobe does not want to fall behind in this area. In one example, DxO claims it can improve "lens softness" via "automatically improving and homogenizing image sharpness from the center to the edges, even when you push the settings", whatever that means. I haven't actually used DxO, so I can't evaluate this claim but I don't think Lightroom can do that right now. Perhaps this is something Lightroom will have in LR6.

Anyway, that's my speculation of where LR is heading ... additional image quality improvement tools. Some of the image quality issues mentioned above by others in this thread may indeed be on the list of LR6 enhancements, although the specific form of the tool may be different in LR than it is in CS6.

[elie-d]

The LR design team or rather the Adobe policy setters who direct their work, meaning Thomas Knoll who, apparently, still maintains strict control, has something of a problem. LR was originally conceived as a tool for the large volume professional - wedding, events, sports, etc. - but has become increasingly popular with lower volume professionals - landscape, portrait, product and fashion, fine art - and advanced amateurs. So which segment do they play to now? I think they may well see the greatest chance for market expansion in the amateur direction, even at the risk of undercutting sales of PSE. A feature like HDR appeals primarily to the amateur market (the professional fine art landscapers are probably relatively few in number) and this group is less likely to have the budget for PSCC, but more likely to be using the Photomatix plugin or similar. It should be very possible for LR to incorporate PS's Blend to HDR into the Export module, generating a 32 bit tiff for tonemapping.

As to layering, it is already possible to apply multiple filters and brush applications one on top of another, but it is not very easy to return to them later to alter them (possible but not easy). Making them more like Smart Filters would help. And of course any expansion of their functionality would be welcome; HSL, Vibrance, curves, etc.

A few other things; it would be nice to see more use of the Content Aware technology in the Healing tool and Refine Edges in the brush selections.

[areohbee]

Regarding speculation:

I agree that Adobe is particularly keen to have changes to develop aimed at image quality and usability in ACR (Photoshop/Bridge) too. DxOh's lens softness adjustment is not as keen as you might hope for - they've profiled the lenses well-enough to have a good map of how sharpness falls off based on lens/aperture..., but the correction is pretty weak: I get get better results in Lightroom by correcting sharpness falloff with a brush (larger radius sharpening is better toward the edges..) - granted it takes more work - having that automated (with proper directional correction more akin to "focus magic" (deconvolution) than simple sharpening) would be a boon to "image quality", to be sure..

And I assume Lr6 will have face recognition - they've obviously done a lot of work on it (e.g. one can see the signs in catalog tables..), but didn't finish for Lr5, which was almost certainly a primary reason Lr5 was such a lean release.

That's all for now..

~R.

[TheDigitalDog]

dj_paige wrote:

So, my reading between the lines tells me that image quality is one of the primary concerns of Adobe when deciding how to improve Lightroom.

I hope you're right and believe you are. The reason being, Thomas Knoll who's baby is ACR and the raw rendering engine that LR is part of. It will help aid in Photoshop CC subscriptions for those who want raw processing but don't like LR (there are quite a few out there for whatever reason). IF ACR improves, so does LR by virtue of the fellows working on that engine. Now the rest of LR? Who knows. I don't know there's anywhere as strong a captain or leader for the rest of the product as we have with Thomas (along with Eric Chan), two people who are always pushing the quality and feature's inside the ACR engine. PV2012 was huge! If the Develop module improves quickly with other modules not getting as much love, you can probably blame this on other's than Thomas and Eric.

We DO need much better performance, especially in Library mode. When iPhoto can scroll thumbnails significantly faster and smoother than LR, one has to wonder what kind of underlying architecture in LR is the cause. I've got a newer MacBook Pro fully maxed out and scrolling even a 30K library is ridiculously slow.

[markalanthomas]

GPU support would dramatically accelerate thumbnail scrolling in the Library.

[dj_paige]

markalanthomas wrote:

GPU support would dramatically accelerate thumbnail scrolling in the Library.

As has been discussed earlier in this thread and elsewhere on the internet, a Lightroom designer (Eric Chan) has explained why GPU acceleration most likely will not achieve performance increases in Lightroom, because LR operates differently than Photoshop. The bottleneck for Lightroom can't be alleviated by using a GPU.

[markalanthomas]

That's a shame. It sounds like they're going to have to rewrite the UI, but I think it'll be worth it. My hunch is they're already doing it.

[dj_paige]

Perhaps you should read what Eric Chan actually said, I don't think the UI is in any way related to this issue.

With regards to "that's a shame", I believe that the Lightroom development team is trying to maximize performance through whatever hardware/software choices actually achieve maximum performance, rather than being forced to use a particular piece of hardware that some people favor (GPU) if that particular piece of hardware does not happen to maximize performance. If that is indeed what the Lightroom team is doing, then in my opinion, that is NOT a shame.

[markalanthomas]

They can't be content with Aperture (even iPhoto!) smoking Lightroom in this regard, so it'll be fascinating to see what they end up doing.

[Keith Reeder]

markalanthomas wrote:

They can't be content with Aperture (even iPhoto!) smoking Lightroom in this regard, so it'll be fascinating to see what they end up doing.

Aperture doesn't smoke Lr on my machine Mark - Windows guy.

And unless the Mac market  accounts for a significant proportion of overall Lr sales (my instinct is that Windows sales significantly predominate), it may be that Adobe doesn't feel the pressure from Aperture that you think it might.

Things would be different if Aperture was also available for Windows - but Apple doesn't seem to feel that pressure from Lightroom either.

[john beardsworth]

FYI, Keith, from my Lightroom site:

47% Mac

32% Windows

Remainder various mobile platforms

Keith_Reeder wrote:

And unless the Mac market  accounts for a significant proportion of overall Lr sales (my instinct is that Windows sales significantly predominate),

This is usually consistent with visitors to another LR site and seems a better approximation than instinct.

[Jao vdL]

Yeah I am pretty sure the market for these photographer asset management and development market us very very Mac heavy. It us rare nowadays to meet a photographer using windows exclusively. I think Aperture (I have it and use it) is only not prevalent wrt Lightroom even on the Mac platform  because Apple is not really pushing development very hard. Also, the development tools in Aperture are dog slow. Just try optimizing sharpening in a loupe view. Probably a consequence of trying to push the raw stuff into the GPU which as the link to Eric's explanation shows is not always a smart thing. Scrolling through lots of images is very nice though and that definitely is an advantage. It's only one such thing though.

[john beardsworth]

The LR market has changed over the last 2 years. My stats (and that of the other LR site) used to be equally Mac and Windows, but have steadily moved to the current 1.5:1 ratio in favour of Mac.

I don't believe Aperture uses the GPU for adjustments. But it is using it for reviewing the embedded preview, and is almost Photo Mechanic speed. That would be important for some classses of user, but they already use Photo Mechanic.

John

[99jon]

If only LR could incorporate the best features of the competitors, on Windows & Mac, it would be almost perfect.

Photo Mechanic (speed, metadata & workflow advantage)

DXO (super noise reduction)

[dj_paige]

99jon wrote:

If only LR could incorporate the best features of the competitors, on Windows & Mac, it would be almost perfect.

Almost?

[AnOpticalView]

MarkAlanThomas, I agree with you.  It is very odd how any intelligent observations (if they appear to criticise Adobe or LR) are jumped on by pseudo-experts?

LR needs GPU acceleration and full network aware integration to grow.  I think the UI could do with a rewrite but acknowledge that the developers have done a great job trying to shoe-horn everything in?  The result is it feels very cramped even on my high res largish monitor.

Just look at PS and Elements to see a nice 'open' layout.  After all its the image that counts and all the organisation, web tools, books etc are just nice to haves.  The print module however is first class if somewhat confused as a UI.

Ian

ps MAC users sell you machines now while they are worth something and buy the future - the talent in Apple is gone!

[dj_paige]

It is very odd how any intelligent observations (if they appear to criticise Adobe or LR) are jumped on by pseudo-experts?

thereby implying that "DumbMarine" knows more about the subject than so-called pseudo-expert Eric Chan does ... enough said