Lightroom like or dislike

Sebzy

Just finished importing my collection of 20k raw files into the database and have mixed feelings.

Love
- controls are quite extensive when thinking in color saturation and brightens.
- Organization and use of metadata
- Import with copyright auto insert
- Ability to import large amounts of files in one pass

Dislike
- Slow compared to CS2
- Limited functionality you still need photoshop blur/masks etc....
- Screen resolution needs to huge to fit all panels in my 1280x1024 TFT rubbish.
- Running ram usage of 585MB when database fully loaded
- No backup solution for images in library.
- No distributed database like bridge.


Seb.

elven

I don't really do batch processing, or a huge amount of pictures in one go - and I certainly don't use meta tags or anything like that (which I know I'm going to regret 20gb down the line) so I didn't really appreciate the whole organisational side of it. As far as processing goes, I think I'm just too used to ACR and couldn't get the hang of it for that, didn't find the controls very intuitive at all. It's bridge, ACR and photoshop for me, all the way. Not having masks and adjustment layers just kills any chance of me using it for processing, and I'm quick enough with photoshop now that I wouldn't save any time by using it's so-called 'simpler' interface.

I tried... I really did, but we're just not going to make friends, Lightroom and I...

Sebzy

I'm going to stick with lightroom for the moment but have the feeling I need a better compy to run it should have a 19" tft by the end of the week.

Seb.

Valentia

The last batch that I have done have been nearly exclusively in LR. That's mainly due to the novelty of a new toy. That said, I like it a lot. It has all the negative things you say Seb except that I have the same screen size and it seems ok. No probs fitting in the panels. There is a trick in the panels setting. Right click and put a tick beside "Solo mode". This closes a panel automitically when you open another one. It might help.

Slow, eats memory etc but I'm sure they will sort these things out. It's saving me lots of time and that's not a bad thing.

Fenster

There's a bug where it changes the shutter and aperature readings in the EXIF data to something stupid that's been getting in the way of some PS work.

Redundo

I'm not going to give Lightroom a chance. I don't even want to know about it.

I'm sticking with RawShooter Essentials and i'm pissed that Adobe bought them out and shut them down to cram another overpriced bloated piece of crapware into the market.

CONMIKE12

I like it, you have a lot of control over the raw stage. I use it like i use camera raw but i reckon it is slightly better.By waht i have seen and read,Lightroom is gonna be pushed pretty hard so it might be a good idea to familiarise oneself with it.

Valentia

Redundo wrote:

I'm not going to give Lightroom a chance. I don't even want to know about it.

I'm sticking with RawShooter Essentials and i'm pissed that Adobe bought them out and shut them down to cram another overpriced bloated piece of crapware into the market.

WOW! That seems a bit like not allowing the English national anthem being sung in Croke Park. If you don't try it how in the name of J are in any position to make a statement like that?

Only in Ireland...........

It is way better than RSE!

There is one thing about Adobe I like. They haven't sued any home user yet for using Photoshop even though they know that most copies of PS used by non profit people are illegal.

JMcL

I like it, having used it for a couple of months now starting with the last beta

Likes (among others):

• Great range of controls
• Is really good for B&W conversions, there's a huge amount of control possible using white balance and the channel mixer
• Stacks, great for stacking bracketed shots which I do a lot of. Plus if you export to PS the exported files are automatically stacked. This cuts down greatly on the amount of screen space taken up by the library view
• Automatic adding of metadata on import

Dislikes:

• Complete memory hog. It runs ok on my PC now but I had to go buy a dual core, 2Gb monster primarily for that purpose
• No multi headed monitor support, soas sebzy says things can get cramped. 1600x1200 is OK but I can imagine that smaller resolutions could be a problem
• Performance, even with all that RAM can be laggy when it's doing loads of DB stuff. I'd hazard a guess that the DB behind it isn't exactly cutting edge

I haven't explored the print module, nor the web module. I've had a quick look at the latter, and it seems much more complete and flexible than it did in the beta with a good range of templates

So thumbs up from me (plus it helped that I got a free upgrade )

mikeanywhere

I think most poeple have hit the nail on the head with a few issues but generally the feel is it is very good and to answer the question, I love it!!

I actually use the Bridge facility a lot more now when organising my pics as it seems to run a bit better than trying to do everything in Lightroom. Also seems a bit better at doing batch processing but again it needs to have everything else not working or else the ol memory suffers. I have 2GB of RAM and it can still be a little slow to say the least.

Redundo

Valentia wrote:

WOW! That seems a bit like not allowing the English national anthem being sung in Croke Park. If you don't try it how in the name of J are in any position to make a statement like that?

Only in Ireland..........

I attended a demonstration of lightroom by Anthony Hobbs, a lecturer in photography at NCAD. Didn't much like it then and i've heard nothing since to change my mind.

Valentia wrote:

It is way better than RSE!

I have no doubt it can handle more camera types, has more functions, etc, etc. But I don't care for any of that. I know what I want from a raw converter, to convert raw files into tiffs or jpegs. Thats it. Everything else can be done in photoshop or paintshop pro. RawShooter does exactly what I need and completely avoids the memory hogging others have already pointed out.
And I am pissed that Adobe bought up and shut down pixmantec. RawShooter was a simple freeware program that worked. I would feel the same if it were to happen to GIMP as well.

Valentia wrote:

There is one thing about Adobe I like. They haven't sued any home user yet for using Photoshop even though they know that most copies of PS used by non profit people are illegal.

Well it would be like trying to hold back the tide with your hands. In fact very few software companies do pursue legal action, mainly because the people who use pirated copies end up being fully familiar with that program when they get into the workplace. So the company whether its Adobe or AutoCAD still benefit in the long term.

Valentia

It is nothing to do with more camera types or more functions. It is totally to do with having a flexible effective working environment. If you like RS you will love LR. What's more the conversions are far better and more natural, especially skin tones. Seriously, I can do stuff many times faster and with way more control and I am coming from Rawshooter Premium. But sure if those things are not important to you well.......I don't know really.

Ah and another thing aboute Adobe, they gave me a free copy of LR because I bought RawShooter Premium. If that aint a fair bargain.....

I have to say it really pi$$es me off when people are "not impressed" with stuff they haven't even tried. Why bother commenting on something in that case??

Redundo

You got your copy free of charge so of course you like it!


I don't feel the need to run out and buy (or more likely steal) a copy of Lightroom because I know how to get what I want from RawShooter. It's a simple effective program and for me there's nothing more to the decision then that.

My first post sounded too angry but I am annoyed that Pixmantec disappeared. Why bother commenting on it at all? Because this is a thread about liking or disliking Lightroom. I dislike it.

eamon234

I think it's great I'm by no means an expert but I find it much easier to use than Photoshop and much faster to get basic editing done I've gotten results with this that I just can't seem to get right on PS and I know it's just my own crap working knowledge of it but I don't have time to spend wading through manuals and sourcing info to get the results I need quickly. I love the before/after feature. I agree about the big screen though - running it (quite happily!) on a 1.5ghz Celeron M laptop with 2gig ram and a 15.4" screen and it's a bit cramped!

Oh and Redundo - don't knock it til you've tried it - haven't you heard of demo versions?

Sebzy

Well I'm starting to warm up to it now a bit more.

Still have issues with the update speed and all it's sluggish
Running on my
19" TFT @ 1280x1024
Pentium D 3GHz, 2GB DDR2, 10k SATAII Disk and windows XP

Have to now delv deep into some wedding shots for the old website and will try do it all Lightroomy

nilhg

Ok, I've finally got some time to sit down and try to work through some pictures on V1, going to have to decide whether to pay up soon. So far I have to say I'm pretty impresssed.

I came on a bunch of free develop presets from onOne which seem pretty handy and if nothing else will give an idea of what is possible using lightroom.

Valentia

Seb,

I find that the slowest part of LR is importing and building the thumbs. One guy reckons that if you are importing a lot of pics the best thing to do is import and build the thumbnails and go to bed. Next morning things should be a lot speedier.

I find that I am using PS much less now. Just a phase I'd say though. It's interesting to see how many shots can live without manipulating in PS.

PaulieC

so how much is LR to buy in a shop? Also, does the licence allow you to install on two machines?

irishcrazyhorse

Redundo wrote:

I attended a demonstration of lightroom by Anthony Hobbs, a lecturer in photography at NCAD. Didn't much like it then and i've heard nothing since to change my mind.

When did he give that talk? he never told me the langer:mad:

Shiny

Sebzy wrote:

Well I'm starting to warm up to it now a bit more.

Still have issues with the update speed and all it's sluggish
Running on my
19" TFT @ 1280x1024
Pentium D 3GHz, 2GB DDR2, 10k SATAII Disk and windows XP

I'm in the same boat, some times it is fine and then all of a sudden
it can be dog slow.
Often says "Lightroom is not responding" when i do any sort of batch
operation.

I don't render 1:1 previews when importing as Lightroom is taking up
loads of space as it is already. Something like 5 gigs and I have it set
to discard the previews after 1 week!!!!

Roen

Used it properly yesterday for the first time and I have mixed feelings about it. It's a joy to use, but after monitoring it for about 30 mins it regularly used up between 500 - 600Mb of RAM. It's a bloody hog of the highest order.
I'm coming from RSP btw.

rymus

like it so far, just have to get a decent nas now to store all the raw's on

mervifwdc

Hmm. Voute is out on using a NAS. I got a bullalo unit, 2 terrabytes of storage. So slow I only use it as a backup device. Might be my network, but....

As to Lightroom, used it for the first time yesterday. I shoot raw always, and from the downloading, captioning (shoot sports for the local papers), producing JPG's that are cropped and named as they like them, it did the trick.

I'll try it again next weekend, but I kind of like it with a few exceptions. Anyone understand the renameing filename templates?

Merv.

CraggyIslander

Have only used it a couple of times, but dont really like the look and feel.... to much screen real estate needed to use it proper mainly.

Has anyone here used bibble? I'll be downloading and trying a demo this evening

mervifwdc

Big bibble fan. :-) Have the pro version.

Does 90% of what lightroom does, but, it's only ok on it's IPTC captioning as it's all put in a sidecar file, and then the captions are not picked up by iview mediapro which is my cataloging software. pita. If your not captioning, then it's super. The raw conversions are great. I still use it as a Photoshop plug in for conversions.

Same issue as lightroom - neither of them can see the WAV sound files recorded on the camera. Adobe Bridge is the only thing that works for that, but it's captioning sucks too!.

What's a guy to do? :-)

Merv.

rymus

mervifwdc wrote:

Hmm. Voute is out on using a NAS.

Well, the options were either go all out on a gigabit capable RAID5 nas or get a cheaper RAID1 Firewire 800 dual drive thing like that Netgear turbo thing.

I'd have thought the Buffalo would be quite speedy. Are you using it on a gigabit network or 100mbit?

CraggyIslander

the computers nic or hub used could still be an old 10mb half duplex jobbie.... gets speeds like usb then :rolleyes:

Mantel

Fred C. Dobbs wrote:

Have only used it a couple of times, but dont really like the look and feel.... to much screen real estate needed to use it proper mainly.

I have to say the same, I find myself more annoyed each time I use it. I feel I need a screen twice the size to even begin feeling comfortable with light room. The zoom ratios aren't the most comprehensive, there could be a way to adjust that but it didn't jump out at me while I was using it.

Sebzy

Am using it on a daly basis now

- Lightroom for Color corection and and exporting jpeg's
- Photoshop for everything else.

You need both of them running to get any real work done.

All processed via lightroom

Seb.

mloc

I must say I am a fan. It runs awful slow on my current pc, but my new setup should be on the way in a day or two (core 2 duo, 4gb RAM, raid 0 SATA-II hd etc) and I should imagine it will be a much more usuable experience on that system.

I think ps cs3 has perhaps been designed much more with lightroom in mind and they should integrate a bit better. The UI in lightroom is really, really nice, reminds me of th Kai products of old.

Valentia

mloc wrote:

raid 0 SATA

Very dangerous as I know to my cost. I would not recommend Raid 0 unless the not so significant disk speed is really important to you. If one disk fails you lose everything.

mloc

Valentia wrote:

Very dangerous as I know to my cost. I would not recommend Raid 0 unless the not so significant disk speed is really important to you. If one disk fails you lose everything.

Quite true. Hence the daily (or so) mirroring onto an external 500gb FW800 HD.

Borderfox

Sebzy wrote:

I'm going to stick with lightroom for the moment but have the feeling I need a better compy to run it should have a 19" tft by the end of the week.

Seb.

You should try the 22" wide screens from Dell something like 1600x1000. You should fit everything in that

I like Lightroom a lot, only thing is I only use laptops and without a steady library I cant keep everything together. Other than that I am a big fan. I use a Celeron 1.6 with 1.5gb ram and 80gb hd. Runs great

mervifwdc

rymus wrote:

Well, the options were either go all out on a gigabit capable RAID5 nas or get a cheaper RAID1 Firewire 800 dual drive thing like that Netgear turbo thing.

I'd have thought the Buffalo would be quite speedy. Are you using it on a gigabit network or 100mbit?

100mbit, but the most it has used is 50% capacity of that (according to the windows task manager networking graph) I figured there was no advantage to getting a quicker one. Or is there?

RAID5 on the buffalo, which is'nt that fast, but I wanted a lot of storage fer me crappy shots :-)

rymus

I wouldnt have thought there would be much of a noticable difference between 100mbit and 1gbit either.... until I installed a gigabit switch at work. Then again, I suppose the raid devices we're using here are a little bit faster.

thebaz

i have only 256 RAM, is lightroom a no-go until i upgrade RAM ?
Cheers.

Roen

Using it for the last hour or so and it hovers around 200Mb here and all I'm doing is importing images, not processing them. I'll let you make your own mind up

positron

I use if often, and really like it. I used to use Picassa, but then I switched to RAW and lightroom does a brilliant job sorting out good from bad, exporting JPEGs etc - and I think the Lightroom 'curves' is very usable too.

I have a Dell 1.8GHz core duo laptop with 2GB RAM and 14" widescreen. Its not slow at all - very usable.

Roen

And then when I preview my images for Pick or Reject it shoots WAAAAYYYY up, I hit out of memory problems after about 5 mins and have to quit and restart the proggy. I'm wondering if it is a hyper threading problem or something to do with a graphics driver as some people report no problems at all. As it is it is largely unusable for batch processing, which is a pity as it's brilliant to use

melekalikimaka

2ghz, 512ram...am i mad thinking of downloading it?

Roen

It could be only me having these problems, don't be put off, it is a great...if I can just find out what the prob is I'll be all over it!

JMcL

The minimum recommended by Adobe is 756Mb I think, and in practice at least 1Gb for any sort of satisfactory experience. Oh, and anything less than XP service pack 2 won't work (well, unless you've got a Mac of course

Roen wrote:

It could be only me having these problems, don't be put off, it is a great...if I can just find out what the prob is I'll be all over it!

I've had occasional out of memory problems (say 2-3 times) since 1.0 came out, but nothing serious. I've 2Gb with a dual core Intel processor (I'd really recommend a dual core to run it - looking at the performance meter it frequently maxes out one of the cores, at least with the second you can do other things).

Roen

I have two Gb or fast ram myself, but only a single core, hyperthreaded. Time for a new pc I think

JMcL

Roen wrote:

I have two Gb or fast ram myself, but only a single core, hyperthreaded. Time for a new pc I think

Hee... anything for an excuse

Valentia

JMcL wrote:

I've 2Gb with a dual core Intel processor (I'd really recommend a dual core to run it - looking at the performance meter it frequently maxes out one of the cores, at least with the second you can do other things).

That's interesting. For an innards illiterate like myself I would have thought that a programme written for dual core would share the load equally, otherwise what is the point? If Lightroom is not coded for dual core then it doesn't matter what you use. Am I missing the point completely?

JMcL

Valentia wrote:

That's interesting. For an innards illiterate like myself I would have thought that a programme written for dual core would share the load equally, otherwise what is the point? If Lightroom is not coded for dual core then it doesn't matter what you use. Am I missing the point completely?

I'll try to keep this reasonably simple - it's one of the hairier bits of software development!

There's a notion called threading in software. A 'thread' is basically some piece of code that the processor executes, and programs can be written to use multiple threads, ie they can run multiple tasks at the same time - sort of! If you have a single processor, each thread gets a little bit of time to run in rotation. When a computer has more than one processor, then N threads can actually run simultaneously, where N is the number of processors/cores. Dual core processors count as 2. What runs where and when is controlled by the OS.

So to get back to the general area of your actual question, if a program is written to be multithreaded, then the OS can run them on whatever resources it has, whether in rotation on a single core processor, or two threads at the same time on a dual-core system - it shouldn't actually make a difference. However, multithreaded applications are much more complex than single threaded ones, where everything happens sequentially. With a multithreaded application, you have to be very careful to make sure that one thread isn't doing something to data that belongs to another etc, or very bad things will probably happen.

Because of this complexity, any given task (eg export a RAW image to JPEG) will only run on one or other of the cores, but at the same time, you might well be able to continue making adjustments to images on the other core with not much noticeable deterioration in performance, providing you've enough memory and your disk isn't being hammered.

Phew!!

thebaz

JMcL wrote:

The minimum recommended by Adobe is 756Mb I think, and in practice at least 1Gb for any sort of satisfactory experience. .

i checked adobe web site , and they reccomend 1gb of RAM , so 250 mb might cause a few hitches . Luckily i have 1 GB on work pc , but don't like using this for post processing - can't have evertything ! i'll probably keep going with picassa .

Valentia

Phew is right

Thanks for that!

mloc

I have 4gb RAM and it flies along :P