LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

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alphaomega
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LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by alphaomega »

Anyone who has tried LR5 yet? I am interested in the auto vertical straighten tool. Is it better than manual adjustments? Does it do anything about perspective from wide angle shots so that I don't have to fiddle with Warp and the like in PS? Apart from that don't see any real improvement from LR4.
Mike-Photos
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by Mike-Photos »

The vertical tool gives variable results, since it's based on a complex algorithm. It will no doubt improve over time. However, you can manually adjust as you can in PS.

There are for me two significant other processing enhancements:

1) The spot healing tool now lets you paint an area and does a pretty good job at doing a content-aware clone.

2) the new radial brush is a very good tool. It lets you select a subject in the photo by means of a circular / oval shape, and then adjust inside or outside. When you adjust the outside you can think of it as super vignetting on steroids, where you can adjust exposure / clarity / sharpness / saturation etc. when you adjust the inside you have a highlighting tool.

There are other enhancements too, such as a negative mask to identify dust spots, the ability to show on the crop tool the sizes of crops (1:1, 4:3, etc., as well as custom), catalog enhancements (working offline to the catalog). The two main ones above, and the straighten, are well worth the upgrade price to me as they decrease my requirement to round-trip to Photoshop. I now do almost everything exclusively in Lightroom.
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pakodominguez
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by pakodominguez »

My upgrade supposed to arrive today. I went to an Adobe conference last week, where a group of Photoshop and LR savvies shown the new tools. the straighten tool looks good, specially because after the Auto is applied, you can tweak the settings for a more pleasant -less perfect adjustment.

You can do the same with the lens profiles, applying distortion correction and leaving the natural vignetting of the lens -specially wide angel lenses.
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alphaomega
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by alphaomega »

Thanks for the quick replies Mike-Photos and pakodominguez. I think I am going to purchase LR5 but as a stand alone product. I understand that LR4 and LR5 can reside side by side on the same PC as they do not share a library.
Another questions for the initiated. I have the marvelous RX100 but LR4 does not have a lens profile for this camera. Has anyone developed such a profile for RAW and is it easy to install it on LR4 and/or LR5?
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pakodominguez
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by pakodominguez »

alphaomega wrote:Thanks for the quick replies Mike-Photos and pakodominguez. I think I am going to purchase LR5 but as a stand alone product. I understand that LR4 and LR5 can reside side by side on the same PC as they do not share a library.
that is correct -there are some stuff that is shared (profiles, actions, etc) and you can load catalogs on both versions. But there are corrections om LR5 that won't show up on LR4...
alphaomega wrote:Another questions for the initiated. I have the marvelous RX100 but LR4 does not have a lens profile for this camera. Has anyone developed such a profile for RAW and is it easy to install it on LR4 and/or LR5?
Get the "Adobe Lens Profile Downloader", I believe I saw 3 or 4 profiles available (I did downloaded one and it works OK)
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bakubo
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by bakubo »

Here is a list of the known bugs at the time of the LR 5 release:

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal ... lable.html

I will probably upgrade, but maybe will wait until 5.1 and hope they fix the following bug:

Images exported at less than 1/3 of their original size may not retain Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings.

The bug above is pretty serious and I am surprised that Adobe didn't fix it before release since they already knew it existed.

Note, that the list of bugs are things Adobe knew about before LR 5 was released, but released without fixing. There are probably lots of new bugs that have been reported, but I haven't been following it to know what they are. You can download it and try it for 30 days to decide.
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bakubo
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by bakubo »

This update says they are working on some bugs (has a list) for the LR 5 update. Fortunately, it says they are working on the one in particular that I was concerned with:

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal ... ssues.html

As mentioned here, a bug was introduced in Lightroom 5.0 where files exported at less than 1/3 of their original size may not retain Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings. We are working on a solution and will include it in our next update.
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Birma
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by Birma »

Mmm. Sounds like a wait for 5.1 for me too.
Nex 5, Nex 6 (IR), A7M2, A99 and a bunch of lenses.
alphaomega
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by alphaomega »

Mmm. Sounds like a wait for 5.1 for me too.
I concur with Birma's statement.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

I upgraded to LR5, yes there are a few bugs but I've not noticed a problem yet. Performance is improved (LR4 was laggy as hell switching between modules) output file times are somewhat faster too. It's still no super speed demon (even on a decent desktop with loads of cores) but certainly quicker
As above the main pro points are the paint it in spot removal (could be useful) and distortion correction is now the real deal allowing for full perspective correction.

There are a few other bits, overall I think it's not a huge update myself, but the price is a lot lower now so probably worth a shot. To be honest I don't really use the other modules much (mostly library and develop) so can't comment much. One day I might actually use them!
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bakubo
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by bakubo »

I saw this today. I am still using 4.4 and will continue waiting before getting 5.?.

Warning! Lightroom 5 has a Potentially Catastrophic Bug

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... 5-bug.html
Mike-Photos
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by Mike-Photos »

bakubo wrote:I saw this today. I am still using 4.4 and will continue waiting before getting 5.?.

Warning! Lightroom 5 has a Potentially Catastrophic Bug

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... 5-bug.html
At the end of his blog he says:
"In any case, I continue to find what's new in Lr5 indispensable, and I heartily recommend it."
I agree with that totally.
Everything has bugs, and yes, LR selection of images is in general something to be careful about. For example, select all the images via the Library, then go into Develop, work on a single image, and then export. Since all images are selected in the Library, it will export all the images, not just the one you worked on.
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UrsaMajor
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by UrsaMajor »

bakubo wrote:I saw this today. I am still using 4.4 and will continue waiting before getting 5.?.

Warning! Lightroom 5 has a Potentially Catastrophic Bug

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... 5-bug.html
That bug has been known since the release of 5.0. What warranted its headline mention on The Online Photographer (which has been an excellent site for many years, IMO) at this time is that it still has not been fixed in LR 5.2.

However, as is mentioned on the blog by Jeffrey Friel to which Mike Johnston linked, the bug exists only in the Publish module of LR5. Since I have yet to use the Publish module, and do not expect to use it in the foreseeable future, that particular bug is of no interest to me at the moment.

YMMV.

- Tom
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pakodominguez
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by pakodominguez »

UrsaMajor wrote: However, as is mentioned on the blog by Jeffrey Friel to which Mike Johnston linked, the bug exists only in the Publish module of LR5. Since I have yet to use the Publish module, and do not expect to use it in the foreseeable future, that particular bug is of no interest to me at the moment.

YMMV.

- Tom
But, if you read that article, it sounds like the Y2k bug...
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bakubo
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Re: LR5 v. LR4 - anyone tried the new version?

Unread post by bakubo »

bakubo wrote:This update says they are working on some bugs (has a list) for the LR 5 update. Fortunately, it says they are working on the one in particular that I was concerned with:

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal ... ssues.html

As mentioned here, a bug was introduced in Lightroom 5.0 where files exported at less than 1/3 of their original size may not retain Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings. We are working on a solution and will include it in our next update.
I upgraded to LR 5 in November. I got the full LR 5 (not update) online for $69 (free shipping, no tax) on Black Friday. Using LR 5.3 now. I haven't noticed any problems. It seems like it is a bit snappier than LR 4.4 for some things, but nothing dramatic.
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