Author Archive

Panorama Merge and Spot Corrections

Lightroom 2015.5 is released with a feature that I have wanted ever since Panorama Merge was added – correct handling of dust spot corrections.

It should have a big impact on the way we use the merge tool.

In short, from now correct your dust spots before you run the merge.

Ten years ago today….

It’s exactly ten years since Lightroom first appeared. As is often my inclination, a scene from Monty Python comes to my mind. It goes along the lines of OK, apart from helping us manage our photos more efficiently, adjust them better and faster, get prints up on the wall, output pictures to the web, get them off and onto our mobile devices, precisely what have the Romans ever done for us? But of course, that’s the short version of the scene!

Mac v Windows

My estimate is that Lightroom use on Mac now outnumbers Windows by 2:1.

This is based on visitor statistics to this site which show 51% Mac, 25% Windows, and this 2:1 is very consistent with the trend which had been steadily climbing from 50% in 2012 to above 60% in mid 2013.

While these are only visitor statistics, I think they are probably representative of Lightroom users, After all, if you aren’t a Lightroom user, you’d be an idiot to visit this site!

Adobe’s FY2015

Adobe have released their financial results for FY2015. They now have 6.17 million Creative Cloud subscriptions which is 50% above target and represents 35% of their CC/CS user base.

Cropping with Syncomatic

Syncomatic is my plugin that syncs metadata and adjustments between files with similar names or within stacks. But one thing has annoyed me ever since I wrote it 6-7 years ago – it couldn’t sync the crop. I always wanted to do it – why wouldn’t I? – but for reasons best known to themselves …read more

The buck stops here

Adobe have just announced a change to how new cameras will be supported in Photoshop CS6 and earlier versions of Lightroom. Just don’t blame Adobe for not supporting these new raw file formats in software that’s now 4-5 years old – blame the camera maker for not offering an option to save your photos as non-proprietary DNGs.

Which chip for Lightroom?

I’ve not yet digested Puget Systems’ lengthy article on Adobe Lightroom CC/6 CPU Multi-threading Performance but it’s certainly worth a good look. It’s bang up to date, including consideration of Lr6 features. There’s also an interesting Google spreadsheet to help calculate which CPU is best for how you use Lightroom.

Black and White comes to Lightroom Mobile

Adobe have released a new “Dehaze” feature restricted to Lightroom CC. But far more interesting is what has been added to Lightroom Mobile 1.5. Video is probably the most surprising addition, but there’s also a Tone Curve and the Hue / Saturation / Luminance adjustment sliders. But best of all, Mobile now has Black and White adjustment sliders.

Eric Chan on GPU

See Adobe’s Eric Chan’s port “GPU notes for Lightroom CC (2015)” for a behind-the-scenes explanation of how Adobe are adding GPU support:

This is Lightroom 6

The rumours have been bubbling around for a while, and in the last couple of days the news has been dribbling out in not the most elegant fashion….

But now one can say officially that Lightroom 6 is here. Or is it Lightroom CC?

Buying Lightroom normally

Adobe have said “Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely” and they have continued to offer the standard, perpetual licence for Lightroom 6. However, it is fxxxing difficult to find on Adobe’s site.

Adobe Comp and Lightroom

Adobe Comp is another newly-released iOS app that can access your Lightroom Mobile photos and is quite a clever iPad app for creating layouts shapes, photos and add text, then save the composition to the cloud. What’s quite startling is how it sends the composition from your iPad directly to your main computer, launching Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator.