O'Reilly's Lightroom Adventure sounds fun - as a two time Iceland visitor, I'm always very jealous of anyone going there. Then again, I don't really think photographers are pack animals - certainly I always scowl (at least inwardly) when another photographer invades my domain or nibbles at my prey. Maybe this explains the absence of photos by Peter Krogh - I've seen pictures by most of the “names” on the trip, this one being by O'Reilly's Derrick Story, but no sign of Peter. Has he headed off into the wilderness, or is Lightroom much less of a DAM tool than some of us would like? In the beta 3, you can't even move files from one folder to another, or rename them after the initial import.

There's a time for photography and a time for drinking, and I'm glad to say I didn't take the camera to the Great British Beer Festival yesterday. Beardy's personal award goes to Timothy Taylor Best, a pint I'd never had before, and which narrowly pipped Archer's Golden into second place, ahead too of my long time favourites like Timothy Taylor Landlord and Hopback Summer Lightning (the show's runner up golden ale). I seem to go every year now but this year it was especially welcome as the fridge packed up two days before I left for Barcelona and there's no food or cool drink in the house. That's my excuse anyway.

But onto what I intended to write about, Lightroom. I know I'm not alone in looking behind the scenes and noticing that it's based on a SQLite3 database. Appropriate Uses For SQLite includes Situations Where Another RDBMS May Work Better:

Very large datasets
…If you need to store and modify more than a few dozen GB of data, you should consider using a different database engine.

High Concurrency
SQLite uses reader/writer locks on the entire database file. That means if any process is reading from any part of the database, all other processes are prevented from writing any other part of the database. Similarly, if any one process is writing to the database, all other processes are prevented from reading any other part of the database. For many situations, this is not a problem. Each application does its database work quickly and moves on, and no lock lasts for more than a few dozen milliseconds. But there are some applications that require more concurrency, and those applications may need to seek a different solution.

OK, I don't know SQLite, nor Adobe's plans, nor Lightroom's system demands. But it does concern me. Lightroom is going to be used in volume image editing environments and where do you draw the line between corporates and small studios which may be unable to handle server-based databases like SQL Server and Oracle? While accepting SQLite3's virtues, I'd certainly like to see Adobe provide an option (at some future point) for external databases such as SQL Server.

There's a limit to how much work you can do on an image in Lightroom, so right click a file and select Edit in Adobe Photoshop. Lightroom then applies any adjustments, adds a TIF file to the Library, and opens in it Photoshop. When your Photoshop work is done, the Library file is updated.

A potential problem arises when you see where Lightroom saves the TIF. Right click it, and select Reveal in Explorer - you'll see the TIF is saved in the same folder as your raw file. If you're used to separating your folders of raw files and derivatives, this is a pain. Even more so if you've carefully set up DVD-sized folders that correspond to your backups (what Peter Krogh calls a “bucket” strategy).

Here's a way round the problem. First in Preferences, on the Import tab, set up a watched folder and a managed files folder.

From now on don't select Edit in Adobe Photoshop - use File Export and send the TIF file to the watched folder.

In this example, Lightroom will now detect any new files in New TiFs, automatically add them to the library, and then move them into my bucket. If I'm also watching the bucket folder with iView or Portfolio, they'll automatically catalogue the file.

My Documents, My Pictures - I've always hated them. And the same ire is directed at programs that insist on saving stuff there, or to the user application folders. Tell me, how much important data gets stored in C:Documents and SettingsUserNameApplication Dataetc and how many users never back up that area and lose it when they switch machines?

Lightroom's Windows Beta saves its library database into that area and gives no opportunity to save it elsewhere. That may change once it is can work with multiple libraries, and it will have to - its thumbs folder grows about 1 Gb per raw file. Add a thousand or so pictures and watch your system drive fill.

The fix is easy. Close Lightroom, and copy C:Documents and SettingsUserMy DocumentsMy PicturesLightroom folder to another location. Then delete the original folder in My Pictures and restart Lightroom. It will ask you to locate the library folder you want to work with. If you want to work with multiple folders, it's a variation on the same trick.

At last, Adobe have released Lightroom on Windows. First impressions are good in that it's very easy to select a group of raw files and apply global corrections and adjustments. But that's about it - it's a good raw processing tool with an easy workflow, but it's not much more. A lot of code optimisation remains outstanding - speed needs addressing and it eats a lot of system resources while building its thumbnails and grabbing previews.

Ian Lyons recommends “For your initial tests try keeping to only a few hundred images i.e don't be tempted to import your entire picture library.” Dead right - you'd be mad to import your entire library because its DAM (digital asset management) functionality is scarcely more advanced than Bridge. If you don't know where your file is, don't try finding it in Lightroom.

A lot will depend on your needs after the pressure of processing those few hundred pictures you've just taken. Some Lightroom users only need rapid evaluation, processing, and output - things like adjusting a shoot?s white balance, fixing red eye and dust spots, fine tuning black and white output, and generating proofs and final prints. For instance, wedding and event photographers often file their work by shoot and afterwards only ever search by the event's date, so Lightroom's lack of DAM features doesn't matter. But many freelancers and stock photographers have the same immediate raw workflow stress but also have and longer term needs to locate images for stock and print sales. Lightroom is shaping up as just a raw converter and isn't going to help with DAM beyond being one of a number of points of metadata entry. Bridge with a database?

Bob Johnson at Earthbound Light looks at Nikon Capture NX in Hands On and Second Thoughts:

So, what's my verdict on Capture NX? I must say I have developed a deeper appreciation for what Nikon and Nik Software set out to create, but I'm not sure it's for me. My workflow revolves around Photoshop and I don't see that changing because of NX. I'd highly recommend though that digital shooters who are not Photoshop fans take a good look at Capture NX. This may just be what they've been looking for.

It's interesting that Bob's main comparison is with Photoshop. Capture NX clearly isn't as fully-featured as Photoshop but it does offer a simpler way to do a lot of image editing, even if its rendering speed appears much slower.

In focussing on editing tools, I wonder if its designers (as well as Bob) took their eye off the program's other main use: bulk processing raw files, fixing white balance, tweaking their exposure and making other global adjustments to multiple files. Such adjustment work is so much quicker in NX's existing competitors like Adobe Camera Raw which (once Bridge's cache has built) is an easy matter of copying and pasting settings. Instead in NK there's a long wait while it rebuilds the raw file. So NX still needs work - and I'm not even comparing it with its newer competitors like Aperture and Lightroom.

See Nikonians discussions on Capture NX and this DAMUseful thread. Also some thoughts on LightZone.

George Jardine, Adobe's Pro Photography Evangelist, the bloke fronting Lightroom, is pretty clear about what kind of product it's not going to be. In this discussion of podcast 8:

…we felt from the beginning that a database is the best answer for Lightroom photo asset management. We are committed to building as robust of image management solution for digital photographers as we possibly can, while keeping it streamlined, easy to use, and discoverable. That's a balance. We do not intend on building generic “digital asset management” for all workflows.

I guess I'll miss it when Windows users no longer moan about the lack of a Lightroom beta:

See the raw files jumping off the flash cards
To your hard drive on a Friday might
A beta Lightroom?s a-promised for Windows
In summer - everything?s alright

CHORUS:
Summer beta will make me feel fine
Processing the raw files from my shoot
A Windows beta will make me feel fine
Burning through the pixels on E drive

See Aperture a-scowling on the sidewalk
A siren?s call from the Mac next door
So I walk on up to my PC
Check the screen and then wait some more

Repeat chorus

Sweet days of summer, Mac beta's in bloom
July is half gone but our beta?s here soon
When I come home from a hard day?s work
And it?s waiting there, not a care in the world

See the smile a-waiting for Lightroom
Call for pizza and the plate?s for one
Feel new tools that convert all my raw files
In the evening when the day is through

Listening to Lightroom podcast #8, as a PC user I'm frustrated at not still being able to test it for myself. But frankly Mac users who've got their hands on the program do so as photographers first, no matter how much they often bore you with their computer brand. So let them clap with joy or choke on bugs, and let us PC users have a beta when it's ready.

But the more I hear and read about Lightroom, the less impatient I become. Are Adobe lowering their sights and making Lightroom just a raw processor, replacing Bridge and to some extent Photoshop, but being little better than Bridge (ie nearly useless) at helping you find or manage your images?

I'd like to think I'm wrong on this, but podcast 8 made me think Adobe's developers are now more interested in rudimentary selection-based edits, such as in LightZone or Capture NX. And at Lightroom's forum some posters don't want DAM features. They're wedding and event photographers and I can see where coming from - they can get away with using folders to organize their files, and in the old days I bet they trashed their negs the second they were paid. Essentially what Bruce Fraser says in the podcast is you sell “creatives” the pretty raw processor and give them the dowdy DAM later. Which sounds as solid a commitment as “domani” or “manana”…. High volume raw processing might be more immediately painful or sexier (substitute “and” depending on your preferences). But for a big chunk of Lightroom's target market the other side of the same high volume coin is DAM and their search requirements often span multiple drives and folders. This group needs a DAMP (DAM+processing) program like Lightroom originally promised to be, and starting off with the raw processor is always likely to produce an unequal and unhappy marriage.

It makes me think a “best of breed” solution is going to suit me better, most of the time, than a “one ring to rule them all” like Lightroom or the Mac-only Aperture. How nice would it be for a DAMP solution to emerge out of a solid DAM program such as Microsoft iView? How about Microsoft Capture One or Microsoft LightZone?

It's hot, Sven buggered it up, and John's getting grumpy. If it's not for Mac users of iView predicting the apocalypse after Microsoft's takeoever, it's Windows users unable to understand Adobe's statement they'll release a Lightroom beta for PC during the summer. And today yet another asks “why are you adobe people still making us Weight”. People with such poor spelling really should confine themselves to graphics, certainly be denied betas as well as the right to vote, and should be gently patted on the head and treated to a song:

Summertime
and the shutters are clickin'
Pixel by pixel,
The gigs multiply

Lightroom's on Mac,
and the beta's good lookin'
So what about Windows
I hear you cry

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Sometime in summer
Is what they said

Spell “wait” like that
And you're better off passing
Your days in the schoolhouse
And the time will pass by

But till that morning
There's a'nothing can stop you
From Capture NX and Lightzone standing by

Summertime
And Adobe said just wait
We won't forget you
Wait till it's ready

Adobe's rich
But Aperture's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

Not one of the tandoori-chewing DAM glitterati, Mike Tedesco is Microsoft's Technical Evangelist - Pro Photo Community, and is therefore considered by some Apple-brand loyalists to be second to antichrist. He gives some responses to the iView takeover in this dpReview thread.

Thom Hogan's comments are perhaps closest to my own speculation. When I was told the news, my initial reaction was Microsoft will take iView downmarket - the Picasa strategy. But I soon began to think the junior product, iView Media, might well go that way, while MediaPro will surely continue its upmarket course. That was behind my analogy with Microsoft's move into financial software where they made a number of key acquisitions and built on them, added SQL databases, VBA editors, and configured them for application servers and remote usage, with proprietary technologies of course.

We all know iView has some problems moving up into multiuser network environments and that the file and database structure is limiting. So this might well be Microsoft's intention - and iView's urgent need before the DAMP (DAM+raw processing) programs sweep all before them.

In Microsoft's shoes I'd be scooping up Capture One, bolting it onto a potentially-multiuser iView and going straight for Aperture and Lightroom. It needn't be one product, but a largely cosmetic marriage of standalone programs like Word, Access and Excel. Buttons would “Open in Microsoft Capture”, “Copy Capture Settings”, “Paste Capture Settings”, or “Capture Batch”.

On the other hand, it could be left neglected in a dark annex of the evil empire and Yan, Phil and co will just have a year shivering in the Seattle rain. Time will tell, and after reading all that Apple-brand moaning I'm sure apocalyptic predictions aboout iView are best left to Nostradamus….

From this DAM and Aperture thread at the Open Photography Forum:

Sidecar Hell is only one issue, but a panacea for it already is to use the DNG format and store both the informational metadata and the editing metadata in the extensible XMP. There's no real reason why, just as Adobe stores its camera raw settings in the XMP, workflow processors like Aperture, Lightroom, LightZone, and Capture NX (there be more) shouldn't do the same. Then your editing instructions aren't hidden from other programs and at least some of your input, like setting WB, will be readable elsewhere. We shouldn't expect all the editing instructions to be meaningful, but if I develop a film in Ilford chemistry then why shouldn't I be able to do print in in Agfa (what if Apple went bust?). Just as it would be crazy for informational metadata to be readable only with the camera makers' software, so in the age of the workflow processors we should expect our editing instructions - our work - to be our property. It's a whole lot easier to commit yourself if a program offers a prenup guaranteeing you can leave with what's yours.

You can really end a presentation on a bang when you demonstrate a product and then tell your partly-Mac audience that one minute ago the company was sold to Microsoft. But there I was yesterday at Old Trafford doing a one hour presentation on DAM with iView. It began at 4 and iView had called me the previous day to say that the takeover announcement was (coincidentally) due at 5pm. Well, we United fans are used to last minute winners, aren't we?

I'm not sure what to make of the news but a takeover isn't a surprise. At the Brick Lane iView Fest last week, or more accurately over a curry with Peter Krogh (his view of the takeover) and iView's Phil Hayward, I remember saying I was amazed iView hadn't already been acquired by someone. I really expected Adobe, and feared it might be Apple or Corel, but I didn't really think of Microsoft. I'm a little surprised they didn't acquire RawShooter too. Who next - Adobe?

Though I feel slightly sad about the company's disappearance into a much larger entity, it's certainly an interesting move and could be very positive for the program's users. Maybe MediaPro can now get the high end features it needs, such as network mulituser capability and a server back end? Or perhaps it'll gain a raw processing engine along the lines of Aperture and Lightroom? Meanwhile the basic iView program could be destined to become a Picasa-style freebie. Equally I wouldn't be surprised if iView is soon starved of attention and ossifies in its Redmond cubicle. Who knows?

No doubt it's the right time to sell. There'll soon be a new acronym for the combined DAM plus raw processing programs that follow Aperture, programs that are database-driven like iView but also store sets of instructions or metadata about editing steps. I propose DAMP - digital asset management processors. If iView doesn't soon become a DAMP program, it'll lose a lot of its appeal.

Most of all, I hope iView keeps two closely-intertwined strands of its “culture”. One is the two-way discussion of product developments which reminds me of the great early days of Macromedia and Dreamweaver. A good example of this interaction was when they recently withdrew the ability to write metadata back to Nikon raw files. They explained they had experienced problems with Nikon's libraries but reversed the decision when users expressed their views. The second important strand is the interim releases. You don't have 18 months of waiting fingers-crossed for the next full version before you see product improvements (yesterday I heard someone say they bought Aperture not because of version 1 but because of what version 3 would be). Many companies pay lip service to continuous improvement programs - iView delivers. Keep the pot bubbling and you gain customer loyalty.

Of course, already some users of Apple-brand computers are complaining loudly, and swearing they'll never put a penny into Redmond's wallet. For some it's their first (only) post at iView's forum. Others parade their tearfulness at multiple forums, while at Peter Krogh's forum one apostrophe-challenged poster complains “Iviews annual sales volume isn't going to be even a blip on Microsofts balance sheet” - dead right, you don't get sales on anyone's balance sheet. I've not yet read anyone trotting out the old “Apple makes me more creative” carthorse, but maybe Microsoft will make them more organized too?

I've been close to a number of similar-sized software firms that have been bought by Microsoft and it can go both ways. These were all in the area of financial software but there's nothing so special about imaging - other than being more fun - that makes the analogy invalid. Some really elegant products vanished without trace, with their developers marooned in Fargo in distant, flat North Dakota, while others thrived on the investment. Time will tell. Deep down I wonder if we'll all be using Lightroom by the time we know what the outcome will be.

There's a nice Italian expression “in bocca al lupo”. Its direct translation is “in the mouth of the wolf” but it's the way you wish people good luck. 🙂

How many pixels must one man shoot
Before he starts to drown?
How many gigs does it take till he learns
He should have bought iView?
And why does he now continue to cry
And wait for pie in the sky?
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind

How many posts does it take till you see
That Adobe won't forget you?
How many times do you need to be told
That Lightroom is coming soon?
And how many designers does one firm have
To develop it just for you?
The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the whine is blowing in the wind

Originally posted at Adobe's boo-hoo-Daddy-I-want-my-present-now Lightroom Windows forum.

As for the demo of Nikon Capture NX today, I'll just say the guy was demonstrating it on a laptop he'd only had for 3 days and had only seen the program for the first time yesterday. So he was reading his Powerpoints word by word, didn't know where his demo images were, and didn't know much about what the software could do. What's more, the other attendees had already contrived to spend nearly an hour asking questions about the already-obsolete Nikon View Pro. All I can say is NX's selection-based raw adjustments looked pretty damn slick but we only saw them for 5 minutes. When he went back to Powerpoint, I left for home.

A couple of interesting related threads:

• Views on Aperture vs Lightroom
• Non-destructive editing applications and DAM

Another Lightroom post at Adobe Labs:

For all this moping and griping and citing usership surveys as if they were a substitute for any real knowledge, all of this harping boils down to one core statement. I don't own a Mac and I want to try Lightroom but can't have it; and Adobe should rush a Windows beta release just to satisfy ME.

Just in case you haven't got it yet, the poster continues:

If there was a means of filtering out the posts which meet the followng criteria:

-Those who mistake their desire for an XP beta for the mistaken believe that they have some sort of God-given right to it
-Those who feign some sort of expertise by attempting to imply they have some sort of better understanding of how to prioritize a title's development
-Those who flail about pretending to be some sort of victim for reasons which Adobe is keeping clandestine, yet are transparent to them as all-seeing oracles of software development, marketing, and merchandising
-Those who just can't stand the fact that anyone else is receiving a greater amount of attention at the moment
-Those who believe that by making any claim with greater authority somehow increases its accuracy
-Those at whom Adobe probably shakes its collective head before resting it in their hands and thinking to themselves, “Can't we just price Lightroom so highly that it would be out of reach of those who we're going to hate ourselves for having to support?”
-Those who can't wait for Lightroom but can't figure out the most basic features of Picasa

I have to believe bandwidth on this forum would drop, in a moment, by some 90%

Isn't satire wonderful?

A bit of an opinion piece today. Lots of Windows-based photographers are complaining that the Lightroom beta is still Mac-only. I've read some describe it as an insult, others claim they urgently need it for cataloguing (trust your DAM to a beta?) and they seem unable to understand the commercial reasons behind it.

It's not as if Adobe plan to ignore Windows. Over at the Adobe Labs forums I read Jeff Schewe (scroll down to his post 06/16/2006 01:31) confirm that the professional photography market is roughly 60:40 PC:Mac which corresponds to my own rough estimates based on postings to Adobe's Mac and PC forums for Photoshop and also from pros I know. After 15 years of Photoshop supremacy, the photo editing world is changing and that 40% is big enough to want to defend, contains many opinion formers, and is under threat from the Mac-only Aperture. What's more, Mac users both praise and scream more easily than PC users, so it makes even more sense to do trials on them. Sure they'll often say it's their Mac-brand computer that makes them more creative (more than the rest of us?), but they're still just photographers. If this minority segment is happy, we'll probably be so too.

Don't forget other instruction set based processors like the forthcoming Nikon Capture NX and LightZone (imagine if someone put real money into it), and more traditional processors like CaptureOne and Bibble. All these are cross platform and are potentially threatening enough for Adobe to push on with the Windows version of Lightroom. Use the time to try them, and programs like iView and Portfolio for your cataloguing needs. At the least you'll gain extra insights for when you finally try Lightroom, or you may like them so much you may just decide to skip Lightroom version 1 altogether. It'll be Adobe's loss.

Rather than criticizing Adobe for not yet bringing out a Windows beta, take every opportunity to ask Apple when Aperture will be available on Windows. I got a great look from one representative at a show, especially after pointing out you can run now Windows on a Mac…. Maybe Adobe should be given proper credit for their commitment to being cross platform?

Ben Long looks at the forthcoming Nikon Capture NX. This comment from the writer, a Canon user, caught my eye:

If you're like me, you probably thought that NEF was merely Nikon's format for its Raw files, but the spec is actually much more versatile than that. NEF files can include Raw data or regular TIFF-like data. In addition, Nikon can put its edit list (a small XML file) directly into the NEF format.

Digital capture now dominates the SLR area in a way it didn't do just two years ago, and all photographers are now suffering from DAM shortfalls and from the raw processing volume. The latter's going to weaken Photoshop's hold and will be met by a range of instruction set processors like Aperture and Lightroom, and any old wave products that make the jump. Capture NX belongs to this new wave, saving multiple versions in the image metadata, and I suspect the Nikon connection will make it a big player. I do wish they'd just save DNGs instead of concocting another and no doubt ill-documented format.

Thanks Robert Edwards.

“I would like my images to be available in the future”, “My picture is my personal property. When a manufacturer decides to lock me out of free usage (by encrypting, or so), I recommend to boycott this manufacturer” and “If i'm gonna use raw i want to make sure i can read those files forever”, the last entered, I suspect, by a camera phone user. These Quaker-style outbursts at OpenRAW remind me of Catch 22's description of Appleby as a “fair-haired boy from Iowa who believed in God, Motherhood and the American Way of Life”. Now, what did Yossarian say to that, I wonder?

Stuart Nixon's OpenRAW article DNG is not the answer made me end up wondering what his question may be, and if it merits any answer, yet it provoked a fascinating debate and drew comments from Thomas Knoll, Adobe, and Peter Krogh.

It seems such a pointless dialogue - like the religious nuts at Speakers Corner shouting so loud about their deities and prophets that they deafen themselves to their own doubts. If you think the solution to the ultimate raw file question is openly-documenting raw files, DNG isn't the answer, but it doesn't prevent you finding it. I think Barry Pearson's right (he also continues the good fight at dpReview and in Adobe's forum) in seeing OpenRaw's single issue, the open documentation of raw image formats, as laudable but naively unrealistic. Apparently Nikon and Canon will open up, include discontinued cameras, be joined by new DSLR makers like Sony and Samsung, and those manufacturers who've already withdrawn from the DSLR market. Really? And then what? Will the imaging program that you decide to use, routinely or simply one day as a promising trial, fully utilize your particular camera's raw format secrets? Really?

DNG doesn't answer the ulitmate question, but it renders it unnecessary. As usual, Peter Krogh makes the most sense:

I actually think that the metadata people create once they start working with images will be of significantly more value that the relatively small amount of information hidden in the private maker notes. You will have a lot more vested in your ACR, (or Aperture, or C1 or Bibble, or Silkypix, RSP, Lightroom) settings than you will in knowing how the camera remapped dark pixels…. If this stuff [the small amount of metadata that is contained in Private Makernotes] was absolutely necessary for a great (or even good) conversion, then C1 Pro would not be able to beat manufacturer's software.

Lightzone from Lightcrafts has been around for a year or so and is another of the new breed of raw image file processors like Adobe's Lightroom beta and Apple's Mac-only Aperture. I looked at it a while ago and it was only available on the Mac, but now it's available for the PC too as a 30 day free trial.

As I understand it, Lightzone is like Lightroom and Aperture in that it saves instruction sets or processing instructions rather than having to output the raw image as a Photoshop or tif file. Unlike those products, its processing instructions can include selection-based editing. I've only tried it for half an hour but one especially interesting feature is how it deals with versions and I really like the tone map for levels adjustments - see this screenshot. It's defintely worth trying.

Also see Outback Photo.