I'm downloading it now to try out. Curious if they have made any interface changes other than adding additional functionality. The book idea might be nice, and I'm wondering how well of an implementation it is. Apple does this right, so hopefully Adobe will as well (integration with 3rd party publishing houses).
Develop module looks very interesting, and am having a play with that.
What I would have liked to have seen, but isn't there, is some html5 web galleries. As Flash is becoming a no no, I would have thought some html5 galleries would have been a sensible addition. Maybe they will appear in the retail version.
That's rather good timing really. I published a piece on Friday night about my hopes for Lightroom 4. I have no insider knowledge, but given the perfect timing I am rather thinking that I should maybe have a flutter on the gee-gee's this weekend...
Some of the dev adjustments, most notably Exposure on first look, are going to take some serious unlearning and relearning. In general, though, the few minutes I spent trying out 2012 were very promising.
Looks like another upgrade I won't be able to resist.
Any details on whether they have improved or added functionality to the clone/stamp tools? That's the one area that most frequently causes me to go to a third party editor because you can only do so much with those pesky circles...
I just wish they would actually make it into a usable light table. The program is sooo sloooowww. There is no reason it couldn't at least use any associated jpgs taken with RAWs or the full size embedded jpgs in the RAWs of the newer bodies to let you view as thumbnail and 100% size during the sorting through stuff stage. WHt kind of a light table makes you waste time and HD space building previews of everything forever?
Every other sorter program lets you instantly dig in and zip through file views nearly as fast as you can scroll.
Wow - I installed the 64-bit version on Windows 7. It seems SLOW, SLOW, SLOW. I am hugely disappointed with how much slower it is than Version 3.6. It seems there is a lag of about half a second for any slider movement to take effect as compared to (nearly) instant response in V3.6.
I'm with you. I use brightness instead of fill light (Unless in very small amounts).
I also only use very small amounts of recovery by correcting exposure first.
I'm very curious to try the new highlight and shadow controls!
Fred
While it is significantly slower than v3.6, I do like the new processing. I've applied the "updated processing" to a number of images and the new algorithms seem to do a much better job of highlight control. Images that previously opened (from Canon RAW files) with blown highlights now open with the highlights under control.
It will take some time to get used to how the new slider controls work, but so far it looks like the interface will allow us to get better results with less effort.
Sorry to hear you are having performance issues Geofn. I would suggest posting your experience in the LR4 user forum. You might be able to get some help there:
