Good suggestion. I've just posted a message in the LR4 user forum.
The default settings in LR4 do a significantly better job of highlight control as well as preservation of shadow detail. I'm seeing dramatically fewer blown highlights and clipped shadows.
To see just how well V4 does with this, check the "Review Changes Before/After" box in the "Update Process Version" dialog box, and then set the histogram to highlight both clipped highlights and total blacks. Then go through some some of your high-contrast images and update to the new 2012 processing.
JesseShotland wrote:
It's truly amazing. I'm really impressed with the highlight and shadow recovery sliders.
Ooooo BABY! I'm really liking the improvements!
The shadow and highlights work a real treat. Black and white point are now labeled sensibly as such - no man behind the curtain there anymore. I was able to easily recover highlights and adjust shadows using the new controls with no drama whatsoever.
The new mapping with GPS is simply stellar. It was a piece of cake to select a bunch of photos and quickly zoom to the location on the map and add the coordinates and metadata. It just couldn't be easier.
The only puzzling item was that the publishing appears to require a collection to work - it does not show your directory list. Sorta makes sense but at the same time it's limiting. I don't tend to use collections for this purpose - but I guess I'm amenable to new tricks. All in all I think a winner that won't require a lot of decision making as to upgrade or not.
Geofn wrote:
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.
FWIW I actually thought it ran faster. This on my @work Dell Optiplex 755 with 4gb. It should really rock on my home system which is really beefy.
Update - the sluggishness only happens when processing previously edited (in v3.6 or earlier) RAW files. LR4 seems about as fast as v3.6 when processing new unedited RAW files. Also of interest is that the performace on a previously edited image will speed up dramatically following a "Reset" of the image.
Deleting the .xmp sidecar file before importing into LR4 will make an image appear as previously unedited and then LR4 does not seem sluggish. But then unfortunately you have to re-do any previous edits!
It appears that there is a real performance hit when LR4 tries to apply previous edit settings.
Geofn wrote:
Update - the sluggishness only happens when processing previously edited (in v3.6 or earlier) RAW files. LR4 seems about as fast as v3.6 when processing new unedited RAW files. Also of interest is that the performace on a previously edited image will speed up dramatically following a "Reset" of the image.
Deleting the .xmp sidecar file before importing into LR4 will make an image appear as previously unedited and then LR4 does not seem sluggish. But then unfortunately you have to re-do any previous edits!
It appears that there is a real performance hit when LR4 tries to apply previous edit settings. ...Show more →
Unfortunate. I did indeed use the beta on a "fresh" set of images explaining whey I saw no speed hit. Hope they fix it upon release - I have a few terabytes of images that would not be much fun working with for this reason.
Ignore the sluggishness guys - it's beta software. They will be working on the features first and tweaking them. Optimisation is always the last part of the chain.
Do you fancy handing out the raw file for that one? I'd love to know how much of this recovery prowess is unique to the new Beta or merely another way to skin a cat. The most aggressive highlight recovery in Lightroom 3 is achieved by pulling down the brightness with the Exposure slider, and then brightening the rest of the image with other techniques — and I don't see why it's inherently better to do the same thing with a Highlights slider instead. If, in fact, it is the same thing.
I'm afraid these are from someones wedding photos so I wouldn't hand the raw out. If you have a window, take a shot through it and see what you get too..
I understand the technique you're talking about and have tried it. I've never managed to achieve a totally natural looking image with it and it's definitely a slower process.
S Dilworth wrote:
I'd love to know how much of this recovery prowess is unique to the new Beta or merely another way to skin a cat. The most aggressive highlight recovery in Lightroom 3 is achieved by pulling down the brightness with the Exposure slider, and then brightening the rest of the image with other techniques — and I don't see why it's inherently better to do the same thing with a Highlights slider instead. If, in fact, it is the same thing.
As of now (after only a few hours of playing with V4) I am not sure that the new version can deliver an end result that is significantly better than V3.6 with the proper settings. HOWEVER, the new version can and does produce DRAMATICALLY better results with its initial RAW conversion right out of the chute using its default settings. And it also seems that the control configuration (i.e., the new functionality of "Exposure" along with the "Highlights" and "Shadows" sliders) makes it much easier and faster to achieve the desired final product. Yes, V3.6 is capable of producing the same (or at least very close) final product, but in my experience thus far V4 is able to produce my end product using less of my time.
S Dilworth wrote:
Do you fancy handing out the raw file for that one? I'd love to know how much of this recovery prowess is unique to the new Beta or merely another way to skin a cat. The most aggressive highlight recovery in Lightroom 3 is achieved by pulling down the brightness with the Exposure slider, and then brightening the rest of the image with other techniques — and I don't see why it's inherently better to do the same thing with a Highlights slider instead. If, in fact, it is the same thing.
There are two advantages to working with the highlight recovery in LR4. First is that the algorithm has been changed so that you don't get the hue shifts you'd get in LR3. Second, with the highlights slider you can pull in more highlight detail without affecting either shadow brightness or shadow contrast. In LR3, if you pulled down the exposure, you would then need to go work with the tone curve (or fill light) to adjust your shadow tones. With LR4 you save time.
Geofn wrote:
As of now (after only a few hours of playing with V4) I am not sure that the new version can deliver an end result that is significantly better than V3.6 with the proper settings. HOWEVER, the new version can and does produce DRAMATICALLY better results with its initial RAW conversion right out of the chute using its default settings. And it also seems that the control configuration (i.e., the new functionality of "Exposure" along with the "Highlights" and "Shadows" sliders) makes it much easier and faster to achieve the desired final product. Yes, V3.6 is capable of producing the same (or at least very close) final product, but in my experience thus far V4 is able to produce my end product using less of my time....Show more →
That mirrors a lot of my experience with the new tonal controls as well (i.e. they are time savers). The one difference is the 'shadows' and 'highlights' controls on the adjustment brushes. This allows me to very quickly locally lift shadows or pull back highlights that with LR3 I would either need to do very careful brushing with or would just give up and go into PS to use the more advanced selection tools there.
thedigitalbean wrote:
The one difference is the 'shadows' and 'highlights' controls on the adjustment brushes. This allows me to very quickly locally lift shadows or pull back highlights that with LR3 I would either need to do very careful brushing with or would just give up and go into PS to use the more advanced selection tools there.
Definitely.
Lightroom, for my weddings work, has become the tool which I use for nearly everything. I really rate it. LR3 was a massive improvement in terms of noise reduction, which was amazing. A few people are saying LR4b so far isn't that much of an advantage, but to me it really is because - again - if I want to pull back highlights or push shadows on a global basis it does that way better, but now I can do it locally too.
Amazing. They'll get another upgrade fee from me without a doubt, just based on this new work.
In fact, if it was more stable I'd consider switching over now, but it was crashing a fair amount yesterday and that would wind me up for doing "real" wedding work.
Lightroom, for my weddings work, has become the tool which I use for nearly everything. I really rate it. LR3 was a massive improvement in terms of noise reduction, which was amazing. A few people are saying LR4b so far isn't that much of an advantage, but to me it really is because - again - if I want to pull back highlights or push shadows on a global basis it does that way better, but now I can do it locally too.
Amazing. They'll get another upgrade fee from me without a doubt, just based on this new work.
In fact, if it was more stable I'd consider switching over now, but it was crashing a fair amount yesterday and that would wind me up for doing "real" wedding work....Show more →
I was working with a shot that had a large portion of a textured wall in full sun. I was finally able to pull the detail back out using the new controls. before I would get the mentioned hue shifts and also have to play with the tone curve. Honestly when I have local adjustments like that I would just sent it to Photoshop where I can use layer masks and far better control. Now - I can see LR4 taking on more of that work saving me a ton of disk space and multiple versions of the files to track.
Geofn wrote:
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.
It is Beta. It may send your usage statistics back home. Besides, it may do lots of things in the background that will not be present in final release.
Just looking thru the new bits (I've not downloaded it yet) I notice the new brushes? The local NR looks like it could be very useful and the moir reduction brush could be a good excuse to go have the AA filter removed
