'But... there are zero differences to the GUI and menu options.'
Well, doesn't that half suck...so wait for 6.7, it seems that is their go at the moment. They want us all in LR maybe.
ACR 6.5 (LR3) gives you the chance to get a workable histo, but not much more for troublesome images, and the controls, which work the most/whole tone range to some degree, are more brute force than finesse, more sledgehammer than scalpel. These LR4 changes seem mostly good and evolutionary, with some welcome add-ons.
PS is a print, layer and brush master also. And more effective colour handling. Not sure, but maybe LR lacks content fill as well, it seems much more pixel editor feature.
AhamB wrote:
Wayne, you might want to try using the Vista 64 drivers on W7; that works sometimes (as mentioned by Pixel Perfect on the previous page).
Missed that, thanks! I will try that.
Works fine for me with GH2 and GX1 files (haven't loaded any of my old Canon shots into it).
I have had one crash, when I was trying to sync parameters between multiple files (though I did it fine after reopening).
Noise seems to be better controlled with this release, and files look a tiny bit sharper as well. The new blacks/whites/shadows/highlights slider works very well, and is a big improvement, as are the ability to use all of those, and NR with a brush.
RGB curves are very welcome, and the CA removal in one click is flawless! The only lens I have with really bad CA is the Oly 17, which I just re-purchased on the cheap used, and it has pretty severe CA at the edges, but LR 4 removes it 100% with a single click (and, of course, improves apparent resolution as a result).
Haven't had any speed issues. Didn't expect any at work (Core i7 with 12 GB of RAM), but it runs fine at home too (Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM).
I hope they (Adobe) will add the following features in LR4:
1. Allow the user to place the filmroll from top to bottom to free up vertical real estate on today's "short" 720P and 1080P laptops. Capture One allows this
2. Allow the user to select font size for the image details/info that can be placed on the screen. Currently it is much too large and unnecessarily so. Needs to be much more compact. This is worse on PC vs. Mac.
3. Better use of multicore and available RAM (not just for exports)
4. Unify Library & Develop modes. There is no good reason why I cannot access my folders while I'm in Develop mode or why there is a much limited set of processing changes I can make when I'm in Library mode.
5. A way to find recently modified images, modified but metadata not written out,recently modified but not yet published etc...
6. Tabs to organize develop controls (like Capture One). This Makes it easier to switch between controls on the top like Exposure and those on the far bottom like Detail/Lens Correction/Calibration
7. A way to export files while recreating original image folder paths on the destination. Right now you can't export files from multiple folders and have them be organized on the destination
8. A way to edit shooting lens metadata (Lens id,lens type/name,focal length, aperture - mostly for 3rd party and manual focus lenses).
9. Support for digital fingerprint/watermark insertion on export. Something that survives the usual EXIF striping done by most blog publishing software and sites like FB and Flickr
10. Better support for Sony cameras (Lens corrections, Lens names,Picture styles, more vendor accurate rendering, More Sony EXIF/makernotes settings, Tethering...)
11. Better mask selection tools for adjustment brushes / layers?
12. Healing brush tool like photoshop for easier blemish removal without roundtripping to PS
13. Faster!
Interesting that Adobe still hasn't caught up to Bibble's selective adjustment tools. using only brushes is kind of a primitive approach, custom layer shapes should also be available e.g. for selecting a sky with an uneven horizon quickly. Same thing with the Heal/Clone tool.
Coming from Bibble, I'm also very dependent on curve adjustment layers. Simple contrast/exposure brushes just don't cut it.
I tried LR 4 and like it very much. Especially, and highlight, white, black, shadow recover is way better than before. I can change them individually without mess up each other. That is the biggest improvement to me.
Contrast slider seems improve as well without loose sharpness as much as before.
However, It seems very slow and unresponsive compare to LR3 which always fast as breeze. I am at 4 core i7 imac with 16M ram, that is decent setup for the task. but it is too slow almost to unusable level. Will production copy better than this? How?
Wannabe-xpro-hipster-edits, here I come 