Results 1 to 19 of 19

Thread: Lightoom Users

  1. #1
    Glenn NK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Victoria BC
    Posts
    1,510

    Lightoom Users

    For those that haven't upgraded to LR 4 from LR3, the following offers some good reason (to me at least) to do so:

    http://www.luminous-landscape.com/te...htroom_4.shtml

    I have noticed the difference when I've updated images in LR4 that were developed in LR3.

    Glenn

  2. #2
    Scott Stephen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    292
    Real Name
    Scott

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Dangit, Glenn! You are going to force me to buy a new computer!

    Mine is 4+ years old and I am running LR 3. I have heard LR 4 can run slow on older computers though, so I have purposely avoided upgrading. But that link kind of makes me want LR4. Maybe it will run fine?

    Anyway, watch your inbox for a furious email from my wife.

  3. #3

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Thanks for the link - very interesting.

    I agree with what's desribed there. I find the new "PV2012" basic (tone) panel in LR4 is much improved, and means that now I rarely need to use curve adjustments. With a bit of practice, LR4 is much better at recovering detail in highlights, shadows or both without messing up the tone elsewhere.

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Greytown, New Zealand
    Posts
    190
    Real Name
    Tim

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Stephen View Post
    Dangit, Glenn! You are going to force me to buy a new computer!

    Mine is 4+ years old and I am running LR 3. I have heard LR 4 can run slow on older computers though, so I have purposely avoided upgrading. But that link kind of makes me want LR4. Maybe it will run fine?

    Anyway, watch your inbox for a furious email from my wife.
    My machine is a (relatively) ancient iMac and it runs LR 4.2 just fine. You wouldn't regret the upgrade. The detail PV21012 is able to extract from RAW files - especially from the highlight tones at the extreme right of the histogram - is unbelievable.

    Tim

  5. #5
    Glenn NK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Victoria BC
    Posts
    1,510

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Stephen View Post
    Dangit, Glenn! You are going to force me to buy a new computer!

    Mine is 4+ years old and I am running LR 3. I have heard LR 4 can run slow on older computers though, so I have purposely avoided upgrading. But that link kind of makes me want LR4. Maybe it will run fine?

    Anyway, watch your inbox for a furious email from my wife.
    Scott:

    I'm not sure that LR4 is significantly different than LR3 in terms of CPU usage.

    My personal experience:

    I have a dual core AMD that is six years or so old - when I bought it, it was pretty well the fastest machine made. Over the years, it slowly bogged down.

    Not being able to spend the time (I'm self-employed and my time is money), I took it to a computer shop where they formatted the C: drive and reinstalled XP. What a difference. I was running a music program that generates piano sound - before the tuneup, it barely kept up with the output required. Now it has power to spare. The same computer shop guy told me six years ago, that he re-formats his C: drive once a year and re-installs, otherwise it bogs down.

    Glenn

  6. #6
    Sponge's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Madrid
    Posts
    155
    Real Name
    Patrick

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by Macmahon View Post
    My machine is a (relatively) ancient iMac and it runs LR 4.2 just fine. You wouldn't regret the upgrade. The detail PV21012 is able to extract from RAW files - especially from the highlight tones at the extreme right of the histogram - is unbelievable.

    Tim
    Well, I hate to say it, but you're machine isn't ancient in any way when comparing with my current mac. The latest version of Lightroom that is compatible with my mac is 2.7

    Everything was fine until I got my current camera (which isn't 'new' anymore by today's standards). Now everything has to be updated just so I can actually process files without having time to pull the hair out of my head

    Back to the topic at hand, I've heard great things about LR 4 (and 4.2) so I'm looking forward to upgrading once I get my new Mac. There was an interesting thread on mu-43.com talking about this same topic: http://www.mu-43.com/f108/thinking-a...oftware-27893/

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    A Pacific Island
    Posts
    941
    Real Name
    Andrew

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Glenn, by your note above I'm reading you are using XP as well. I searched out LR3 because I was told LR4 isn't compatible with XP. I managed to find a copy of LR3 in Ontario and should receive it this week. Tell me I didn't waste my money on an older more expensive software.

    PS..OK, just checked with Adobe and found XP is not compatible with 4 so I've calmed down a bit. Who reconfigured your computer? The guys at DTI built mine and I routinely defrag my two internal drives with the XP accessories. My PC isn't slow as far as I know but before I load LR3 it might be nice to know how to check. Is it just noticing a problem on the PC or is there some timed processor test I can use?
    Last edited by Andrew1; 13th October 2012 at 10:21 PM.

  8. #8
    Clactonian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    The Essex Sunshine Coast
    Posts
    1,186
    Real Name
    Mike Bareham

    Re: Lightoom Users

    I certainly found the upgrade worthwhile.

  9. #9

    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    17,660
    Real Name
    Have a guess :)

    Re: Lightoom Users

    The two best things you can do for performance is to use a solid-state drive to work the images (they're down to just a few hundred dollars for a 250GB model), and ensure that the PC has enough RAM (8GB minimum if you're running a 64 bit OS).

  10. #10

    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    A Pacific Island
    Posts
    941
    Real Name
    Andrew

    Re: Lightoom Users

    P.PS.. just found this http://whohasthefastestcomputer.com/flopsmeter/ for testing processors and mine did very well.

    XP 32 bit only allows 4 GB of RAM to be plugged in and it only uses 3 of that. Seemed like a good thing to do at the time I guess. XP 64 was a short-run experiment that didn't go over well. I looked a bit at Windows 7 just for the purpose of speeding things up but I hate to give up XP and will probably stick with it until something major breaks and I'm forced to move. In the meantime I'll just keep things clean and working. I'm just starting to learn editing and only ever do one shot at a time so I don't think I'll have any problems.

  11. #11
    Scott Stephen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    292
    Real Name
    Scott

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn NK View Post
    Scott:

    I'm not sure that LR4 is significantly different than LR3 in terms of CPU usage.

    My personal experience:

    I have a dual core AMD that is six years or so old - when I bought it, it was pretty well the fastest machine made. Over the years, it slowly bogged down.

    Not being able to spend the time (I'm self-employed and my time is money), I took it to a computer shop where they formatted the C: drive and reinstalled XP. What a difference. I was running a music program that generates piano sound - before the tuneup, it barely kept up with the output required. Now it has power to spare. The same computer shop guy told me six years ago, that he re-formats his C: drive once a year and re-installs, otherwise it bogs down.

    Glenn
    I also have a dual-core, and actually my original video card died, and I replaced it with a recent NVIDIA card. And at the same time I (sort of un-intentionally) upgraded to Windows 8 Ultimate. Long story. But anyway, it sped up my computer incredibly.
    Hmmmmmm.

  12. #12
    Scott Stephen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    292
    Real Name
    Scott

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by Macmahon View Post
    My machine is a (relatively) ancient iMac and it runs LR 4.2 just fine. You wouldn't regret the upgrade. The detail PV21012 is able to extract from RAW files - especially from the highlight tones at the extreme right of the histogram - is unbelievable.

    Tim
    I really love Lightroom. My goal is to never have to go into PS Elements if I can avoid it.

  13. #13
    davidedric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Cheshire, England
    Posts
    3,668
    Real Name
    Dave

    Re: Lightoom Users

    I really love Lightroom. My goal is to never have to go into PS Elements if I can avoid it.
    +1

  14. #14
    Glenn NK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Victoria BC
    Posts
    1,510

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew1 View Post
    Glenn, by your note above I'm reading you are using XP as well. I searched out LR3 because I was told LR4 isn't compatible with XP. I managed to find a copy of LR3 in Ontario and should receive it this week. Tell me I didn't waste my money on an older more expensive software.

    PS..OK, just checked with Adobe and found XP is not compatible with 4 so I've calmed down a bit. Who reconfigured your computer? The guys at DTI built mine and I routinely defrag my two internal drives with the XP accessories. My PC isn't slow as far as I know but before I load LR3 it might be nice to know how to check. Is it just noticing a problem on the PC or is there some timed processor test I can use?
    The biggest problem (as pointed out by Patrick) is when one adds another camera. My 30D files were manageable, but the 5DII files are so much larger. Imagine what happens to the users of the new Nikon 800 series.

    Actually my dual core XP machine is no longer being used for photography, so I did not know that LR4 would not work with XP.

    The point I was making was that there is a huge difference in performance between a freshly configured machine and one that is six years old where the registry is full of junk. And this is one of the differences between MS and Mac machines afaik.

    Sorry if I misled you on the OS. I should have also stated that I have three desk top computers, one for business, one for music (dual core XP Home), and one for photography (quad core 64 bit Win 7).

    Glenn

  15. #15

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    189
    Real Name
    Helen Wood

    Re: Lightoom Users

    How does the noise reduction compare between LR 3 and 4? I am debating between upgrading LR or buying a noise reduction program.

  16. #16

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Quote Originally Posted by HMW12 View Post
    How does the noise reduction compare between LR 3 and 4? I am debating between upgrading LR or buying a noise reduction program.
    I've not noticed any huge difference. There was a big improvement between LR2 and LR3, but I'm not aware of a major enhancement to noise reduction from LR3 to LR4. One change in the way noise reduction is shown in the rendered images: noise reduction was not always shown in Develop Module in LR3 except at 1:1; now it's shown at normal view as well.

    The main enhancement in LR4 is the basic panel (for tone mapping). For me, the upgrade is worth it for that alone. Huge improvement in tone control and recovery of highlights and shadows. It was good before (better IHMO than Nikon Capture NX2 - the other software I use for raw conversion) but now it's terrific.

  17. #17
    Kdfrank's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Southern California, USA
    Posts
    66
    Real Name
    Kerry Frank

    Re: Lightoom Users

    How does the noise reduction compare between LR 3 and 4? I am debating between upgrading LR or buying a noise reduction program.
    Hi Helen, I've notice in LR4 vs LR3 all aspects of the develop module have improved in 4. In particular clarity and noise reduction. If you decide to upgrade you will immediately notice that they have given these adjustments much more "volume". Let's say in LR3 to get the desired clarity, you would move the slider fully to the right. In LR4 the same adjustment level can be accomplished by moving the slider much less. Lastly I've read that the algorithms for noise reduction in LR4 have been greatly improved as well. Hope this helps.

  18. #18

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    189
    Real Name
    Helen Wood

    Re: Lightoom Users

    Thanks Guys. Think I'll give it a try

  19. #19
    Glenn NK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Victoria BC
    Posts
    1,510

    Re: Lightoom Users

    An update to my first post; I think the link demonstrates the value of LR4 over LR3 (I have three of Martin Evening's books on Lightroom, and found them very useful, particularly in learning the "whys" of adjustments, not just the "hows").

    http://www.dpreview.com/articles/120...om-4-and-acr-7

    He starts each example developing the images in LR3, then shows the improvements using LR4.

    His last sentence is intriguing, "where I once used Photomatix or Merge to HDR Pro to blend exposure bracketed images together, I am finding that using just a single median exposure . . . gets similar if not better results".

    Admittedly I have never used HDR, etc., however I often wonder when viewing others' HDR images if I could have achieved the same result with PV2012.

    Glenn

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •