Nature Photography Workshops Tours
Stay tuned, Adobe Lightroom 6 is coming today! Here’s a leaked review pcmag.com has of a few improvements and features Adobe has refined and added in the upcoming version. I’ll make sure to post a review in the coming weeks on how the new version fits in with my workflow and comparisons over version 5. The new version can be purchased standalone for $149.99 or you can download for free with Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription of $9.99 per month.
Well it’s finally here! Adobe has updated Lightroom to version 5.7, which includes a few tweaks, bug fixes and most importantly some updates to camera and lens support, including Canon’s 7D mkII.
Lightroom 5.7 is now available as a final release on Adobe.com and through the update mechanism in Lightroom 5. The goal of this release is to provide support for additional camera raw support, lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom.
Release Notes
Features
Updates to Synced Collections:
Integrated a utility to import images from Apple Aperture and Apple iPhoto libraries into Lightroom:
…
Adobe’s controversial subscription based service now has Photoshop CC available, with a subscription of course. I’m on the fence with the whole subscription deal. For single app users, I feel it’s not necessarily the most affordable or best deal. For multi app users, it has much more value. As a multi app user, I am trying out the service this year and will see how it fits into my workflow and whether it’s worth the annual commitment to Adobe.
I’ll have a follow up here soon on Photoshop CC after putting it to use this week. You can visit Adobe’s page here.
So I’m sure anybody in the photo industry or similar has heard the news from last week that Adobe announced their “Creative Cloud”. It’s surely been one of the most heated forum discussions I think I’ve ever seen across almost all the photography forums. Adobe’s news is also a major game changer (for better or worse) for how media professionals and consumers adjust to this new workflow in today’s ever changing world of media technology and software.
For those who aren’t up to speed on what the big deal is here and why there is so much chatter going on, let me give you a brief rundown. Basically Adobe is going to a subscription based service for all of their software excluding Adobe Photoshop Elements and Lightroom. Everything else goes to either a $20 a month for one program or $50 a month for access to all their software, including Lightroom in that. Both prices are for annual subscriptions respectively. Now Adobe is offering some deals. For all users of Photoshop CS3-CS6 you can subscribe for the first year for $9.99 for just Photoshop.
Now initially when I heard this I got out my pitchfork and torch and was ready to signup and join the masses. However I decided to let the jets cool, give it some time and check out what some of the folks in the industry were saying. Adobe’s Tom Hogarty had some interesting things to say and Scott Kelby spent an entire hour trying to defend himself from crazy ranting photographers accusing him of coconspiring with Adobe or something to that effect. Lots of fun discussions anyhow.
So after all this, here’s my take on it. If you’re just a Photoshop user, you should be rightly upset. With their Creative Cloud Photoshop goes from being $199 every couple of years or so for your upgrade, to $440. Not the best deal. And certainly not for a lot of users or for folks on a budget. Adobe’s argument on this is that you won’t have to wait for updates, they will be streamlined and released whenever Adobe wants. Don’t know if I get too excited about this argument.
Now on the flip-side of this, if you’re a design or media firm or use multiple programs, this actually turns out to be a pretty good deal. You now have access to everything Adobe puts out such as Photoshop, Premiere, Dreamweaver, InDesign,etc. and all for $50 a month. Also Adobe is including Lightroom with this even though it’s still allowing non-subscription purchases of it.
Photographers are passionate about their software and Photoshop by itself has been around a very long time and is engrained in a lot of people’s workflow. Adobe’s move on this one hasn’t been very graceful especially in regards to the photo community and this particular program. I really think they may have to do some sort of bundle or arrangement with this as the backlash has been pretty huge.
My own experience with Adobe has been both negative and positive over the years. I think their software is brilliant and they have some incredibly talented people working for them. I use both Lightroom 4 & Photoshop CS6 for my workflow and love both programs.
However my experience with their customer service has been, well let’s just say not very rosy over the years. That part of things could use some work.
How we do business, consume media and even edit our images continues to change and evolve rapidly. Even the old fashioned holding of the disc in our hand of the software we purchased is now history.
To find out all the rest of the nitty-gritty details visit:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud.html?promoid=JQPEQ
Adobe has just released a beta version of Lightroom 5 today. Here are few video previews of the new version. It’s still in beta mode, but looks like some interesting new features and it’s nice to finally see some improvements to the spot removal tool. Here’s the link
http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotcom/2013/04/lightroom-5-beta-now-available.html
Adobe’s sure had some mixed feedback in it’s rush to push everyone toward the Creative Cloud, I’m sure this probably doesn’t help things much…was he saying something about the Creative Cloud?[embedplusvideo height=”388″ width=”640″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/78yigV0GYGQ?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=78yigV0GYGQ&width=640&height=388&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep9152″ /]
More exciting news this week, Lightroom4 Beta has finally arrived and it’s loaded with some great new features and refinements. You can download this for free and it’s available until March. Of course being a Beta, Adobe would like any feedback with bugs, etc. You can download it at Adobelabs.com
So far I really like some of the new tools and develop adjustments they’ve added. One set in particular is the Highlights & Shadows sliders in the Develop Module. These replace the Recovery & Fill Light sliders and the control they give you is just amazing….
I am putting together my 2011 photography classes and workshops and thought I would check and see what the interest was for an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom class here in Montana. I have been getting more and more requests lately for specific Lightroom classes and I was curious how many out there are using Lightroom?
I started using Lightroom when it first came out, seeing if I could incorporate it into my Photoshop workflow. At the time Lightroom was terribly slow and just not very polished. Fast forward a few years, and I now use Lightroom for almost all of my photo archive management and editing. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Photoshop and still use it heavily for more complex editing and doing certain tasks that Lightroom leaves out, but for a majority of basic editing, Lightroom is my go-to.
In fact, the workflow is so organized and transitions from your Photo Library to Edit, so fast, that it has cut my editing times down dramatically. On any given assignment in the past using Bridge & Photoshop, I might have spent a day or two hunched over the computer, with Lightroom, maybe now half that time. It’s just really streamlined things.
Now that’s just my experience, I still know other Photographers who are only using Bridge & Photoshop or other editing programs and everyone has their own system. However, there is no denying that things continue to improve with Lightroom. More and more amateurs & professionals are utilizing it’s awesome features, especially with some of it’s new RAW editing tools.
So if you’re in Montana and interested in having some Lightroom classes, drop me a line, let me know. I would be glad at looking at hosting some around the state or look at adding it to the classes I teach at the University of Montana College of Technology here in Helena.