Andrew’s Post From Yesterday and The Vibe of This Blog
A big thanks to Andrew Rodney’s guest blog yesterday, which really opened a lot of people’s eyes as to how digital imaging is changing, how our workflow is evolving, and how Lightroom and Photoshop fit into that workflow.I especially appreciate the comments from my readers, and from Andrew himself who posted a number of follow-up comments which really expanded on what he wrote and grew into a really great and informative discussion (almost an article within an article, which I think is cool). Something that one of my readers, Dan Sroka, wrote in a comment really stood out to me and so rings true with me. Here’s what Dan said:
“After using Lightroom for quite a while now, I don’t find that I am doing less work in Photoshop…. I find that I am doing *different* work in Photoshop. Because Lightroom has taken over the heavy lifting for getting a photograph into shape, this has freed Photoshop from those tasks, and allowed me to use it in more creative ways.”
Well said Dan, and just a note to my regular readers; if you’re not reading the comments other readers post, you’re missing out on some really great insights and discussions. Also, if you do post a comment, you’ll find a very friendly, helpful community of friends awaits. Thanks Andrew for inspiring this kind of response, and for your commitment as a teacher to our digital community as a whole.
I love the friendly vibe that exists from the readers who comment, and that things don’t turn nasty here, and that you can tell it’s a group of “friends helping friends.” It’s one of the things that really makes me want to write this blog each week, and I have you all to thank. Keep up the good work.
Hi Scott,
I couldn’t agree more. The comments that we readers post are very enlightening too. Your blog is the water to the sponge that my mind has become since really getting into photography, photoshop, and lightroom.
Thanks for all you do for all of us.
Mike
Speaking of “friends” helping “friends,” I am concerned that it wasn’t pointed out earlier by the NAPP guys about the problems with LR 2 and the adjustment brush’s lethargic behavior.
I pay good money for NAPP to be honest with us and when there are issues and not to squelch problems in favor of keeping Adobe happy.
I called Adobe yesterday and found out that they probably should have waited longer to release the LR 2 program since they knew there were major bugs such as this and that the adjustment brush problems are pervasive even with their own supercomputers.
Outside of the free shipping from BH, I am not sure what NAPP is doing to help us if it is all about the benefits and no honest critique.
If I missed this somewhere in the discussion and training for LR2 that y’all put up, let me know.
Feel free to contact me anytime with any insights I may be missing. I am not perfect and may not be seeing your efforts to educate us on this.
Pat in Houston
This is the best blog on the internet…well, besides my own.
Hi Pat:
This is a comment posted yesterday by a reader to Andrew’s article:
“I haven’t noticed a performance issue with the localized correction tools. I do have a mac pro with 7GB of ram and 64 bit mode. I did notice an overall improvement after switching the mode.”
Neither have I, nor Matt, or RC or Dave Cross, or anyone I personally know is having that brush performance problem with Lightroom—I don’t have any brush speed problem, on either one of my machines, whatsoever, and I haven’t had a single friend or NAPP member (out of 74,000 members) contact me about their having that problem—that’s why I haven’t written about it.
That being said; Now that Lightroom 2 has been out for a week or so, I am hearing that some users are having that problem, and since it has been posted on Adobe’s forums (which is where I first learned of the problem), Adobe definitely knows about the problem, and I’m sure they’re addressing it (they usually do release a bug-fix update for every single piece of software they release).
Now, Adobe may find out that the problem only occurs with particular videos cards or hardware configurations in some computer, or the way a user has their computer configured, or it may be 100% an Adobe problem. Either way, the problem does exist but the best I can tell at this point is its only affecting a small percentage of users, but obviously Adobe wants Lightroom 2 to work for everybody so I’m sure they’re working on it.
This same thing happened with the CS3 Bridge. I didn’t have a single problem with it, but I got a scathing letter from a NAPP member who, like you, accused me of trying to hide the problems with the Bridge, and he pointed me to a site with a thread filled with dozens of people complaining of their complete inability to use the Bridge. He couldn’t believe I was hiding the truth. But I didn’t know anyone with that problem, we didn’t have a single user (out of 40+ people in the building using the Bridge), that had the problem. The problem was only affecting a small percentage of Bridge users but those people were miserable, and I don’t blame them. I contacted Adobe on their behalf, and of course, Adobe was already well aware of the problem and they released a free update to the Bridge that addressed it.
So, just so you know; this is not a secret conspiracy to hide a problem. In fact, I am one of Adobe’s most vocal critics, and if you talked to anyone on Adobe’s team, believe me, they don’t see me as a cheerleader or someone who sticks up for them; they see me a whining pain in the &$*# who calls them on the carpet publicly every chance I get.
Nevertheless, I will contact Adobe directly, right now, to make certain they’re aware of the issue that’s been reported repeatedly in their own forums.
-Scott
Thanks Scott, I appreciate you mentioning my comment. I’ve been thinking some more on yesterday’s topic, and wrote more on my blog about the how this brand new tools is reinvigorating my appreciation of an old tool.
As a programmer (amongst other things), I can easily see how Adobe, who designs for multiple platforms and operating systems, can have odd problems on some platforms and not others. I’ve been on the development side of windows-only software and have had it do weird things on platforms that have been tested, much less when going to an under-tested platform. With the millions of combinations of processors, video cards, chipsets, RAM, etc, it is impossible to check every one. The difficulties in testing are increase exponentially when additional operating systems are involved.
I certainly give Adobe credit that they’ve created some awesome products, and I would be shocked if LR 2.1 doesn’t fix the brush problem that Pat is talking about. It is the nature of software development.
I’m also glad that we have “whining pain in the &$*#” to link us right to Adobe.
That is part of the reason why I read this blog just about every day.