Photoshop Insider

I Just Saw the Next Version of Lightroom, and…

By Scott on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 6:06 am | updates.

…..it’s going to make a lot of people very happy! (Myself included).

So here’s the scoop: one of my meetings during my trip this week to Adobe’s Headquarters was with the Lightroom team where they’re showed me where Lightroom is going in the future. I’m under a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Adobe, so I can’t reveal any specific features, or when Adobe plans to release it, or anything like that, but I can tell you this; I was very impressed (OK, a bit giddy was more like it).

As Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty mentioned in his blog post on Monday, to get all the things included on my 2.0 wishlist (now known as “our mutual wishlist” because your ideas are more important than mine) would take literally years (and after meeting with them, I have a much better understanding of why). In the coming weeks I’m going to work to find a way to connect you with the Lightroom team, and the brilliant engineers behind the product, and once you get a peek into their world, you’ll realize these things:

They are listening to their customers at a level that would surprise you
They want the exact same things you want
They want them as soon as we do (maybe sooner)
They’re thinking of the future of the product, and how it scales upward, in a way none of us ever have to consider. We’re lucky we don’t have to even think about that stuff.

It’s always enlightening, and motivating to spend time with the development team, and I’m sharing this with you to let you know that Adobe could not be more engaged, concerned, or dedicated to making Lightroom kick @#$ than they are. This is SUCH an exciting time to be a photographer, and it’s getting better all the time!

Comment form for this post

^#1

Wow….. it’s great to see such a customer driven product.

adam buteux on January 23rd, 2008 at 6:12 am

^#2

can’t wait for the next version! thank you, adobe!

Mike Lao on January 23rd, 2008 at 6:47 am

^#3

Having recently converted to Mac, read up on the Company, bought their stock (as well as Adobe), it strikes me that Apple and Adobe have similar consumer focused/innovation heavy strategies…it is a winning formula…now if the stock prices would get back on track!

The Blurry One

Ned Leary on January 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 am

^#4

Well, I think, that if Adobe make LR’s SDK more functional, then community implements most useful features from your wish list. At least, I hope so.

Svetlyak 40wt on January 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am

^#5

Good news!

Just either mask darwing or a masking slider for the noise reduction please!

oh and the adobe feature request form gives an error upon submission!

Richard Costin on January 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am

^#6

Scott,

It is so nice to hear that the Lightroom Development Team at Adobe is listening to the consumers and people like yourself, as well as, well known photographers for suggestions. You are right in saying that it is a good time to be a photographer as I am excited to see what the new version has in store and look forward to see a more complete product in which you won’t have to rely on Lightroom AND Photoshop to edit your pictures. I would much rather do everything in Lightoom to make it easier.

Hopefully, something such as HDR will be incorporated and more filter options will be available like Neutral Gradient Density, warming, sunset filters…etc. Keeping my fingers crossed.

It would be nice if Adobe teamed with Photomatrix to learn more about HDR and some of their tools can be incorporated into Lightroom. It would be a great time saver.

Keep up the great work and love your blog.
Chris

Chris on January 23rd, 2008 at 10:55 am

^#7

I am looking forward to the future releases. I have re-discovered Lightroom again last month and now I feel like I could not live without it!

Tyson Williams on January 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 am

^#8

Thanks Scott. Maybe a teeny, weeny, weeny idea on WHEN?

Nick

Nick Gren on January 23rd, 2008 at 11:08 am

^#9

Hello Scott,
I have several of your books [CS2 and CS3 for Digital Photographers, 7-Point, Lightroom, etc] and read them all from cover to cover, including the introductions. It just shows I need to get a life! While your books are informative, educational and a joy to plow through it is sometimes difficult to get to the same starting point with you showing a Mac screen and me looking at a PC. For example, your Lightroom book was completely different than what I was looking at in many instances even with the PC options you mentioned. I also had a difficult time with your printing chapter in CS3 because SOME of the screens look totally different. I still haven’t found some options on my Epson R2400 that you see. In any event I’m looking forward to reading future publications.

Don Temple

Don Temple on January 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 am

^#10

LightRoom Rocks!

Is the upgrade for free?

Tho9mas on January 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm

^#11

iwork and ilife have family packs (5 user in one house hold). which is a very good deal. It would be nice if Lightroom 2.0 would have the same option. Something like a business pack.

dan eaton on January 23rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm

^#12

I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this. Lightroom was already fantastic in that it caters directly to photographers needs, and the feedback and interaction that has occurred between the developers and the community of users in truly remarkable. I feel like we are entering a new age of software development, and I cannot WAIT for the next iteration of this program!

Zack DeLaune on January 23rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm

^#13

Scott,
In my prior life, I was responsible for an Engineering Design and Development Organization.
The most effective installations and ultimately the operation of our designs were those where engineers sought and implemented user input no matter how trivial the request seemed to them.
Adobe has done a great job so far doing just that with Lightroom and it is great to hear that they are still listening to users.
Some Engineers (I’m sure Adobe has a few of these) unfortunately have the bad habit of not knowing when to let go of their babies. They are also sometimes guilty of forgetting the KISS rule – Keep It Simple Stupid.
It is my hope that Adobe does not bloat Lightroom to the point where it has every option available at the cost of usability.
Thanks for listening to your readers and for being our voice.

Peter Marcaurelle on January 23rd, 2008 at 4:34 pm

^#14

Hello Mr. Kelby, I’m a photographer from Spain and I couldn’t close my eyes open wide when I saw your 2.0 wishlist. It would be great!! but there’s one thing left in it VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT

Please, we need LR in SPANISH!

Not only in Spain but all over America there are thousands of Lightroom users who NEED it.
Please, tell Adobe Team about it. We have all our trust in you.

Thank you!

Neus de Saavedra on January 23rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm

^#15

Scott -

I’ve purchased several of your books and appreciate your unique style and informative and useful ideas. I wish I’d started following your blog sooner - I’d have asked for an Annotation feature for LR (similar to the one in PS and in Acrobat). There are simply times when I want to leave some trace of what I was thinking when I did something (or left something undone) or want to remind myself of what comes next, etc. for a photo. I’ve not found any good work around for that.

Also, with regard to the 7-Point System (really, really useful book which codifies a work flow that can be used consistently again and again), I also came up with the less clunky approach to cases where a Smart Object is needed, similar to the one which Nick described in his comment on 1/14.

However, in my version I just skipped the idea of converting the resulting layers into Smart Objects after they are in PS (because converting them after we’re in PS doesn’t provide the really useful feature that allows us to click either layer back to the RAW image to make further tweaks, if needed, which are then immediately reflected in PS once you leave ACR).

The resulting PSD image can be saved back into the same folder which then can be re-synchronized to include it in LR (for cataloging, at least) and can be stacked with the original image and its virtual copy. Here’s another place where I’d like to have the Annotation feature so I could remind myself of what that stack is all about).

So, among other things, please consider this another belated vote for actual Smart Objects from LR (maybe Bill Wilmore will write a script for LR as he did for PS CS2 - I think it was Bill).

Ced

Ced Bennett on January 23rd, 2008 at 7:41 pm

^#16

Scott, this is my first time commenting, though I’m subscribed to your blog and own some of your books. The information you give here is great! I know Adobe won’t disappoint us with whatever few or many features on the list, but the fact that they are listening means this is going to be one of the best if not the best software tool for photographers. I mean look how far Photoshop has come from it’s first version!

Jermaine on January 23rd, 2008 at 9:11 pm

^#17

Scott

Start writing the book

John

John V on January 24th, 2008 at 12:06 am

^#18

I couldn’t agree more. I had the pleasure of speaking with Tom as well a couple of months ago with a hair-brained scheme for a Lightroom hardware control surface. He was kind enough to share with me some similar thoughts by his team and some recommendations for future development. It feels so good to know that a like-minded and intelligent team is pro-actively developing one of my most relied-upon tools!

Ben Arons on January 24th, 2008 at 3:04 am

^#19

multiple unsharp masks of greater range than the sharpening in LR 1.2+ and more customizable watermarking alone are all I really want from a new version of LR.

Dec on January 24th, 2008 at 8:43 am

^#20

Good afternoon Scott.

The new Lightroom Community Help System might be a good place to get those suggestions posted: http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/LR/Home

Your blog is an excellent resource, and I recommend it to my students all the time.

A.J. Wood on January 24th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

^#21

Good Evening Scott.

The best laid plans… Just bought a new machine to handle photos (I’m new to Mac), have PS CS3 installed and after a ton of research, I was about to buy LR and your LR book, and now this is on the horizon.

Having read this post I was thinking about waiting, but in speaking to a lot of friends and two pros, I’m thinking I’ll push ahead, I’m betting that LR 2.0 is aways off, and anyone buying now will qualify for upgrade pricing (unless it IS released soon, in that case Adobe may allow free upgrades if it’s under 30 days or some such).

I was also on the fence about buying your LR book, but again, the pros said I’m better off not putting off what I can learn today for another day, so I’ll go ahead and order the book as well.

You have a lot of loyal followers who believe in you, and I believe in my friends, so I’ll push forward despite the new product on the horizon, many thanks for taking the “mutual list” to the people in development on, we (you and your audience) all benefit.

Cheers, Sean

Sean Farrell on January 24th, 2008 at 11:01 pm

^#22

Scott:

I believe identifying you are under an NDA is a violation of the NDA. You might want to check on that and make corrections as required. And if true, you then might want to delete this post.

If I’m incorrect, then just ignore me…

Ian

Ian on January 25th, 2008 at 11:37 am

^#23

Grrr…. Way to keep us hanging!

We can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next!

Matt on January 26th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

^#24

I believe identifying you are under an NDA is a violation of the NDA. You might want to check on that and make corrections as required. And if true, you then might want to delete this post.

If I’m incorrect, then just ignore me

indir on February 2nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm

^#25

As the other Spaniard, I encourage you to convince LR team to translate the program into Spanish. I have no problem but the market would open for Adobe it this happens. Think it over, Adobe !
Thanks for a gorgeous tool. I’m sure it will be improved very much in the futurte 2.0 release

jose on February 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 am

^#26

I’ve had a chance to play around with Aperture 2.0 and wanted to leave the same message I posted on MacNN.com as to why I still like Lightroom better than Aperture.

Man, I really wanted Aperture to succeed. I really wanted to use Aperture over Lightroom. I really wanted to be able to switch back with Aperture 2.0 but Apple’s dropped the ball a second time.

It’s still flaky in areas for speed on a Powerbook G4 (the loupe and compounding adjustments.)I’ll bet they didn’t fix the problem with Aperture becoming more sluggish the more images you load into a project.

For all the slickness on the surface Aperture is missing things that I can do so much faster in Lightroom.

Lightroom may seem like a toy to some but I’m sorry, Aperture still sucks big in places that are so much more streamlined in Lightroom. Lightroom does what it should do without the fluff. Aperture looks polished but it’s an Edsel.

Complants:

Still have to open adjustments for each image such as sharpen that I use regularly. Still can’t make a group preset that carries all of the adjustments. You have to create a preset for each adjustment. Can’t sort images any way other than ratings. I like and use flagging separate from rating and enjoy further sorting with labels. Still have to Lift and Stamp adjustments and metadata to multiple images rather than just hit a button and sync them. And when you try to stamp adjustments it doesn’t let you deselect crop from the list of adjustments. Not only is there still no curves tool but Lightroom’s is way ahead with the target adjustment feature.

I don’t think Apple is going to worry about the feedback too much. If so I have to believe they would have fixed the above shortcomings already. Besides, by the time they would make improvements based on the feedback link they provide in the program I’m already going to be well into a Lightroom upgrade cycle.

Really Apple, you can’t afford to take this kind of time to improve over Lightroom. All that and Lightroom even runs on a G3 plus it has a Windows version. Sadly, a lot of photographers use Windows. I also don’t have to keep upgrading my Mac for Lightroom where Apple wants to tie its software to its hardware. I partially used the origial version of Aperture as an excuse to upgrade to a Powerbook G4. Now I have to upgrade my computer again to get the full speed benefit from this version?

Meh, no thanks!

James on February 13th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

^#27

scott, u can tell me(!) i wont say anything!!! promise

Jon Rune on February 24th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

^#28

Hello Scott… i am from Brazil and im your fan…
i like this photo, you can send me in a good resolution?

rafaelbu@terra.com.br
tks..

Rafael

Rafael Buse on February 28th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

^#29

Scott,

Thanks for the upcoming LR summary. V1.4 came out today and isn’t the one we were looking for. It’s always nice to have little things fixed, but I’m personally anxious for the next BIG one.

I didn’t see the most needed of all improvements in your summary. Did you accidentally omit an improved Search function? A Boolean search? Away from the panel and fixed fields and real database quick search and display? Like any of the on-line stock house searches. It doesn’t do a lot of good to keyword without a really good search engine.

Nevertheless, I have 135,000 keyworded image files in LR waiting for the search engine. Please tell us it’s coming.

Chris Crumley on March 14th, 2008 at 2:31 pm