Odds & Ends… LR2.2 Growing Pains

Software release is both an exciting and problematic process. Engineers work long and hard to 'dot every I and cross every T...'. But, they're human. On release date, somebody writes a summary of the progress notifying the public. Then everybody downloads and starts to use the software. Soon, this blog and that forum begin to have questions about new problems.

Today's entry deals with some solutions for a couple of those aspects. Victoria Bampton is one of Lightroom Forum's gurus. As a moderator for Lightroom, she gets early warning about things that don't quite work right. Her website Lightroom Queen contains quick posts as a heads up. She also has an e-book for Lightroom 2.
Matt Kloskowski gave a video description of Adobe Camera Raw 5.2 (ACR) at PhotoshopUser TV. Matt describes tools which originated in Lightroom 2 and are migrating to ACR and CS4. This video will be available free to NAPP and public users through next Sunday. After that, only NAPP can access it. ACR 5.2 currently works with CS4; ACR 4.6 works with CS3.
A troublesome aspect of 2.2 is repetition of beta and new camera profiles. Matt also gives us a technique for removing beta’s so we only access new camera profiles under Camera Calibration.

As you might suspect, there's continuing development on the v. 5 ACR's whereas v. 4.6 has reached a standstill. So, you ask, "What do I do to have these new features if I use CS3?"
As you noted from a prior post, Lightroom 2.2 contains ACR 5.2 (doubling its size). So, if you're using LR2.2 in conjunction with CS3, you can continue upward mobility through the Lightroom series as new tools are added to Camera Raw.

What's Under Your Lightroom Hood?

Another download round is ahead - Adobe released Lightroom 2.2 Monday. The next day, many blogs reported availability. I scanned through those blogs, looking for major differences. Not a lot was apparent at first glance...

In Tom Hogarty's list of bug fixes, about 40% of Adobe's effort went into separating and strengthening graduated filter and adjustment brush. I also find it interesting to read the comments written to Hogarty from the Lightroom community. In his chatty way, Matt Kloskowski made a preliminary comment about his delight with the revised adjustment brush. Matt also made a suggestion about cleaning up your camera calibration presets. Other than that, few other bloggers had much new to say.

After installing 2.2, I asked Lightroom an under-the-hood question, "Okay, what about Camera Raw?" Rather quickly, I learned Lightroom is now based on Camera Raw 5.2. And our new 5.2 contains…

Targeted Adjustment Tool (TAT) for on-image adjustments (i.e. click and drag on a certain color or tonal range to adjust the corresponding values) [#3 behind Grad filter and Adj brush]
"Snapshots" for saving multiple sets of settings per file

Camera Profiles for enhanced raw file interpretation now available in the Calibration panel

In early CS3 time (was it only 18 months ago?), Adobe began releasing Camera Raw as version 4.0. What a neat release - now, I could begin quickly modifying a range of variables in my raw images before I finally dealt with CS3. With this October's release of CS4, Adobe upgraded Camera Raw to version 5.1. Suddenly, it was twice as large. And just before that release, Lightroom 2 was released. A month later, 5.2 was available - oops; it's now five times larger. And, Lightroom 2.2 is now twice as large as Lightroom 2.

So I went back and reviewed Adobe's release policy. Turned out to be a useful step - during Lightroom 1 time, a couple of things got released ~ then had to be re-released. To me, that means always keep a working backup.

I suspect much of Adobe’s effort to fix and separate brushes we love to use in Lightroom 2.2 actually takes place in Camera Raw. I know Hogarty said in the recently noted podcast - it takes time between release of Camera Raw and inclusion of appropriate hooks in Lightroom. Perhaps they're using Adobe Camera Raw to simplify differences between Bridge and Lightroom. I could be wrong; but, software enhancements do take time...

Beyond speed enhancements, I suspect you're going to find Lightroom 2.2 a smoother way to make your nondestructive raw image preprocessing a much more productive and subtly enjoyable series of steps.

Merry Christmas...

Rave - 100 $2 Bills Become $19K

Normally a lurker (reads but rarely comments), I read another inspiring marketing piece yesterday. I've been following David Ziser's blog for some time. David writes about photography and chooses marketing as a topic every Thursday. David's Business Day blog for December 11, 2008, says it all, illustrating a highly innovative photographer's approach...

Kevin Newsome, mentioned in PPA magazine, found a great photographic way to advertise out-of-the-box! With 100 $2 bills and a thoughtful letter, Kevin approached former clients, suggesting they bring in their $2 bills and family, check the serial number, get a bonus gift certificate, then let Kevin take family portraits. And, of the hundred families, 19 responded and Kevin saw a handsome profit.

There are more details at both Ziser's blog and Kevin's site.

I just thought I'd rant a little bit… I think this is one of the most creative ideas I've read in some time. Naturally, in today's financial climate, innovative ideas such as Kevin's may make that major difference between survival and...

Thanks, David and Kevin...