Lightroom 2.3RC User Forum Comments

Within a few days of release for new Adobe software, user forums have scoped out and commented on the various bug fixes.  Here, we report on two forums:
Adobe User-to-User
Lightroom Forums

With some ~75 comments as of 0800 MST US, the international Lightroom community seems to feel that the memory leak has been repaired.  As you might expect, individual reports do with other concerns.  I leave it to you to see if one of those aspects affect your workflow.

Cross Roads

Hidden Mountain

©Joe Bridwell

It was just a lark at first. We went sunset shootin’ west of Los Lunas. NM. A low cloud bank was pushing in from the west as the sun vanished behind Hidden Mountain. Then, the surprise began… vapor trails from an eastbound and northbound plane appeared. In a moment, their paths crossed, seeming to transfix yet emphasize the sky above the gorgeous pageantry of a remarkable sunset. And Hidden Mountain, as captured, indeed, is hidden…

This stunning image is a high dynamic range composite shot with a Nikon D300 on a steady tripod. Each image was shot at 14 bits, providing 4 times the color range of a 12 bit capture. This choice helped dramatize shadows, midtones, and highlights.
Three images were captured and brought into Lightroom 2.3. The new Photomatix Pro 3.1.3 Lightroom plugin then processed those images into a 32 bit hdr file (which we saved in case future software brush improvements provide other, more compelling benefits) before seamlessly returning a Tone Mapped 16 bit tif using Tone Compressor with no global color changes.

Back in Lightroom, we cropped the dark foreground, increased exposure 0.5EV, created a medium tone contrast, added a graduated filter in the sky, then modified a local sky-only grad filter contrast and saturation until our eye’s memory was satisfied.

Two unsuspecting pilots skillfully avoiding collision provide a sacred signature to the truly gorgeous aspects Nature provides as we extend what a camera can capture to what our incredible eye can make as a transcendent memory.

Enjoy…

Lightroom 2.3RC

For me, a detailed local Adjustment Brush, while trying to sharpen a waterfall sheen on sandstone, finally froze the system…
At the time, I did not think memory leak.  But, I had been reading Lightroom blogs and Adobe forums, so when I saw 5.3RC I was enthused.  Then, I ran across this rather cryptic bug fix description in the LR2.3RC info sheet: A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments.
I’m just beginning to comprehend the strength of Lightroom’s local adjustment brush.  Because of the forum squawks about memory leak, there was some concern.  Happily, I installed LR2.3RC on an AMD 64 Athlon-X2 Dual Processor Dell laptop with no problem.
You can download LR2.3RC here.  Let’s hope the leak is plugged.