Comments The Lightroom team is proud to introduce the fourth major version of the product designed for and by photographers. It was 6 years ago today when we introduced the very first public beta of Lightroom at MacWorld on January 9, 2006. (Yes, it was Mac only, smaller in footprint than most raw files and didn’t have a crop tool!) Since 2006 we’ve been hard at work improving an application that’s intended to be as easy to use as it is powerful. This release builds on the fundamental performance architecture and image quality improvements in Lightroom 3 to provide a truly complete workflow solution. I kept hearing from customers that they love Lightroom but needed to leave the Lightroom to complete X, Y or Z. Lightroom 4 tackles those issues with improvements to image organization, adjustment tools and comprehensive publishing options.
Download the beta http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4/
Talk about the beta http://forums.adobe.com/community/labs/lightroom4/
Learn about the beta http://www.youtube.com/lightroom
IMPORTANT NOTES, PLEASE READ
Primary Known Issues
- Lightroom 4 beta is not complete but please provide feedback on the available enhancements.
- Lightroom 4 beta will not upgrade Lightroom 1.x, Lightroom 2.x or Lightroom 3.x catalogs. The beta is intended to be used for testing and feedback purposes. Lightroom 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4 beta libraries will be able to be migrated to the finished version of Lightroom 4.
- While data loss is not expected, this is an early ‘beta’ quality build and you should always work on duplicates of files that are securely backed up.
- Lightroom 4 beta will not overwrite or interfere with a machine that currently has Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3 installed.
- Develop settings applied in Lightroom 4 beta are not guaranteed to transfer correctly to the final version of Lightroom 4
- The Lightroom 4 beta will expire after Lightroom 4.0 is available
- Additional known issues are listed below.
Minimum system requirements
Macintosh
- Multicore Intel® processor with 64-bit support
- Mac OS X v10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or v10.7 (Lion)
- 2GB of RAM
- 1GB of available hard-disk space
- 1,024×768 display
- DVD-ROM drive
- Internet connection required for Internet-based services
Windows
- Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor (either 32-bit or 64-bit)
- Microsoft® Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
- 2GB of RAM
- 1GB of available hard-disk space
- 1,024×768 display
- DVD-ROM drive
- Internet connection required for Internet-based services
Install Lightroom 4 beta
Download the beta http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4/
Mac
1. Download Lightroom 4 beta from labs.adobe.com
2. Unzip the download then open the disk image and double-click the Lightroom Beta 4 package in the resulting window then follow the on-screen instructions
Windows Vista, Windows 7
1. If you are running a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or Windows Vista, we recommend downloading the 64-bit version of Lightroom.
2. To find out if your computer is running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows in Windows 7 or Windows Vista, do the following:
a. Open System by clicking the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.
b. Under System, you can view the system type.
c. If your version of Windows is not 64-bit, or if you are not sure, download the 32-bit version.
3. Unzip the download then double-click the Lightroom 4 beta installer then follow the on-screen instructions
Serial Numbers
Anyone can download and work with the Lightroom 4 beta for the duration of the beta program. There is no serial number requirement.
Supported File Formats
• JPEG
• TIFF (8 bit, 16 bit)
• PSD (8 bit, 16 bit)
• DNG
• Raw (Please visit http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html for a full list of raw file support. File support for Lightroom 4 beta, aligns with Lightroom 3.6 and Camera Raw 6.6)
Important File Format Support Exceptions (Formats not supported)
• PSD files saved without a composite image. (Saved without “Maximize Compatibility” setting)
• Files with dimensions greater than 65,000 pixels per side
High Level Summary of What’s New
- Robust Video Support
- Manage images by location with the Map Module
- Simplified Basic Adjustments
- Powerful new Shadow & Highlight controls
- Additional local adjustments including Noise Reduction and White Balance
- Soft Proofing Reinvented
- Elegant Photo Book creation
- Email from directly within Lightroom
- Publish videos directly to Facebook or Flickr
- Enhanced DNG workflows
- Adobe Revel export workflow
Lightroom 4 beta Enhancements
Video Support
Lightroom 3 added the ability to import, manage and tag video files but as the popularity of video capture increases it’s important to provide a single, robust workflow solution that can support all of your imaging needs regardless if they’re still images or video captures. Lightroom 4 adds native playback for a wide variety of formats from mobile phones to high end DSLRs. Photographers can also apply common image adjustments to their video clips in real time. Additional video details:
- Video playback directly within Lightroom
- Video trimming (In and Out points)
- Set Video poster frame. (This is the thumbnail that appears in the grid view)
- Extract a single frame from a video as a JPEG file
- Most popular DSLR, compact camera and smart phone video formats supported including AVCHD (AVCHD is the native format for Sony DSLRs and many new Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens, MIL, cameras)
- Videos can be adjusted with a subset of the same controls we use for images.
- White Balance (JPEG Equivalent)
- Basic Tone
- Exposure
- Contrast
- White Clipping
- Black Clipping
- Saturation
- Vibrance
- Tone Curve
- Color Treatment (HSL)
- Black and White
- Split Toning
- Process Version and Calibration
Map Module
It’s great that digital cameras automatically record a date/time stamp so that when it comes time find that image from New Years 2003, it’s easy to filter your image collection based on the information recorded by the camera. However, the “when” of an image is only half of the equation. What about the “where?” As an increasing number of cameras, smart phones leading the pack with compact cameras following closely behind, the “where” is also being recorded at the time of capture. Even Sony’s high-end a77 and a65 DSLR cameras have an option to automatically record the GPS coordinates of where you captured an image. But for those of us who don’t speak fluid latitude and longitude coordinates, we need a visual map interface to find the images by location. Lightroom 4 adds a dedicated map module that loads Google Maps to present your images in a clear and concise view. If your camera doesn’t automatically record the coordinates of your images you can easily drag and drop images to a location, use GPX tracklog files to link images based on date/time stamps or define saved locations that can be quickly associated with a set of images. (Not surprisingly, this link to Google Maps will only work when you are connected to the World Wide Web.) Additional Map details:
- Tag images with a location using drag and drop or saved location assignment
- Search for locations
- Create Saved Locations
- Managed privacy settings for saved locations
- Load GPX tracklogs and auto tag images based on date/time stamps
Develop Module (Updated 2012 Process Version)
Ever wonder why there was both an Exposure control and a Brightness control in Lightroom’s Develop module? Why the Black setting defaulted to 5 and Brightness/Contrast to 50 and 25 respectively? When the Camera Raw plug-in was introduced in 2003 these concepts weren’t overwhelming for those intrepid photographers willing to switch their camera’s capture format to “RAW.” (It’s not an acronym so I have no idea why folks continue to capitalize that word…) When Lightroom and the Camera Raw plug-in started supporting JPEG and TIFF files, the visual appearance of the settings and preset behavior was never truly optimized for the additional formats. Lightroom 4 rationalizes the controls and addresses a fundamental photographic problem of balancing highlight and shadow detail. Please give the new tone controls a try on your most challenging images as well as the additional controls listed below:
- Simplified controls in the Basic panel
- Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks
- Powerful, content aware, shadow and highlight controls to extract all of the dynamic range in a single capture
- Updated Clarity adjustment for superior results without the artifacts
- Updated Chromatic Aberration correction solution
- New local adjustment parameters
- Noise Reduction
- Temperature and Tint
- Shadows
- Highlights
- Moire
- Per channel curves adjustments
- Soft proofing
- Paper and ink simulation
- Choose between perceptual and relative intent
- Intuitive virtual copy creation for profile-specific adjustments
- Profile and Monitor gamut warnings
- Print module brightness/contrast option to address differences between monitor and paper characteristics
Direct Email from within Lightroom
I realize that this feature has 1998 written all over it but it’s still a very common request to be able to email from directly within Lightroom.
- Configure your desktop mail client or AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail webmail accounts to send email from Lightroom
- Convenient size presets appropriate for email
- Address book to store commonly used email addresses
Elegant Photo Book Creation
Photo books have grown in popularity and quality over the past few years and we’re proud to introduce a module dedicated to this workflow.
- Flexible auto-layout tool with preset-based customization
- Over 180 professionally designed page layouts
- Intuitive drag and drop behaviors for reordering pages or swapping image locations
- Helpful layout guides and page bleed information
- Incredible flexibility through cell padding for text and photo cells
- Dynamically located photo captions based on existing metadata or manual entry
- Powerful type tools based on industry leading type technology found in Photoshop and Illustrator
- Customizable background color
- Elegant background graphics to enhance the style of travel or wedding books
- Tight integration with Blurb book printing service
- Set size, cover, paper quality directly within Lightroom
- Price estimate dynamically provided during book creation
- PDF Export options include size, resolution, color profile and output sharpening
Enhanced DNG options
These enhancements will be represented in the next DNG Specification update.(Version 1.4)
- Embed Fast Load Data options dramatically improves image loading performance in the Develop module
- Lossy compression option provides significant file savings with minimal quality impact. (Ideal for archiving outtakes or reducing the size of time lapse projects without losing the flexibility of raw)
- Resolution reduction via export provides the ability to share lower resolution versions of the original raw file without losing the capabilities offered by raw.
- Metadata and filter options available for DNG file types
Lightroom 4 Additional Features and JDIs
- Publish Collections can now include rendered video publishing
- Export to Adobe Revel functionality
- Enhanced output model for saving/storing settings applied in Web, Slideshow, Print and Book. Efforts are now clearly visible in Collections panel.
- New Zoom ratios (1:8 and 1:16)
- Mac version now includes a language selection option via preferences
- Move multiple folders from volume to volume (Previously only single folder workflow was enabled)
- White balance sample area is now zoom-level dependent
- Noise reduction adjustment is always displayed regardless of zoom level
- Collapse the tether toolbar down to the shutter button by Option or Alt clicking the close button
- Module picker can be customized via right-click option
- Filter and search images by a saved or unsaved metadata property
- Hierarchical Develop Preset display in Quick Develop
- Layout overlay for tethered shooting workflow when attempting to match a specific layout template
- Photos in publish collections that have been modified can be set to not re-publish
- Additional Metadata controls on export
- Disk burning now available on Windows 64-bit systems
- Flag status is now ‘global’ (One setting per image regardless of location in folder or collection)
- Stacking is now possible in collections
- Flash galleries are now color managed
- Per module walkthrough tips
Additional Notes:
- An important correction was made to the Lightroom credits. There’s a great tradition in the Photoshop family of listing babies born to team members during each cycle. We’ve previously omitted references to the fertility of the Lightroom team but have corrected that omission with Lightroom 4.
- “Adobe plans to change the name of Adobe Carousel to Adobe Revel. We originally chose the name Adobe Carousel because it was descriptive of core functionality in the product, in that photographs were viewed in a circular manner, like a carousel. However, we now plan to offer additional photography solutions on this platform, including but not limited to the ‘carousel’ feature. Our rapidly expanding charter for this new platform requires a name that is less narrowly descriptive of the current product features.” – Chris Quek, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Adobe Revel
Additional Known Issues
General
- Multiple exports of the same photo to Adobe Revel will create duplicate
- assets within Revel
- Import from iPhone can sometimes take a longer than expected
- Wrong photo is displayed after round tripping between library and print.
- If Tethered Capture Settings dialog is left open for very long periods of time, Lightroom
- will hang when attempting to dismiss the dialog
- Tethered capture can fail after computer wakes from sleep.
Books Module
- Blurb books created through Lightroom are limited to 160 pages
- Blurb only supports a subset of the languages that Adobe supports
- Undoing one-click photo captions works sporadically and can cause
- Lightroom to lag
- Photos may be removed from layout pages when using the color and rating
- filter in the Book Module on Windows only.
- Updating metadata in Library does not automatically propagate the change
- in metadata-based text in Book.
- Adding captions to multiple photos at once causes Lightroom to lag.
- Text on spine in Hard Cover books is not centered
Video
- Black line can appear on right and bottom of videos when viewed in Loupe on Windows
- Video frames are occasionally played out of order on certain AVCHD video files
- There could be a memory leak when exporting over 500 videos at once
Map Module
- Lightroom can crash if you try to assign too many 15,000+ photos to a Saved Location at the same time in Map (Mac only)
- Having over 1,000 tagged photos in the Map Module causes a performance lag.
- Reverse geocoding is not available in the public beta
Develop Module
- The Auto Tone algorithm is still a work in progress. In some instances, Auto Tone in PV2010 will produce better results than Auto Tone in PV2012
Soft proofing at last! And flag status now global. That alone are very good reasons to upgrade to LR 4, at least for me.
THX to the LR team. It’s very much appreciated.
Rainer
It’s a great upgrade, but… it’a a pity there is still no 16-bit printing for Windows.
and Canon Pixma Pro-1 has excellent 16-bit drives. Why?
Windows 7 supports it, Windows 8, too
Correct me if I’m wrong, I guess 16-bit printing can’t speed up the actual printing much as the print speed is the actual bottleneck, not the transfer rate.
He’s talking about 16 bit per channel color. It has nothing to do with speed.
I planned to buy LR4 for mass-processing and printing. If Win 7 version haven’t 16 bit printing and CMYK profiles support I have to refuse purchase.
Many welcome new features and lots of important fixes – sounds very good already. But I’m also very curious what new features will be introduced with later betas.
Personally, I’d especially like face recognition and a Photoshop-like quick-selection-like tool to apply localized corrections. Export to Photoshop with layers and masks based on localized corrections would also be very useful, or even Photoshop-like layers and masks controls directly within Lightroom.
The more I can do within Lightroom without having to use Photoshop, the more quality (lossless, based on RAW, not an export) and disk space (one RAW file, not multiple large PSD’s/TIFF’s) I can preserve.
Can’t wait to explore the new toolset.
Excellent! Can’t wait to try out the new video enhancements.
i think the GPS features are a nice start… but far from good.
they are way too basic and cumbersome.
not enough for people who do real geotagging.
like ACDSEE it´s only a half a$$ approach.
and im pretty sure it will not change much for the final.
i can only hope that they will do major improvements of the GPS feature in future versions. they have to improve it a lot to make it really usefull.
for example the MAP feature does NOT help you in keywording or other metadata editing. its just for placing GPS coordinates.
adobe should have a look at this FREE tool:
http://www.geosetter.de/
Under Install Lightroom 4 beta — Windows — you should remove Windows XP since the beta will not install on Windows XP. At least the 64-bit version won’t install.
Is the ability to crop added back to the library module?
I find over half of my switches from library to develop mode are just to crop as I use cropping a lot in my culling process.
I appreciate all the new features, but I still can’t publish a page which can be viewed on the iphone or ipad. Will HTML5 support be included in a layout style within web publishing?
GPS support and geotagging i have waited for that… but what a dissapointment.
could adobe have made it more basic?… no!
the functionallity is so basic every freeware geotagging tool is way better.
it does not even put the metadata in the fields for city etc. when you have geotagged an image.
what the fuk they are thinking?
http://www.geosetter.de
geosetter is a ONE MAN project.
and adobe with all it´s manpower has nothing more to offer then this crappy MAP feature in LR4?
useless….
ok ok it´s beta …. but i doubt they will improve the map modul significantly in the final.
will check out if the develop modul improvements are worth an upgrade for me….
Hi thanks for adding video support! Especially for us using Premiere and Audition! My wish list..
!) a command delete to remove any individual photos and override any restrictions.
2) a way to remove duplicates with a slider for tolerances or at least some auto running program that alerts and allows for the removal of duplicates.
No face recognition/tagging. :•( Still waiting
Now that Lightroom supports video, has support also been added for other common image formats, such as PNG , GIF, and EPS? I would like to use Lightroom as a general purpose Digital Asset Manager. But its inability to display very common image types limits the program’s utility. Even if it cannot directly edit these additional formats, it would be nice if they could be cataloged.
Still no support for 32 bit image formats? Disappointing.
“Powerful, content aware, shadow and highlight controls to extract all of the dynamic range in a single capture” You mention content aware. I do not find it in the LR$ beta.
I use voice recording to identify species (or locations). Will there be some way to tag all images with a sound associated so that I can copy them (to save for identification purposes).
Rich
Nice update. It looks like it has all the big items from my wish list except for facial recognition. Even rudimentary and inconsistent recognition would be a big help for tagging people in photos. Any chance for a last minute surprise (a la Lightroom 3′s lens correction)?
Any official line on upgrade pricing yet? I’m a little concerned as I only just purchased Lightroom 3 last week, I’m hoping us recent purchasers get a gratis upgrade when 4.0 goes gold as if the beta was out I would have held off on my purchase and used the beta instead.
Hi,
I just downloaded the L4 beta, to try out the moire tool, but it’s not there…
Did something go wrong?
Thanks,
Peter.
Will it open catalogs over a network? (not multiuser) Just remote access.
Was really hoping for network support for the database file. I have 3 systems I use in my work flow plus a 4th one my assistant uses. Having the ability to store the database on a share would double my productivity.
Todd Martin
Agreed completely with the network support. I know there’s problems with how the database is setup for multiple users, but there’s got to be a better way than just exporting to XMPs and updating libraries on each computer.
In a preliminary test on one of my most challenging, high contrast, RAW images and using the new tone tools – Highlight/Shadow/Whites/Blacks the results are very impressive.
However, when I tried to e-mail samples to a friend, I was unable to use my default client-side e-mail program. I was obliged to use the Export>Email (Hard Drive) option, which includes no file size choices. Hopefully the e-mail function will be improved in the future so that it can utilize the system default e-mail client. Otherwise it will be of limited value.
By the way, the reason we frequently capitalize RAW is that it clearly distinguishes the word from the adjective “raw”, which is commonly used to refer to meat, vegetables and coarse language. Capitalized, RAW is clearly a technical term for a digital image format. Of course, like JPEG/jpeg, TIFF/tiff, etc., it’s no doubt acceptable to use it either way – and even with just the first letter capitalized, Raw. But the other image format designations have no alternative meanings with which they might be confused. RAW is thus unique in its derivation and though it refers to raw, unprocessed image data (and is not an acronym for anything), it still has a specific technical use. Over time common usage is more likely to determine the proper spelling of the word than any logical rules of grammar. The only grammar rule that might apply is that, however it is spelled, it should be done consistently within the confines of a single article – as it is not, herein.
No XP support is a real disappointment, particularly given that appx 1/3 of Windows installations are still XP.
I try to keep my field laptop configuration simple, and that includes running it on XP. Now, I have to add the cost of upgrading that to the cost of the LR upgrade.
If it is simply a question of eliminating the cost of testing on XP, I’m sure many of us will be happy to do that.
If there are new LR features that can’t be supported in XP, It’d be nice to know what those are, so I can at least understand the trade-offs.
For that matter, as one XP user, I wouldn’t mind if I could install on XP, knowing in advance that some features simply wouldn’t work. In the field, I primarily use LR for image ingestion and rough edits, so that could cover a lot of ground and still meet my needs.
What about PSB support? Almost all of my files are bigger than 4GB once they’ve visited photoshop. It’s a big hassle having to export a flattened file for lightroom and then when I want to go edit the original, find it in the finder to then edit in photoshop. Please add PSB support! This should be out of the box functionality. As mpixels and editing complexity go up more people are running into this problem then ever before.
If theres a technical hurrdle with the sizes of PSB files, You could even just generate a flattened proxy file that then links to the original PSB when you edit it in photoshop.
The problem with Blurb Books is that they do not lay flat-making them unusable as far as I’m concerned-I have had to stick with Aperture Books.
Are you aware of this problem, and have you fixed this issue in LR4?
Thanks
I welcome more video features!
I would like to see a function to import selected clips or collections into an video editing software like Premiere or After Effects.
At the moment it is not possible. So i can´t use my organized video collection clips in Premiere. I have to select them by hand in explorer.
With this function LR would be a great tool to organize footage.
Bridge is to limited for me for this task.
I guess Adobe didn’t read my wish list. Still no meaningful archiving? Speaking of 1998 functions
Looks like some interesting features, would still love to see a feature that allows the catalog to be shared/synced between multiple computers (yes I know we can rsync or use some other syncing software to somewhat emulate this functionality, but its not an elegant or efficient solution).
Perhaps LR as two versions – a client/standalone version and a server version for managing the catalogs/version control on a networked storage device.
Liking the changes and can’t wait to try. My studio network running Windows XP. Not sure from details if I can run?
Are we still unable to write metadata to videos? This was our most/only hoped for feature for the next version. All the video features in the world are useless without this. Bridge can do it, why not Lightroom?
There is only one improvement I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to see in Lightroom. That is adding the “content aware fill” smart cloning tool that is in Photoshop. I do NOT need Photoshop for anything else and if that feature was in the Lightroom clone/heal tool or another tool somewhere, my life would be complete! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider adding that feature. I see others asking for more clone/heal tool improvements – it is used for just about every photograph I take, whether it’s people or something in nature. And those stupid telephone poles and other “polluting” objects out there that ruin a perfectly good shot, could easily be eliminated. Thank you for letting us test out this new beta version!
I am looking forward to taking this beta for a test drive, especially the book module. I have created books with blurb in the past with their lightroom plugin and it was a one way process where the final work was performed online. With the new book module it looks like far more can be performed in lightroom.
This was a featured I blogged about in the past and now we have got it.
Thanks to the Lightroom team.
Niall
Is there any thought given to partnering with photo book publishing services other Blurb? I currently use smilebooks/professional photo albums and I would love to continue using them for my books….
Hello
I am a HDR Interior photographer, what I miss in Lightroom is an Integral HDR or exposure blending option, now this is all done with a plugin but I prefer to see this just like Photomatix in Lightroom 4, no problem and not to late for build i think.
you makes 100000 people happy with this option.
best regards
Peter Baas
I think HDR is very popular, and the PhotoMatix plugin works great. Adobe doesn’t stive to bring you every single feature available to man but rather provide every feature to deliver you your best contents.
So, nothing was said about cloning/healing… that was a MAJOR improvement that I was searching for. It is such a waste of time to have to go thru PS to do this. I know they were initially only to be used for very simple adjustments for dust spots and other small things like acne and smaller things. I really wished that something could be improved upon here. Video editing improvements, well, lets see how this works. I can’t picture in my mind if you can edit frames only OR if adjustments get put on the whole movie. YIPES> off to youtube to hunt for video editing tutorials. Thank you Adobe! (please don’t charge 400$ or more for LR, that would blow…)
I’m very excited about the new mapping features. Another very powerful tool in my never ending quest to rationalize my collections. Stacking too. Way cool
Thanks. HJ
native video playing with start/end/screen capture is really needed – big thanks! Needs list – facial recognition! create posters and mosaics from selected photos for different sizes, keep them coming.
When can we have the ACR v 7.0 that will allow bringing LR 4 images into PS?
Will Windows XP be supported? Or will I have to upgrade to Windows 7?
XP is not a supported OS for Lightroom 4.
Quite disappoint that there’s no host-guest like architect achieved in V4. We hope there will be more support for team photos management. Such as photo Library on a powerful server with lightroom server edition, and all team members can access the library and do their daily work on lightroom client edition through LAN etc.
It’s a pity that you haven’t added support for DPX files as you are moving heavily towards moving images in this version.
No face-recognition, no region-tagging?
You’ve got to be kidding me. For how many major release cycles do you want to keep postponing this? I can’t believe that both Picasa and iPhoto will continue to be more useful for actual photo organisation than lightroom. You need to start thinking outside the studio-photographer category, guys. Is there any chance that such a major feature will be introduced in a later Beta, or should I start saving up for a mac and Aperture (I really don’t want to, I love lightroom and its development workflow, but I think I’ve just waited long enough)
Have a bug for you in the develop module. Nothing horrible, just got it while I was messing around with some badly messed up images and being impressed by the quality of the new module. I doubted that you guys had a bugzilla or such open to the public so I’ll just post it here.
Repro:
1) Open heavily clipped, overexposed raw file with default settings and no auto-adjustment (may work with non-clipped files, didn’t check)
2) Set exposure slider to -5.00
3) Change whites slider. Now, the range [-100, -1] acts like the range [90, 100] or so, with -1 possibly being even brighter than 100. The [0, 100] range seems to act normally. Looks like somebody misplaced a sign somewhere.
Raw file in question is from a Pentax K7 in PEF format. I can send it if you can’t get this to reproduce with other files, just email me.
This is great news! It shows that I was way front in time when I wrote the article “Geotagging ist keine Spielerei” (Geotagging is more then just a Gadget) in 2009. The article was so far ahead time as there was not much public interesst and understanding. This started to change with smartphones and cameras containing integrated geotagging. Even if Nikon DSLR started to have GPS interfaces in 2001 !
Still, the article of 2009 [1]shows that there is much more power in Geotagging than lightroom will integrate now:
- You could make the user select names from POIs (like “St. Maria Church”, “Victory Monument”, …) to help tagging.
- In combi with compass direction and focal length this would be even more effective.
- You could filter potential “blue hour light” , daylight, night, moonlight, … images by gps data, date and time
- Some Geotaggers allready include a compass: With that you can even filter “side light from left”, “backlight” frontlight, …
==> In combi this results in filters like “sunset in frontlight”
- ….
Unfortunatly lightroom 4 does not even support showing the compass direction on the map as far as I see
So let us hope, that lightroom will soon really join the geotagging idea in full power.
LR 4 won’t run on this type of Mac. Surprised to receive this message.
I have MacOS 10.6.8 installed on by 2 GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook
Really excited by the new map module, as that is so much easier to use than Geotagger and I’ll need to compare with GPS PhotoLinker’s ability to set a global time offset when I’ve got a track to apply.
The thing that I need, and havn’t worked out how to do yet is select by ABSENCE of GeoLocation data, so that I can work through those shots to tag them, I hope I’m just missing something obvious, if not I hope it will be added before final release
Thanks. Every version keeps getting better and better. I hardly use Photoshop these days. With many people using multiple desktop or laptop computers to edit images, was there any thought into building a capability into Lightroom so that you dont have to export the catalog each time you want to use Lightroom on a different machine.
Awesome! lets try it
Looks like some great additions, I’ll be upgrading for sure. Good work Adobe.
I watched the intro videos, and I really can’t wait for this to be out. Looks like a great release!
One question: if I create a blurb book in Lightroom and send it to Blurb, can it then be edited by the Blurb desktop app?
The Book section is very interesting, but i need export book project to psd or jpg to full happyness.
I am really disappointed that Windows XP doesn’t seem to be supported
I too would like to remain with XP Pro as my OS. Upgrading an OS is tedious at best what with reinstalling dozens of programs programs. XP has been a reliable and dependable platform. What’s the final word on LR4 and XP in 32-bit?
Please consider adding the ability to burn to disc, two distinct sizes (for example: full resolution files and web resolution files) at the same time vs. only being able to burn one size to disc. Disc burning within the app is a crucial workflow tool for client delivery without having to manage numerous exported files.
Hi,
Excellent that you put a lot of effort in develop the LR and take it´s MMI to the next level. However, when will you follow through with a mobile application for iPAD, that travelers, journalist and other people can use on the move. I´m not after a full version, because of the processors speed limitation. But some version that you can preview, put in right catalogetc and in the end be able to synchronize with my Lightroom version at home.
Regards
Jim
I’ve purchased Lightroom since version 1 but I guess version 3.6 will be the last. I’m running XP and have NO plans to move to Windows 7 and especially VISTA because of older devices (HP laser printers, software I’ve updated online and no CD, etc. Thanks Adobe for cutting XP users off at the knees by not allowing us to take advantage of improvements in any future software. I hope you don’t do the same with CS6!
Don Temple
Please Adobe dropping XP support when it’s usage is still high worldwide is a mistake you are doing like Microsoft did with IE9. XP support SHOULD be dropped when it has less than 10% usage share worldwide, not earlier than that. You have already dropped Premiere Pro and After Effects support for XP, please if you really care about customers and listen to them, please support Windows XP SP3 and change this decision. XP with SP3 is far different from the 10 year old RTM release. If anything Vista support should be dropped as it has less than 10% of the usage share and you wouldn’t be losing customers. Please support Windows XP and Windows 7! The 10-year old argument doesn’t mean any meaning. XP SP3 is different from XP RTM and works wonderfully. Vista completely bombed, so supporting Windows 7 plus an older release like XP that many people use would be the right business decision. Windows 7 doesn’t work with many older scanners and printers plus it has some regressions in Explorer. I would migrate to some other app from Lightroom if XP support is dropped.
What am I missing? according to the features I should be able to edit video, however when I attempt to bring a video into the develop module I get a “video not supported in Develop” message… if not the Develop module how then does one apply all the above mentioned video editing features?
So many “disappointments” over face recognition and GEO Tagging….sorry folks.
BUT…as a fine art landscapist I still thank my lucky stars for Lightroom.
P.S. I file my DNGs so well I don’t need face recognition ….and I always know where I am when making a photograph….I paid the airfare and still have the ticket receipts!
I would really like noise reduction in video too!
This is the first time that I have ever used Lightroom and at first glance it looks like a great tool. This beta version has no help in the upload but it was easy to navigate, import to a catalogue, name sets, add tags and metadata. I then tried some editing and again was surprised at the ease of use but when I uploaded it to Flickr….not the same as my screen at all. I then did the same tweaks in CS5 and uploaded to Flickr and got what I saw on the screen. Checked all the colour settings which all match up to SRGB. Baffling.
So verdict, great for catalogueing but as for editing won’t change yet until I know what is going on with the upload process. If that was sorted would be great for batch processing and reduce workflow considerably. Never did find out how to re-size an image for different mediums but I am sure it must be there somewhere.
Thank you Adobe for the Map tab. I’ve been geotagging all my photos for several years now and the promise of being able to include that process under one app has been a hope. I agree geosetter.de is the gold standard. At least geotagging has its foot in the door with LR and will only get more capable. For landscape photography it’s an invaluable way to catalog images.
As for XP – I support over 100 pcs in a work environment and have experienced minimal issues with Win 7. It’s time to move on from XP. It’s an 11 year old OS. There have been a few advances in computers in that time. 7 takes advantage of those advances
Gidday folks. I just had a go at a problematic very high contrast ratio image of a waterfall in Wales. I’d given it my best shot with LR3 and achieved an image acceptable to my wife, but I’ve never been happy with the loss of detail in the water. Today, I tried the image from scratch in LR4 beta 1 and got a better result – with less effort.
I’ll be upgrading as soon as LR4 becomes available!
I have just used LR4 on one image so far, but I must say I am very disappointed. LR4 removes three essential tools for me, and does *nothing* to address one of the major failings of Lightroom as an IMAGE processing tool.
I use the Brightness, Recovery and Fill Light tools, on almost every image in LR3, and they are all missing in LR4. I was thinking maybe Fill Light was renamed Shadows? But it did not give me the expected and desired result. I’m guessing Highlights is the old Recovery? My image didn’t need that tool, but I hope it’s still here. I use Brightness a good deal in LR3, I hope that is not gone!
The major shortcoming I found in Lightroom was a very limited Clone/Heal system, and no support for layers. I would like to keep as much of my processing as possible in LR to avoid multiple compression passes, and I just think LR should do a MUCH better job with Cloning. We need a clone brush, and hopefully layers, but a brush at the minimum!
Capture NX2 is looking better every day.
Thanks
If the final version of LR4 won’t work with Windows XP, I won’t be upgrading.
I’ve too heavy an investment in :-
-many different types of software that works on XP but not Win7 or Vista.
-many printers, scanners, music equipment etc. that won’t work on Win7 or Vista.
-many XP computers bought, that all this equipment and software works on extremely well.
I agree with a previous comment, that if certain functions wouldn’t work with XP if it were offered, then I’d like to know what I’d be missing and make any future decisions based on that.
Otherwise I’d stick with LR3.6 which works fine for me. Adobe will miss out on a section of future income!
Thanks for all the great upgrades. I would like to suggest an upgrade to the Book Module. It would be a plus if you have the ability to add “keylines”. Selection by size, color etc.
Any chance the 512 megapixel file size will be increased? I work with very large images, and 512 just isn’t enough. Could make do with 65k x 65k = 4 gigapixel.
i wrote about geotagging in 2007 and the tools getting better…. unfortunately lightroom is like a geotagger from 2008.
it was said before.. if adobe wishes to be recognized as a company who pushes the borders then have a look at GEOSETTER.
today lightroom is an good “one for all product”… but it is not outstanding in anything it does.
there are better RAW developer, better managing tools, better geotagger.
lightroom IS good in all these (except geotagging)…. but not outstanding.
the outstanding thing is that lighroom offers it all under one GUI.
but please adobe… bring INNOVATIONS to lightroom.
all that is new in LR i have seen in other products before (often better).
get some peope who have new and USEFULL ideas into your team.
people who have creative new ideas what is possible with face recognition, geotagging or who think about new features to SHOW and FILTER information in huge databases.
Still didn’t download the beta but I woander if there’s finally Full Screen for Mac OS. HDR would be a gread addition.
I publish my foto books many times by Blurb, the service is just fine with me, but if I did not done soft proof, picture came out dim and much darker than originals, my monitor is calibrated regulary. My request is to have option to see soft proof from Blurb right inside LR 4. Why not in Lightroom, if its work just fine in Corel Paint Shop Pro ?
Another plea for XP support. This is a stable platform. For that reason it has become a standard for many corporations who refuse to migrate hundreds/thousands of networked PCs to a new OS until there is demonstrated proof that all the bugs have been removed. It is why there are few corporate networks running Vista. Please, please maintain XP support for version 3 – or at least inform us the technical reason why XP cannot be used for some for the new features. if this is a business decision then I suggest you reconsider before shooting yourself in the foot.
Hi,
i’m using LR since Vers. 2 and i’m fine with the product and also with the updates.
What i really missed from the beginning? Why there is no possibility to see my work on my own monitor in full screen mode? I dont understand what is this restriction for.
Please let me know
It’s good to revise the basic controls, but it makes no sense to merge Exposure and Brightness. Leave Exposure as it was and replace Brightness with a new Midtones control.
Anyone else getting an “The movie files contain no video frames.” error? This is an AVI file taken with a Nikon D5000, so shouldn’t get more standard DSLR Video than that….
Will I be able to shoot tethered with Mac OS 10.7.2 and the Canon 5dMKII? LR3 crapped out on me & hoping I don’t have to purchase CaptureOne b/c I love so many LR features but tethering overrides the fun stuff.
started playing, love that i can correct video, all running stable atm.
nearly used to the new tools in dev already 
Just one quick request, my major catalogue is now getting up to 120 000 images i would dearly like to have levels of folders (that were some how written into the meta data so that when i bring the images in to another cat they will appear in folders….) it’s just i would like one level for shoots, next for great/good/also-rans, next for parts… three levels instead of the one would be so helpful… (not sure if this is on your agenda or not)
being a designer as well as photographer i’m curious about the book feature and will give it a go over the next couple of weeks. The exporting the images as tifs drives me made…
cheers
g
Does Adobe have a release date for the consumer version of 4 yet? I was looking into purchasing Lightroom when I came across the 4 beta version. Don’t know whether to go ahead and purchase 3 or wait until 4 comes out. Anyone have an idea?
I hope i can run it off a server now, like i can run it off an external hard drive!! fingers crossed!
LR4 beta crashes all the time when using Develop Module (Updated 2012 Process Version) on my system.
No plan for mpo stereoscopic files support ??
Firstly, I would like to say thanks to the developers for improving a great product even further!
Secondly, I am rather for improvements here and there than creating another big b@stard application that will slow its users down.
I find Lightroom a great tool… it actually brought me back to photography after I lost interest due to the inability to manage my photos (some 50,000) One year after buying LR3 I am simply wrapped how I can manage my workflow… and still use only the library and develop modules… plus some Geoffrey Friedl plug-ins (GeoCoding, MetaData Wrangler and DataPlot).
Kudos guys! Keep up the good work!
MaxG
Brisbane, Australia
I like to help, but I have windows XP.
For mi XP it’s better than Vista and, for some friends (also photographers), it’s better than 7!
Why not lightroom 4 beta for xp?
Really like Lightroom 4. Adding additional sliders, including “white” adds a new level of control especially to my black and white photos. Took a while to get accustomed to the reversal of the “black” slider, in 3.6 version need to slide the opposite direction to increase black levels.
I like the presets but would like to see some additional presets such as levels of soft focus and better infrared for black and whites, I currently find myself using Corel “paintshop pro” for certain editing and then using “Lightroom” to complete what I want to accomplish.
Don’t like the Merger of of “exposure and brightness” would like to have exposure and midtones instead.
its great so far! nice work. what would be real handy is to have control of the over all opacity of any filter (0-100). that way you could just adjust one whole filter set up it with one control rather than tweaking every option. would this be possible?
keep up the good work!
oh, and a tilt-shift filter would be amazing to have! pleeeeease!
FACE-RECOGNIZING AUTO TONING, please! With the cursor on an average brightness spot on a cheek, chin, or forehead — light skin at 75% luminosity, medium at 50%, and dark skin around 25% luminosity. That’s my formula. (I usually look at the green percentage, because it closely follows luminosity.) Please give some options for fine-tuning to suit individuals’ preferences, though.
PLEASE, guys! I’m sick of spending my time on snapshots from Christmas and Thanksgiving! This stuff is built into my Canon point-and-shoot. It adjusts exposure so that faces are at a good brightness level — why can’t Lightroom??? Give me a SNAPSHOT AUTO mode that will allow blown highlights here and there, to get the faces right — or will activate highlight recovery, and then bring the faces up with fill light.
And for general auto-tone, please give some more options. In versions 1, 2, and 3, auto-tone leaves my photos too dark, and it cranks the brightness, so there’s no contrast.
Okay, griping aside, I’m really excited that there’s going to be better video handling in version 4. I’ll probably download it and try out the new controls, when I get a chance. Overall, you guys are doing a great job!
In the new book feature, it’s great that their are a variety of templates to choose from, but it would be a nice feature to be able to create your own template.
it would be great if the new book feature had layers, like photoshop, ie: transparency option, add different color borders to photos.
Three days since I have been using it and can tell you it’s amazing
It’s going so smoothly so far….could not believe why some people had weird experience with it….I guess nothing can be spared on the Internet…However, I found some constructive criticism and LightRoom Team must take them into account….It helps
Using Lightroom, when I prepare a file for borderless printing, and there is an important feature at the very edge of the image, I need to counteract what the printer does in dealing with an imprecise paper path. Namely, the printer enlarges the image by some percentage (the so-called overspray) to avoid having a blank white strip somewhere along the edge. But that throws away the exact cropping I created. So, I roundtrip the image into Photoshop, solely for the purpose of re-sizing it downward by the requisite percentage, and then re-sizing the canvas back up to the paper dimensions. Now, back in Lightroom, there is a white percentage “border” around the picture. Let the printer do its thing — throw away that “border”, and the resulting print will be cropped just as desired. The operative word is “percentage”. If only Lightroom would allow the cell size to be reduced by a percentage, instead of by decimal fractions of an inch for width and height, the roundtrip to Photoshop would be obviated.
Great improvements. Lightroom 4 will be great.
Would like to see in the final version:
1. Place where one could import email addresses from ones own say gmail contacts, address book contacts etc into the Lightroom address book.
2. Book Module – to have a PREVIEW BUTTON to preview the blurb book created before one clicks SEND BOOK TO BLURB or before one clicks EXPORT BOOK TO PDF.
What happens if I install on Windows XP? Will LR4 function? As mentioned above, there are many of us who do not want to upgrade our Windows XP, but do want to keep up with Adobe.
Can you add pan and zoom effect on the slide show module and more effect options. Thanks!
As a college lecturer who bought a 20 user licence of LR3 and can’t use it because students do not have write access to the C Drive (we have a managed ICT facility and cannot change this), and LR3 does not allow catalogues to be written to a network drive (Their home area)…..what I would really like to see in LR4 is this capability. Pendrives which are easily lost by students are not the answer.
I cannot really understand why this has not already been included. It’s such a great piece of software to have sitting in its box!
Will Lightroom 4 upgrade be available to those who only own Lightroom 1? or do you have to have a newer version?
If lightroom can become a plug-aeor pr, it would be revolutionary. I mean video
I’m also disappointed the beta doesn’t support XP Pro. I will not be upgrading anytime soon to LR V4 if it is not supported on XP Pro. I have used LR since V1…
Would be nice to see template management for folders. I prefer yyyy_mm_dd instead of hardcoded yyyy-mm-dd. Great product, waiting for release!
Suggestions, in order of importance:
1) Spot removal equal to that of PS, with its content-aware fill. This only expands an existing LR feature, one which works very well until the problem is a bit too large or complex. This is often the only reason to leave LR for another application and yet it requires time and inconvenience and there is usually an extra image with its loss of non-destructive processing.
2)Enable Compare and Survey in the Develop module and the ability to adjust these images individually, thereby allowing adjustments to be compared as they are made, a feature especially helpful using virtuals. I have read that this can be done in Aperture.
3)I love the Effects panel and I would love it even more if top and bottom and individual corners could be applied separately.
4)Could a picture frame feature be added to the Develop module without being too obtrusive? The layout panel guides in the Slideshow module could be applied to a background image containing the frame. No doubt you have better ways of doing this. A stock of frames, not huge, but in a wide range of styles from classical to modern and with adjustable aspect ratios would be helpful. I would love to use some of my baroque and other frames.
5)Include a high quality HDR module.
Will thre be additional Beta versions as the testing goes along?
Sometimes I work in the folder, sometimes in the collection. I would like all changes and filters I do in one to also be reflected in the other. I would also like the ability to “delete from disk” from within collections like I can from folders.
Would like to see the Camera Calibration panel moved up to the basic panel and placed either above or below Treatment since the Process Version and Profile affect the overall look of the file it is not very user friendly to find them at the very bottom of the pile where they are now. Working through from top down, finding the Process Version and Profile after you have done most of the processing is just wrong. I know this placement has been this way for a long time but it makes more sense to see what these will do before you do the majority of your processing of the file. Thanks for considering this suggestion, I hope others feel strongly about this placement as well.
Please, ENABLE LR4 FOR XP!
XP is always faster and smaller than Windows 7.
Milions of people around the world still use XP because it is good.
Adobe, don’t be stupid!
Why remove support for Windows XP? No, really? Is there a reason? It’s a damn stable O/S that is still very popular. Looks like I’ll stick with DXO Optics Pro if you remove XP Support.
Wow… lots of nice features… but still no face recogniton…. ahhh we need it badly and we’ve been asking for it a long time. Please make it a high priority item in version 5… no..I mean 4.1.
You say Lightroom 4 beta will not overwrite or interfere with a machine that currently has Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3 installed. But when I imported folders A & B into beta 4, then imported folder C, D & F into Lightroom 3, both versions of Lightroom ignored the fact that all 5 of these folders were actually subfolders inside a larger folder.
A,B,C,D & F are actually assignments for a client. These assignments reside in a folder called 12_ClientName Folder. That’s how I separate assignments chronologically by year. I haven’t had any trouble importing files that show the full path before beta 4. Now A, B, C D & F are all on the root level in the Lightroom catalogue even though the whole path shows up if I look at the files by opening the hard drive on the desktop. Anyone know how to get my correct file structure back in the Lightroom catalog? Does this make sense?
face recognition
Still no face regognition?! what a pitty!
64 bit only????.
Some excellent improvements. Would like face recognition, an improvement to mapping.
Face Recognition!!!
I have been waiting for face recognition in LR. If it is not in LR4 it will be time to bite the bullet and go elsewhere.
No face recognition. bad geotagging? Maybe you looked too far ahead into fancy features and forgot where your competition is ahead as of today already. Basics first please. Or just announce that your tool is not for people that take pictures of other people or in different places.
Is not possible to include copyright watermarks at exported videos. That’s an idea for adobe, for those like me who works with “footage image bank”. Thank you.
Are there any plans to implement live view in tethered capture mode? This would be an extremely handy feature to assist in critical focus and would be a lot easier to do on a full size monitor, rather than zooming in on the back of the LCD screen of the camera, where everything becomes extremely pixelated. For photographers who’s eye sight isn’t the greatest, a live view whilst tethered would be a welcomed addition!
Re. slideshow – PLEASE can’t you make it possible to have more than one piece of music per slideshow? We should be able to run 3 or 4 songs for a 12 minute slideshow, for example. It’s crazy that you can only have one piece of music!
All new features makes it exciting
I woukd welcome support for the HDV video format (.m2T files) in LR4