Lightroom 4 Beta now available

[Picsfor]

Without a doubt, this version runs leaner than V3, but then v3 was such a system hog that if they hadn't improved its system efficiency they would lost whole rafts of upgrade sales because people with a maxed out 4gb computer would have had to buy a new computer.

in fact the beta runs SLOWER on my system then V3.6.

240 GB VERTEX 3 SSD, i7 2600k@4400GHz, 16 GB ram.
but i think that is because it has debugging code in it.

Interesting you're running SSD - i wonder if some one has coded for this. I know it's lightning quick compared with HDD, but i wonder if it has the ability to be handbagged by poor coding?
(I'm afraid my knowledge of SSD is too limited to really know, but i put it in the same class as CF, but with faster read/ write speeds - and the variation in how software manages Cf is amazing)

[Picsfor]

Currently using combo of Aperture and Photoshop 5 on multiple computers (with multiple copies all over the place , and hoping to get more organized soon.  Is it worth my consolidating all my keepers into this new LR ? Is the transition easy?  Will it move (or copy) my originals as they are imported?

Its a public beta, I would use it for testing, but be aware that it may change or crash and damage or lose your work.  It won't damage your images, it never changes them, but if you do a lot of work in the next few months, it might be lost.

exactly - and it's amazing how many people forget that basic fact. Hence my testing is done using pics from previous shoots that have already been processed so i can make comparisons.

The improvement in the clarity feature of the brush tool have come to the fore at the moment, along with improved noise reduction. Contrary to what some others have said - am liking the maps module, and at some point soon, hope to make use of the Books module.

As long as the final package doesn't hit the system resources like v3 did, then i'm ok for an upgrade, but my iMac is maxed out on RAM and i'm not in a position to upgrade to a new thunderbolt system, as that would require a few new HDD's as well!

[Gothmoth]

Interesting you're running SSD - i wonder if some one has coded for this. I know it's lightning quick compared with HDD, but i wonder if it has the ability to be handbagged by poor coding?
(I'm afraid my knowledge of SSD is too limited to really know, but i put it in the same class as CF, but with faster read/ write speeds - and the variation in how software manages Cf is amazing)

SSD are like HDD on steroids. they can´t be compared to CF drives.
the contollers are very different.
access times are very fast what helps for database applications.

so an SSD has nothing to do with the fact that the beta feels a bit sluggish.

[pwp]

LR V4.0 better not be such a system hog as V3. It's a shocker in that regard. Early impressions suggest this is a highly meaningful upgrade of an already brilliant piece of software. The LR3 public beta held back a couple of cool features (can't remember which ones) so maybe LR4 final release candidate will deliver even more cool stuff.

SSD? This is the future. You seen the way a Macbook Air powers up instantly? iPad? One day we'll look back at the days when we relied on antique HDD's which had actual moving parts and shake our heads in disbelief. SSD might as well = Speed Stability Durability

I build my own PC's (it's a bit like Lego) and the next build will follow a pattern established by others of having the OS and programs on SSD (two for RAID) and modest 1Tb local storage on HDD (two for RAID). The storage heavy lifting is handled on a 10Tb NAS.

Paul Wright

[Viggo]

Although I'm loving the NR-brush, I REALLY wish they would have added a masking-feature to the NR sliders, applying directly to shadow or the opposite from sharpening-function.

[Gothmoth]

LR V4.0 better not be such a system hog as V3. It's a shocker in that regard. Early impressions suggest this is a highly meaningful upgrade of an already brilliant piece of software. The LR3 public beta held back a couple of cool features (can't remember which ones) so maybe LR4 final release candidate will deliver even more cool stuff.

SSD? This is the future. You seen the way a Macbook Air powers up instantly? iPad? One day we'll look back at the days when we relied on antique HDD's which had actual moving parts and shake our heads in disbelief. SSD might as well = Speed Stability Durability

I build my own PC's (it's a bit like Lego) and the next build will follow a pattern established by others of having the OS and programs on SSD (two for RAID) and modest 1Tb local storage on HDD (two for RAID). The storage heavy lifting is handled on a 10Tb NAS.

Paul Wright

two of the newest SSD´s in raid will outperform SATA 3 (~600 mb/s) already for seq. read speed. and then it´s mostly "software raid" with onboard controllers people use.

i have build my latest system using a PCIe SSD card, an OCZ RevoDrive.
much better then using software RAID with SATA3.

but you should have a mainboard of the latest generation and win7.
with older hardware such a PCIe card can make problems.
but for a new PC build it´s fantastic.

[Lee Jay]

it does not even put the metadata in the fields for city etc. when you have geotagged an image.

Reverse geotagging will be enabled in the final version.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

No Windos XP support  . OMG, just when they made some great changes.

Hmmm.

Adobe "forgot" to mention that Lightroom version 4 doesn't run on XP.

Did you try the beta on XP?  No XP support means they are not going to spend thousands of hours testing it, it doesn't mean that it won't run.

Try it and let us know.

[DavidD]

No Windos XP support  . OMG, just when they made some great changes.

Hmmm.

Adobe "forgot" to mention that Lightroom version 4 doesn't run on XP.

Did you try the beta on XP?  No XP support means they are not going to spend thousands of hours testing it, it doesn't mean that it won't run.

Try it and let us know.

I did try it. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

The Setup program refuses to install unless you have "at least Vista"

If you know a way to fool the install program - I will try it.

[Picsfor]

No Windos XP support  . OMG, just when they made some great changes.

Hmmm.

Adobe "forgot" to mention that Lightroom version 4 doesn't run on XP.

Did you try the beta on XP?  No XP support means they are not going to spend thousands of hours testing it, it doesn't mean that it won't run.

Try it and let us know.

I did try it. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

The Setup program refuses to install unless you have "at least Vista"

If you know a way to fool the install program - I will try it.

My suggestion would be running the install from a Vista machine and using it to remotely install on an XP machine. You can do some funny things remotely with MS Windows, the fun i've had as part of a support time bypassing the 'restrictions'.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I did try it. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

The Setup program refuses to install unless you have "at least Vista"

If you know a way to fool the install program - I will try it.

I'd enter a complaint on the Adobe Forums, and monitor them for any work around.  There are still a large number of people using XP.  Windows Vista was much worse than XP, but windows 7 64 bit is a pleasure to use with resource hogs like photoshop and lightroom. It is a much more pleasant experience when a new install is run as long as your pc is not too old, all the drivers are there, or are automatically downlooaded for most common hardware.  I did have to install my Epson 3880 driver from the epson site, buts all the other hardware worked fine.

Since I have moved to SSD for boot drives, Windows 7 handles them better than XT or Vista as well.

[Jamess]

There's an in depth review of Lightroom 4, with some cool videos here:

http://paul-d.tv/blog/2012/01/13/adobe-lightroom-4-public-beta/

[smirkypants]

I'm impressed. The noise reduction is even more impressive than before—and it was pretty good before. I'd say that it gets you a couple of stops of usability. It even does a better job at getting rid of chromatic aberration. If you turn the clarity slider down a bit and the sharpening up a bit, you can smooth some of that bad, bad bokeh as well.

Now, if it would just stop crashing every five minutes....

[bigblue1ca]

Now, if it would just stop crashing every five minutes....

Interesting, what OS/specs are you running?  Is it crashing with video or pictures?  Just curious, because I've used it a fair bit since it was released and I haven't had one crash or lockup, but I haven't tried it for video yet.

[smirkypants]

Now, if it would just stop crashing every five minutes....

Interesting, what OS/specs are you running?

I'm on a MacBook Pro 17" with 8GB and a 1TB... and I haven't upgraded to Lion. Crashing risks increase significantly with presets or trying to "update" to LR4 a photo processed under the current Adobe Camera Raw.