Lightroom 4 Problems

[AnselA]

If you are thinking about buying LR 4 it is probably best to wait. This version was released with a number of bugs that Adobe is struggling to fix. Although Adobe initially communicated back to users, they are now in an incommunicado mode so we don't know much what is coming or when the will be resolved. Here are few of the known issues: 

Point Tone Curve Migration
In Lightroom 3, the Tone Curve panel added a “point curve” adjustment option in addition to the default parametric curve.  When a customer upgrades their Lightroom 3 catalog to Lightroom 4, any images with point curve adjustments will lose those specific settings.  This is a high severity bug and we are working hard to provide a solution as quickly as possible.  Several members of the community have already started helping us test a fix that can be applied to an upgraded Lightroom 4 catalog.  We’ll be providing updates via this blog and the following Lightroom Feedback thread.

“Edit in” Workflow for External Editors/Plug-ins
There is a bug on both Mac and Windows that can cause the “Edit in…” workflow to fail for third party applications and plug-ins.  Many of our customers working with Nik plug-ins have found that they’re unable to launch their plug-ins from within Lightroom 4. (This is more prevalent on Windows)  We are testing a solution for this problem and it will be included in our next update.  Feedback on this bug is captured here.

Edit in Photoshop Workflow
Currently, the Edit in Photoshop workflow asks that you have the Camera Raw 7 plug-in installed.  Please note that the Camera Raw 7 plug-in is not available at this time.  The correct plug-in for Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS5 compatibility is Camera Raw 6.7, currently available on Adobe Labs Please keep in mind that currently Camera Raw 6.7 is a a Release Candidate version of the plug-in. A “release candidate” label indicates that this update is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers.

Reverse Geocoding Delays
We had a temporary loss of reverse geocoding results on Tuesday.  This problem has been resolved and we’re monitoring the issue with Google’s help.

Slow Processing
A large number of users have indicated a 200 to 300% slow down when compared to LR3. It is found in many areas of work but most annoying when sliders respond very slowly or when importing work. There has been no recognition from Adobe this is something they are working on.

[AnselA]

Here is the link I sourced the info from and you can read the comments for further details: 

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/

[BobSanderson]

I purchased the LR4 upgrade but have not installed it given the range of problems users are encountering with it. It has some nice features but there is nothing that would make me risk my entire LR 3 catalog for. It would be nice if Adobe would keep us better informed.

[BillyBean]

Just to say, I've been using LR4 since the day of the release (and in fact, using the beta prior to that, but not really in earnest).

I upgraded my catalogue fine, and have had no performance issues that I've noticed.

I've also got the complete Nik collection of plug-ins, and they all work just fine - I checked, and have been using them. I did make sure I had the latest upgrades available - both Nik and DxO issued updates around the same date, I seem to remember.

Maybe I was just lucky.

[RichATL]

Using LR4 will NOT risk your LR3 catalogs...it simply optimizes it... (remember it's just a set of instructions)..if you backup your catalog regularly.. you really have nothing to worry about at all.

NOT using LR4 because of bugs only means it takes longer for other bugs to be found.  So buying the upgrade only to sit on it and pout until it's "perfect" is dumb.
Use it...and help report bugs so you can help the community instead of mooching off of it.

[BobSanderson]

NOT using LR4 because of bugs only means it takes longer for other bugs to be found.  So buying the upgrade only to sit on it and pout until it's "perfect" is dumb.
Use it...and help report bugs so you can help the community instead of mooching off of it.

Maybe we differ, but I am not a first adopter for reasons that are clear below in one posting in the blog (http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr4_deleted_all_my_tone_curve_adjustments) set up by Adobe that show some real problems for working photographers.

LR4 lost ALL of my tone curves last night. Needless to say with over 30,000 in catalogs this amounts to a catastrophic mess. Completely blew away LR4 and spent the rest of the evening restoring to LR3.6 How in the heck was this not caught in testing? Very poor standard work to allow such a miss to get into production code. Irritated doesn't quite describe what I'm feeling at the moment.

 I don't feel it is my duty as a customer to QA their product with my work. We differ on that.

[wtlloyd]

It would be unwise to migrate your current Lightroom catalog to a new version without first doing a optimize and backup. That's just basic smarts.

Lightroom4 works great for me, no issues with speed, 60,000 image catalog.

I think the big advantages of new Process Version 2012 warrant the upgrade, many beta users griped they wanted to migrate the catalog to the beta NOW.

Photoshop CS6 beta is released today, so editing in Photoshop from Lightroom is seamless once again.....

[AnselA]

I posted this b/c I think it might save some photographers some time. I guess according to wtlloyd and RichATL Adobe has been fooled to go a wild goose chase by incompetent users.

[dstppy]

Use it...and help report bugs so you can help the community instead of mooching off of it.

IIRC, Adobe isn't open-source . . . so if I understand you correctly, this is a paid beta that you're mooching if you don't use?    

So buying the upgrade only to sit on it and pout until it's "perfect" is dumb.

By the same logic of being a mooch for not reporting bugs . . . buying it and waiting until the major bugs are fixed, makes you an investor, no?

NOT using LR4 because of bugs only means it takes longer for other bugs to be found.

That's actually not how QA works, at all.  That is how you skimp on QA to minimize release times and (try to) maximize profit.  I have a *touch* of experience in software testing

A large number of users have indicated a 200 to 300% slow down when compared to LR3. It is found in many areas of work but most annoying when sliders respond very slowly or when importing work. There has been no recognition from Adobe this is something they are working on.

An internal 'power user' should have caught this.  If they don't have anyone in management that uses the software intensively, it speaks volumes as to who is steering the ship.

[onkel_wart]

In a way hearing that the performance of the current version is sluggish in certain areas makes me happy. I've tried Lr4 on my old iMac, I really like the package and the results, but adjusting sliders was a nightmare in some cases. If that will be fixed I'll buy it for sure...

[SomeGuyInNewJersey]

Slow Processing
A large number of users have indicated a 200 to 300% slow down when compared to LR3. It is found in many areas of work but most annoying when sliders respond very slowly or when importing work. There has been no recognition from Adobe this is something they are working on.

Ah... I thought it was just because the only images I have done much work since upgrading are 10 shots panos of almost 20,000 x 4000 pix

[BobSanderson]

I'm not sure why there is any controversy here.

Adobe has admitted they have several problems with their LR 4 release. Maybe mavens here know better than them but I, for one, think it is better to be informed to make a proper choice. To those enjoying the product without a problem, great, and to those others who prefer to wait - that is not a crime against anyone. I feel I am a customer and deserve great QA and Beta testing to be done before I purchase, not after.

[bigblue1ca]

I was watching Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski (KelbyTraining.com) talk about the LR4 bug issues yesterday or day before, and they said they upgraded their entire libraries and both had no problems.  However, they have heard certain users reporting issues, however it sounds like people with issues are in the minority.

My LR4 upgrade is arriving for me tomorrow, and I'm going to upgrade.  But before I do so, I'm going to back up my entire LR3 catalog (like I would with any important software upgrade)..  I've been using the LR 4 Beta since it's release with NIK and Photoshop and I've had no problems. 

With every software upgrade, regardless of the company, if the majority of people upgrade fine, there will still always be some users who experience problems due to a variety of reasons.  This should not really shock us.

[padillabowen]

There's more. The chromatic aberration correction is a step backward. They made it totally non adjustable, and it's dependent on a non-intuitive setting in a separate panel. Definitively less useful than LR3. I explicitly bought LR3 for it's best in class lens corrections, and it's broken now. This is critical if you do any stock or wide angle comercial work, because CA is the ticket to  a giant rejection slip.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Thanks for the info about the issues.
 
I used the beta version, and it was slow due to all the debugging software (according to some).  I upgraded to LR4 and had some difficulty upgrading from LR 3, I tried a second time after restoring from backups and it was fine.
 
I just imported a image to ps5, and did get a warning message about acr 7, but clicked import anyway and there was no problem.
 
The speed issue also seems to have gone away, but there might be some function I haven't tried that is slow. 
 
I like the new automatic CA removal tool, its much more accurate than the CA correction stored lens by lens.  I had no trouble finding it, but then, I viewed all the short video's discussing new features and how to use them.
 
I've done a few hundred edits now, it seems pretty solid, no crashes and only minor issues that will be fixed.
 
I might save the new edits that were done in LR4 in a separate catalog, and re-install the LR3 catalog after the fix is out.