Adobe Apologizes for the Buggy Lightroom CC 2015.2 & 6.2 Update.

[Canon Rumors Guy]

From Adobe:</p>
<p>I’d like to personally apologize for the quality of the Lightroom 6.2 release we shipped on Monday.  The team cares passionately about our product and our customers and we failed on multiple fronts with this release.  In our efforts to simplify the import experience we introduced instability that resulted in a significant crashing bug.  The scope of that bug was unclear and we made the incorrect decision to ship with the bug while we continued to search for a reproducible case(Reproducible cases are essential for allowing an engineer to solve a problem).   The bug has been fixed and today’s update addresses the stability of Lightroom 6.</p>
<p>The simplification of the import experience was also handled poorly.  Our customers, educators and research team have been clear on this topic: The import experience in Lightroom is daunting.  It’s a step that every customer must successfully take in order to use the product and overwhelming customers with every option in a single screen was not a tenable path forward.  We made decisions on sensible defaults and placed many of the controls behind a settings panel.  At the same time we removed some of our very low usage features to further reduce complexity and improve quality.  These changes were not communicated properly or openly before launch.  Lightroom was created in 2006 via a 14 month public beta in a dialog with the photography community.  In making these changes without a broader dialog I’ve failed the original core values of the product and the team.</p>
<p>The team will continue to work hard to earn your trust back in subsequent releases and I look forward to reigniting the type of dialog we started in 2006.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Tom Hogarty and the Lightroom Management Team</p>

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I haven't imported images yet, but was fighting crashes all morning while exporting. I could see a memory leak, and when it hit a certain level, LR would first slow down, then crash. I increased the raw cache to 10GB.

I'm uploading the update now.

Exporting with ver 6 has been a issue for me since it was first released.

 

[mitchel]

Really? That's all you are apologizing for?

 

[Sylvester]

Well it’s a start:- Acknowledging how poorly the changes were handled I mean.
However what is really required is for a consultation and dialogue with existing users and a wide sample of those existing users.
In addition we need to see the existing functionality of the import panel restored, even if this is not the default option but enabled as a compatibility mode which can be enabled by existing users in order to maintain their workflow and flexibility.

As for “removed some of our very low usage features to further reduce complexity and improve quality” ! Raised the question how do Adobe know what are very low usage features? They appear to have consulted new users, so by definition everything will be low usage.

No wishing to turn the important points above into a CC Vs. perpetual license debate, such changes which are introduced without consultation or announcement are strong reasons for me to stay away from a subscription model (apart from an aversion to renting anything)
At least with the perpetual license model I can elect to not upgrade and continue to use all of the existing features (Yes I know under CC I can keep LR installed and use the catalogue but Importantly I can’t go back to the develop module and tweak a photo) and if the next versions takes away something that I want or rely upon then while annoying I can vote with my wallet and not pay for the downgrade.

And since Adobe appear to be listening now, the decision to not offer incremental features to Perpetual license holders in dot released which are offered to CC subscribers, when the code is clearly in the product but has been disabled via the UI, is a major misstep.
I am of course talking about the demist feature. It is of course a stratagem to entice people to the CC model but to me it sends a very arrogant message and infers a level of contempt for none CC customers.
After all I have paid good money for the product and support through to the next major release version, just as much if not more money in fact than a CC subscriber would contribute to Adobe’s coffers over a year.

I’m sure that it’s better to have motivated and enthusiastic customers as opposed to grudging ones.

So well done for acknowledging the misstep with this latest released but please take a wider view.

 

[Orangutan]

the decision to not offer incremental features to Perpetual license holders in dot released which are offered to CC subscribers, when the code is clearly in the product but has been disabled via the UI, is a major misstep.
I am of course talking about the demist feature. It is of course a stratagem to entice people to the CC model but to me it sends a very arrogant message and infers a level of contempt for none CC customers.
After all I have paid good money for the product and support through to the next major release version, just as much if not more money in fact than a CC subscriber would contribute to Adobe’s coffers over a year.

It's not arrogance, it's likely foreshadowing: if perpetual license owners received all the incremental updates then we'd expect a perpetual version of LR 7; however, I strongly suspect LR6 is the last to be available this way.

The gaff with the import dialog may be part Adobe's preparation to split off an "Elements" version of LR as its perpetual license offering.

 

[Wick]

I know that many software products have a "new user" simplified option, and, with the click of a check box, an "advanced" mode. The Liquify command in PhotoShop comes to mind. You twirl the arrow and the additional features are revealed.

The "gear" icon in the new Import dialog still doesn't get me where I'd like. I sorely miss the destination folder panel. I think of folders in a hierarchy and arrange my photos that way. Without being able to see the hierarchy I'm a little in the dark.

 

[East Wind Photography]

Deliberately shipping with known faulty software...sounds vaguely like the VW fiasco. Im so done with adobe. If there was a shred of a chance to buy into CC, its dead now.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I finally tried the new import image function today. I use a eye-fi card that automatically copies images to a folder on my desktop, so I have always had to spend too much time with lightroom import drilling down to the folder just to import images. I was a bit stymied at first, and used the drive icon rather than the computer icon, and was having a tough time. I finally located my images and all was fine.

Then, I spent 5 minutes exploring the new interface and discovered my error. Its actually much faster and easier now to get to that folder on my desktop than before. I actually now think its a big improvement for me. Its easy to complain about something unfamiliar, and I do it too much. This time though, I see a big improvement when importing from a file location.

Imports from a memory card look easy, but I have not tried that.