A few random thoughts

[MarkBarbieri]

I've been using Lightroom 4 pretty heavily this weekend. It's not a "must have" upgrade over LR3. The big new features (geotagging and books) are nice, but they aren't that important to me.

I still haven't started printing out of LR. I'm so entrenched in my Photoshop printing process, that I may never change.

The big difference to me is the develop settings. They are much easier for people to learn. They are also easier to use. I fixed a ton of soccer pictures taken in harsh sunlight. I was able to get useful shadow detail much easier. The "Exposure" slider does a much better job of protecting the highlights, so I didn't have to muck around with a combination of exposure, brightness, and recovery to get things right. Shadows also works better than Fill Light. I don't think the final result was all that much better than it would have been with LR3, but it took me less time to get there. On the other hand, I upgraded cameras at the same time that I upgraded LR, so some of that may just be from better shadow detail in the camera.

Speaking of the new camera, I'm enjoying the 5DM3. In good light, I'm not seeing any noticeable image quality improvements over the 5DM2. I haven't done any low light shooting with it yet. The handling is much, much, much better. The AF is brilliant. The control layout is improved. I really like shooting with it. Still hoping that Canon comes out with something to compete with the D800E (although I wouldn't mind them waiting a year for my coffers to refill). That camera looks STUNNING. So much for the megapixel wars being over. I'm not sure how many are enough, but I haven't seen the limit yet.

I noticed a new feature at a soccer game yesterday. Maybe it has been around for a while and I never noticed. All of the settings in the cameras menu have a "help" page. You press the "Info" button and it tells you about what the setting does. This was helpful because some of the AF settings are pretty arcane. I've never seen an AF system with some many different adjustments.

I did a first communion shot yesterday. It was a good chance to play with three of the new Canon radio controlled flashes. My wife (who often works as a voice activated light stand) and I love them. They are so much easier to use than the old light signal flashes or pocket wizards. The price is a little on the insane side right now, but this is unquestionably the future of flash. I don't have to worry about line of sight at all. Each flash can tell me whether or not it is synced, so no test firing checks. Each flash reports when it is ready, so I get a single beep when everyone is ready to fire. The menu on the back of the flash is large and detailed. With the old flashes, you had to memorize so many weird button presses and symbols. Now, it is very clear once you understand a few basics about the way the flashes work. A little like my description of LR above, it didn't let me do anything yesterday that I couldn't have done with my old flashes, it just made it easier. In this case, much, much easier. My wife is delighted to no longer have me badgering her about keeping the sensor on the flash pointed back at the camera.

I've been using the Photoshop CS6 beta since it came out. Honestly, I haven't done anything with it any differently than I would have with CS5. It's not that I don't think the new features are cool, but I just haven't needed any of them.

I am having a problem with the new look. It's definitely an improvement. My problem is that it looks too much like Lightroom. So many things are very different between PS and Lightroom (shortcut keys, the way crops move, etc). Before, I had no problem with my brain automatically picking the right approach. Now, because my brain gets confused by the dark/grey look, I keep trying to do Lightroom things in Photoshop. I'm sure that I'll adapt, but it is definitely confusing me.

I opted for the CS6 subscription. I use a lot of stuff in the CS suite very heavily (Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects, Encore, Audition, Media Encoder, Acrobat, Dreamweaver). I also tend to stay current with my upgrades. In my situation, the subscription model seems like a good deal. For people that use only one aspect (photographers, videographers, or web developers), I'm not sure that the subscription really makes sense. I'm surprised that they didn't come out with different subscriptions for different mixes of software.

My son will be delighted. I'm going to put my old CS5.5 license on his machine. He's been doing a lot with Acrobat and has to use my machine for it. He takes his homework assignments, scans them into a PDF, and turns them into a form. He's turning into quite a geek.

Right now, I'm going through the 3600 soccer pictures I took at a 3v3 tournament a few weeks ago. I need to quit doing these big shoots. The post processing time is just too much.

I learned a good lesson at the soccer shoot. I was shooting with a big lens on a monopod. The monopod head has an adjustment that allows it to swing up and down. I often shoot with that loose so that I can easily adjust my vertical angle. Late in the day, a ball came my way and the team I was rooting for was behind, so I moved quickly to stop it so that the girls could get it back into play quickly. I didn't tighten the head down before I moved and the camera flopped over and crushed my finger. It's been three weeks and it still hurts. In the future, I think I'll keep the camera locked down tighter most of the time and I'll try to be more careful when I don't have it locked down. At least my gear wasn't hurt.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

Thanks for the thoughts and reviews. I'm still using PS Elements 8 and I should upgrade, but I'm comfortable with it. It seems like everytime I'm ready to pull the trigger, a new upgrade is introduced. There have been some deep discounts lately which leads me to believe there is another one on the way. What to do? I'm with you on the large shoots. Everytime I go to a racetrack it's days stretching into weeks to get all the processing done. Fortunately the track only wants the straight-out-of-the-camera JPEGS for their use. They have their marketing people that work with the images. Its just my insane analness that makes me work the RAW's.

 

[Renysmom]

I love LR4. You are so right that the new Develop controls just make more sense and they are easier to use.

I will never buy CS6 as I think it is to much money and to much software for my needs. I have Elements 10 and while I like it I really am preferring Paint Shop Pro X4 these days. Maybe because I "grew" up on PSP not sure but I just find it easier and quicker to use. I also just love the Topaz plugins. They are just the perfect add-on to any editing program.

Congrats on the new camera. I thought about upgrading to either the Oly E5 or switch to Nikon but have decided for now to stay with my Oly E3. It does all I need it to do (and then some). I am though going to invest in some new glass I think. Just trying to decide on what piece first.

 

[Experiment_626]

I've been using the beta of Photoshop CS6 for a few weeks and have nothing but praise for it; I've encountered no problems with it at all and haven't used the CS5 version at all since I started it up.

All the other myriad improvements aside, it is a must-have upgrade for me because it auto-saves. Even if there were no other changes at all, I'd get it for that reason.

Now I have to wait and see what the academic pricing for the conventional discs will be versus the Creative Cloud. With the D7000 I expect to shoot more video than I have in the past, and so I want to get and learn Premiere and After Effects. And in addition to Photoshop, I use Illustrator everyday and InDesign almost as often.

I'm very pleased with the new Camera Raw — the Clarity slider is much improved, and it was already a great tool.

SSB

 

[wbeem]

I've been an Aperture user since before Lightroom came out, and never really felt compelled to switch. That's not to say there aren't features in LR that I would like to see in Aperture. It's just that the core function of LR - a digital asset manager - doesn't seem as good as Aperture is for me.

Both are outstanding products and I don't think you really go wrong with either choice. If you're a Windows user, you don't even have the choice to use Aperture.

That said, I was really surprised that Lightroom came out with such a modal user interface and still hasn't updated it to something more flexible. The latest version's new features seemed to be "Let's catch up with Aperture and other tools in the industry." Indeed, they caught up in some areas and even surpassed it in a few (e.g., more book options).

However, there wasn't a single update to the core function of being a digital asset manager. That surprised me a bit.

To be fair, Apple's last release of Aperture was also a "catch-up" release to implement features that existed in LR. It's not surprising that they both watch the industry and add features. I expect Aperture will have another major release sometime this year, since it's been 2.5 years since the last one.

Fortunately, we're living in good times when there are many excellent tools for photographers.