LR 3 Beta

[ABERS]

I've been playing with the 40 images from the CC meet up last Sunday with Beta3, and am delighted with the print module and the publish link with Flickr.

I've always been a fan of the print module in L/Room, and the added extra of adding a background colour to the image makes all sorts of possibilities available.

I've set up the link to my flickr account and published an image directly to my photostream without all the kerfuffle of posting from my hard drive into Flickr. I'm sure there are some other facilities yet to be discovered! Flickr today, Clickpic tomorrow, who knows? :

[picsfor]

Yes - i do recall there being some benefits in the print and publish dialogues other than, as Forseti points out, the ability to watermark an image.

I'm still working on the catalogue thing and am now down to 89k of images.
The delete option is much improved over LR2 as is the speed at which it updates and presents thumbnails. A USB 2 EHD is the limiting factor at the moment!
That is its ability to transfer data etc. I'm deleting 10k images at a time and the process is being held up by the USB 2 bottleneck.
Who would have thought USB 2 would become a bottle neck!

Oh well - back to deleting the surplus images until i find the ones i was after!
I may even be able to find time to actually use it and look for that 'killer feature' that requires me to part with some cash!

[Forseti]

Just discovered something else new in LR3beta. If you look in the Metadata panel (Library) under the *lens* info there is now a Subject Distance heading. Quite how LR3beta obtains this information I don't know - maybe it's the area of sharpess focus or embedded camera metadata.  I just noticed it on one image and the distance reported appears about right. Um, shall have to do set up tests on this one.

[ABERS]

Can't see that, like a lot of info that there is in some panels I can't think for the life of me what some of it's there for, only if you have taken the picture under repeatable conditions.

Have noticed that if you have published a picture to Flickr, any comments made on Flickr are recorded on L/R 3.

[picsfor]

Just discovered something else new in LR3beta. If you look in the Metadata panel (Library) under the *lens* info there is now a Subject Distance heading. Quite how LR3beta obtains this information I don't know - maybe it's the area of sharpess focus or embedded camera metadata.  I just noticed it on one image and the distance reported appears about right. Um, shall have to do set up tests on this one.

I have to be honest and say that i haven't studied it all in depth yet. I'm down to the least 20 or 30k of recovered pictures to trawl through. Those that i keep i will use for experimenting with. They are after all only 'recovered copies' of files i already have so can experiment to my hearts content.

Interesting bit of info that - knowing how far the subject was from the camera. My take would be that you could better ascertain the 'sweet' point of a lens maybe. Who knows - haven't given it too much thought tat the moment.

[Jonathan]

Just discovered something else new in LR3beta. If you look in the Metadata panel (Library) under the *lens* info there is now a Subject Distance heading. Quite how LR3beta obtains this information I don't know - maybe it's the area of sharpess focus or embedded camera metadata.

Embedded metadata.

The lens / AF system reports focus distance back to the camera which records it in the exif.

It's buried in the maker specific fields though so not all manufacturers record it and they can record it in different formats.  Don't remember ever seeing a sensible one reported by my D3.

[Forseti]

Embedded metadata.

The lens / AF system reports focus distance back to the camera which records it in the exif.

It's buried in the maker specific fields though so not all manufacturers record it and they can record it in different formats.  Don't remember ever seeing a sensible one reported by my D3.

Um, yes - I remember this being mentioned once before on the LR forums a long way back with the response being that this info is embedded within the Makers Notes to which Adobe had no access to, or were not allowed access to it, and therefore the requested feature of LR being able to display the AF point used (as in fact Canon's DPP can) could not be implemented. I've posted on the beta forum in an attempt to obtain more detail on this feature (if possible) as at the moment, like your experience with the D3, it is showing erratic information. I've got some images of distant views with a subject distance of 3.7 metres being indicated, others close up shown as 800mm although in reality more like 5 metres. Very confusing although if it were accurate, or could be made accurate, I could see some benefit in it when reviewing images more so if, like DPP, LR had the ability to show the AF point used.

[picsfor]

Have to agree with Forseti on the matter of showing which focus point was used. That is a nice feature in DPP that can some times come in handy.

[ABERS]

Still can't find this distance measurement, perhaps Sony does not record it. Actually wouldn't know what to do with it if it did. What on earth do you want to know it for, the same goes for the focus point.

[picsfor]

As you say Alan, not sure what use the dsitance would do (at this moment, i'm sure some one with some spare time will find a "valid" use for it) however, the same can not be said for the focus point.

When shooting in auto mode and letting the camera have a stab at selecting a focal point it is interesting to know what it has selected so you can understand its thinking.
Focus point on all my Canons have been configured to allow me to set or over ride the 'camera's focus point(s) by use of the joy stick - thus allowing me to be sure that ,most times, the desired subject is actually the thing in focus and not what the camera would choose.

This is also useful when shooting and focusing through 'live view' mode because then we get no indication as to if anything achieved a successful focus until the picture came out to our satisfaction or if not - then we can go and have a look to see which part of the picture did achieve focus.

I appreciate that i am talking about a Canon specific point here - but it is a feature that i have found to be extremely useful when composing many of my shots - and know other Canon users who also find it useful.
I think to some degree it depends on the subject type you work with and how you process the acquired image as to whether it is of any use - but i think it would acquire a similar status as bracket mode for most of those supplied with it.

[Forseti]

With the Canon 40D only the centre AF point is of the cross-hair type and so is supposedly more accurate. With the 7D all 19 AF points are cross-hair types. If I were to select say for example the centre AF point and focus on someone's eyes only to discover later that the nose had turned out pin sharp this would possibly indicate that the lens is front focusing a bit. If we were taking one image and immediately reviewing it on the PC it probably wouldn't be quite so important, but when reviewing a few hundred maybe having the ability to check which AF point was selected might help in sorting out went wrong.

The so-called subject distance I'm not too sure of at the moment - it's early days, but if I shoot an image of a distant lighthouse and later this panel indicates to me it was 999.9 metres away that would be neat. I don't know why exactly but give me time and I'll dream up something I'm sure. It's like the ability to tag GPS coordinates isn't it.............just another toy.  

I'm not altogether convinced this beta is up to scratch at the moment - reoccuring problems with Canon reds as was the case with much earlier versions of LR. I'm editing one image in exactly the same way in both LR3beta and LR2.6 and in comparing the two the reds are completely over saturated in LR3beta. I'll upload an image in a minute (a cat) and with this I've had to knock down the saturation to minus 15 to not make the flowers appear as painted blobs.

[picsfor]

I seem to recall on one of the Experience Seminars that Canon under saturate their reds and the most realistic setting is to amend the in camera colour scheme i think to A2, B2 which adjusted the reds a bit.
(Must get my notes out again).
Any way - the point was made that Adobe set about creating an automatic adjustment to Canon images to correct this where as of course in DPP you get exactly what the camera captures -one of the reasons why traditionally DPP was always favoured over Adobe for working with RAW files.
With LR2 Adobe added a "faithful" import option that tries to match the manufacturer settings more accurately and it does quite a good job. One of the reasons i gave LR2 a go. If memory serves they are not listed as finished adjustments but more of a 'beta' that can be downloaded and added in.

I just remember Jonathan pointing it with the release of LR2 out and giving it a go and thinking - wow - almost as good as DPP but with the work flow and cataloguing benefits. It's been  a while now...
Just had a quick look - it's in the Camera Calibration section in the Develop Module. Any way - give it a go and see what difference it makes.

[ABERS]

Over the weekend I've been playing with L/r3 a bit more and found the facilty that allows you to paste images on to one page, it's in the print module , custom package, very useful.

I've got to prepare a panel of six images for a forthcoming exhibition and as always it's bit of a puzzle which six hang together nicely, and in what order. This facility makes it so easy to see and change if necessary at an instant.

I expect there are other programmes that allow you to do this but I'm not aware of them'

I've also enjoyed whiling away the time putting music on the slide programme.

[picsfor]

I've just found a new tool - or certainly an update of a tool in the develop section.

The noise feature - just another slider i know, but it's quite effective, especially when working in B&W.
Again, not a seller in itself, but it is certainly on the plus side.

[Forseti]

Lightroom 3 Beta 2 is now available for download http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/ with additional details here http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2010/03/lightroom_3_beta_2_now_availab.html