[Leica] Is Lightroom 2.0 Really Shipping?

[daniel.ridings at yahoo.se (Daniel Ridings)]

--- On Sun, 8/17/08, Nathan Wajsman <photo@frozenlight.eu> wrote:

> From: Nathan Wajsman <photo@frozenlight.eu>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Is Lightroom 2.0 Really Shipping?
> To: "Leica Users Group" <lug@leica-users.org>
> Date: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 7:46 AM
> I find it puzzling to follow this discussion. Daniel, there
> must be  
> something strange with your setup if LR makes your computer
> crash.

My computer doesn't crash ... Lightroom just, after a few sessions, steals 
all the unused CPU resources and never turns control back over to me.

I can uninstall it, reinstall it and work for a few sessions before it 
happens again. The photoarchive (LR:s database) never gets corrupted, so I 
can just pick up where I left off, but it is a pain in the ass.

This is on my laptop (which I use 99% of the time). It never happens on my 
desktop. My desktop is where I have my main archive with all of my scans 
back to about 1996 at the moment. So the desktop is the stress test.

I just kill Lightroom and start up CS3 instead. CS3 has never had a hick-up 
on the same machine.

> I  
> have used LR from version 1.0 on both a PC and a Mac, and
> it has NEVER  
> given me any problem on either platform.

I think you and I bought it at about the same time. Obviously "your mileage 
may vary". I would never, ever trust it for anything important or 
time-schedule sensitive.

> 
> I keep hearing that I need both LR and Photoshop, but
> frankly I hardly  
> ever open Photoshop, maybe once every quarter. I did
> upgrade to CS3  
> only because I could get the upgrade for 62 EUR ($99) so I
> thought,  
> what the heck. Once in a blue moon I have a scanned film
> image that  
> needs a lot of spotting, and then PS is a bit better than
> LR.
> 

I am in the same situation with LR. I can see no reason to upgrade to LR 
2.0. I haven't seen anything it does better than PS. For me, LR is a package 
of compromises where the deciding factor for a feature has been saving time, 
not producing quality. A good machine-gun program.

I don't mind using it for my archiving. It works well like that on my 
desktop, but using it for scans reveals its all of its optimizations for 
digital capture (another way of saying ... it sucks for scans).

> As for LR2 being a totally different program than LR 1.4, I
> do not  
> agree with Tina. I installed it at the end of July, in
> about 10  
> minutes my catalogue with 7500 images was converted,

Hmmm ... converted you say.

My images almost fill a 500 GB harddisk now so I'd have to pick up another 
one. There's no room for conversion.

I don't mind picking up harddisks ... but it's good to know in advance.

But I'm not going to be upgrading. I can't see the point.


> Extremely
> fast, and for  
> the first time ever I have all my film scans in one place
> and well  
> organized. LR handles the images very fast, and these are
> TIFFs  
> ranging in size from 30 MB to well over 100 MB (in the case
> of MF  
> scans at highest resolution).
> 

All of my scans are already there. It's nice to hear it goes fast. It sure 
didn't go fast in LR 1. Importing a week's worth of scans was something I 
would start up and check on again after mowing the grass and relaxing with a 
couple of beers.

> If I could only have one piece of photo-related software,
> LR would  
> definitely be it.

I'm glad you're happy with it. I use it to convert from NEF to DNG and that 
is ok.

But for me, it has definitely not been a piece of software I'd use on the 
road. It is just too buggy.

Daniel