Lightroom 5 Issue - Beware

<p>Unfortunately, Lightroom 5 has a serious problem that did not occur in the beta. I am bringing this up because it will affect a lot of people using Lightroom 5. I lost a full day of post-processing work because of it.</p>

<p>To sum it up, photos exported either from the menu or through the web module (and probably through publish and the book module) may not have sharpening or noise reduction applied. "May" seems to mean most of the time from reports I have seen. The problem is summarized as follows on Adobe's "known issues" list:</p>

 

<ul>

<li>Images exported at less than 1/3 of their original size may not retain Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings.</li>

</ul>

<p>Some of us seem to have this problem no matter what size the output is, and this applies more to noise reduction than to sharpening - I do get sharpening on full-size images but no noise reduction. You can find more information on <a href="http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1229132?start=0&tstart=0">this forum page</a> on the Adobe site. Apparently Adobe doesn't think this is a very important problem as they say it will be fixed in the next major release, which seems incredibly short-sighted for what can be a fatal problem for some users (like me.)</p>

 

<p>Thanks, Jeff </p>

<p>Thanks for the heads-up.</p>

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<p>Apparently Adobe doesn't think this is a very important problem as they say it will be fixed in the next major release, which seems incredibly short-sighted for what can be a fatal problem for some users (like me.)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I've seen posts direct from Adobe staff saying that this bug will be fixed - and I quote - "ASAP", Jeff.</p>

<p>Post five <a href="http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1239559">here</a>, for example.</p>

<p>Keith, this is from the Lightroom Journal page that mentions the bug:</p>

 

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<p>As mentioned <a href="http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1229132?start=0&tstart=0">here</a>, a bug was introduced in Lightroom 5.0 where files exported at less than 1/3 of their original size may not retain Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings. We are working on a solution and will include it in our next update.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

On one of their forum pages, they post this:<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Thanks to all for your efforts in tracking down and reporting this issue. The bug was introduced via a late-in-the-cycle change to export performance and was unfortunately missed by our testing. We were able to reproduce the issue in-house, a bug was logged, and the fix will be in the next release.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

That doesn't sound like ASAP although they may have said that elsewhere. "Next release" typically indicates months rather than urgency.</p>

Amazing it could be *released* in such a state. Sad, actually...

<p>Yep, I've seen that, Jeff - but this is (IMHO) too big a bug to wait until the next "point release", and I get the sense that at least <em>some</em> in Adobe agree. I'm hoping that "next release" = "bug fix release" outside of the normal release timing.</p>

<p>Since 2.0, I can never jump in again with a new release. And judging by how slow and how small the LR database is, I'm also convinced that they just keep building on top of poor unstable code.</p>

Will be interesting to see if people who use Lightroom via CC will get the fix sooner.

<p>What is the big issue? I am having a hard time understanding because Adobe states that this will be fixed ini their next release. I'm sure that they will issue a dot release within a few weeks and it will be in that release. </p>

<p>I would much rather wait until the next dot release so that they can fully regression test the entire codebase. Otherwise you risk introducing new bugs. As a rule of thumb, for every bug a software developer fixes, there is a 20% chance that the fix will introduce another bug.</p>

 

<p>Jeff... how did you lose a full day of post-processing work because of this bug? It sounds like it affects only export.</p>

<p>I lost a full day of post-processing work because there is no way to export them efficiently at this point. I did a lot of work on them, the light was terrible, the background was cluttered. Of course in the long term, I haven't lost that day, but these photos were due yesterday. I'm using Lupo's suggestion and using the Nik modules, but it's a much slower process.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>What is the big issue? I am having a hard time understanding because Adobe states that this will be fixed ini their next release.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /> <br />What is the big issue? Export is essentially broken. You think that's minor? And they haven't given any kind of target for the next release. I don't process photos for a day to look at them in LR. Maybe you do, but I don't. I have people who have paid me who expect results.</p>

<p>This sounds huge to me. We will get a measure of the Adobe's quality when we see how long it takes to fix it.</p>

>>> We will get a measure of the Adobe's quality when we see how long it takes to fix it.

 

It's been two weeks, so far. And, it apparently worked OK in the release candidate version. At the

moment it's not feeling like a priority...

<p>that is a big problem. I didn't notice because the last set of images I exported out were to a folder and were full sized. They seemed fine.</p>

 

 

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<p>It's been two weeks, so far. And, it apparently worked OK in the release candidate version. At the moment it's not feeling like a priority...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not sure how you can draw this conclusion from the facts you presented. Software development takes time - even bug fixes like this.</p>

 

 

 

 

 

 

<p>It worked in the beta and RC. Now it doesn't. Shouldn't take that much time. They say it happened when they optimized the performance, they can de-optimize it because having faster performance for a lousy result is meaningless. Not sure why you are such an Adobe apologist. It's ridiculous this even got out. Hopefully they've hired a new QA department.</p>

<p>And this was the month that I finally caved in and downloaded LR4. I wonder why it wasn't v5? Maybe this is the reason. We new LR customers need protecting.</p>

<p>I have about two weeks to go on the free to try scheme. Maybe I should have gone with Capture One. There is still time to see how this unfolds.</p>

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<p>I didn't notice because the last set of images I exported out were to a folder and were full sized. They seemed fine.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>And that's the (pretty unburdensome, in my opinion) workaround - just save at a size not impacted by the bug.</p>

<p>That's no hardship for me, because everything I convert in Lr will then go to Photoshop anyway, where I can resize; but I get that folk who rely on Lr as a one-shot solution might be hit pretty hard by this.</p>

 

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>It worked in the beta and RC. Now it doesn't. Shouldn't take that much time. They say it happened when they optimized the performance, they can de-optimize it because having faster performance for a lousy result is meaningless. Not sure why you are such an Adobe apologist. It's ridiculous this even got out. Hopefully they've hired a new QA department.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You're right that this should have been caught by their QA department. No question about that. However you don't want them to rush this to the point that they don't test the fix thoroughly.</p>

 

 

 

 

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>That's no hardship for me, because everything I convert in Lr will then go to Photoshop anyway, where I can resize</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

That works if you're putting out a small number of photos. However, a lot of Lightroom usage is by people who shoot "events" of one type or another and have optimized their workflow around Lightroom. Me, for example. I sorted through about 400 images from a shoot on Sunday night, selected and worked on 100, made a cut to 80, and posted as a web gallery, only to see when I uploaded them that most of them looked horrific since they were shot at ISO 3200. I don't want to run all those through PS, especially when I don't use it enough to immediately start an automated workflow. I have two events on Thursday, one on Saturday, and maybe two on Sunday that are going to have to go through LR4 but at least I know in advance.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>And this was the month that I finally caved in and downloaded LR4. I wonder why it wasn't v5? Maybe this is the reason. We new LR customers need protecting.<br /> I have about two weeks to go on the free to try scheme. Maybe I should have gone with Capture One. There is still time to see how this unfolds.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don't give up on Lightroom. It's really a pretty amazing product and, except for this bug, Lr 5 is the best so far. I just hope the fix doesn't slow it down. Lr 5 seems noticeably faster to me.</p>

<p>Jeff,</p>

<p>just for context - and not disagreeing with your point, just offering a personal perspective - some of my shoots (like the one last Sunday) see me come home with 1000+ images. After an initial cull to about 600 files and then selecting about 80 to work on (of which admittedly only about 15 went public - but 80 were ready) I was still able to get to where I needed to be by Monday evening, by exporting at an image size the bug leaves alone - but as I say, pretty much everything I do goes to Photoshop anyway for selective work (NR, sharpening), plug-ins and whatnot; realistically, all 600-odd "keepers" are never going to see the light of day, and the smaller numbers aren't impossible to manage.</p>

<p>I mention this simply to emphasise that not everyone who shoots a lot is entirely hamstrung by the bug.</p>

<p>On an interesting(?) related note, although I've always felt the need to go from Lr (or Photo Ninja or Capture One) to Photoshop, for finishing touches, for the first time ever I've been able to get from ingestion to finalised output in one solution, thanks to <strong>ACDSee Pro 6</strong> - it's bloody excellent; its sharpening algorithm(s) is/are the best I've ever used, and - thanks in no small part to a very Lr-like masking slider and excellent (and unique) exposure adjustment controls - it's proving easy to get <a href="http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/tfu29/upload/acdsee_ginettas_1a.jpg">entirely usable, ready-to-go results</a> straight out of ACDSee without any need for Photoshop. (Forgive the rather garish <em>colours</em> though - especially the greens. This was just a quick-and-dirty conversion and I paid no attention to them - I'm still getting used to ACDsee too).</p>

<p>The benefit of an "brand/product agnostic" workflow - I just use whatever works.</p>

<p>Thanks for the heads up. Glad I kept backups of my LR4 catalogs.</p>

<p>How is the speed of 5 vs 4? I had to get a new computer to go from 3 to 4 and really don't want to take a performance hit again. </p>