Comments on: Top 10 Ways to Improve Adobe Lightroom 2.6 and Beta 3.0

By: Marilynn Vowles

Marilynn Vowles — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 02:51:48 +0000

This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I enjoy seeing websites that understand the value of providing a prime resource for free. I truly loved reading your site. Thanks!

By: Sunday Links | Phototrend.fr

Sunday Links | Phototrend.fr — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:25:27 +0000

[...] 10 ways to improve Adobe Lightroom 2.6 and Beta 3.0 – Thomas Hawk [...]

By: Marcel Van der Horst

Marcel Van der Horst — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:51:48 +0000

In regards to the vignetting, it would be good if you could select a centre point like in Nik Effects. This will be good for off centre subjects or portraits shot close.

I wouldn’t mind white balance added to the sliders in the adjustment brush, to seperate a subject from a background (think wedding photography) or a history brush to erase presets applied to a photo.

By: Scott Coulter

Scott Coulter — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:15:43 +0000

I agree with all of your points about speed and efficiency, but strongly disagree on them adding toys like the lofi/film/holgafy/fancy-border stuff. There are already a million and one apps that do that, plus you can do it yourself in PS, GIMP, or any other photo editing tool. The lightroom menus are crowded and complicated enough now, if they start adding all that other stuff it’ll be completely unusable.

By: phototristan

phototristan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:06:22 +0000

Whoops, link should be:

http://bit.ly/6TElZD

By: phototristan

phototristan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:05:04 +0000

Lightroom is today’s Amazon Gold Box special ($189. is a really good price, today only):

http://bit.ly/6TElZD0

By: Void

Void — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:12:07 +0000

I would really like to have some portrait specific options. Using the adjustment brush to lower clarity as a way to soften skin just doesn’t quite cut it. Also, other ways to set white balance would be nice (black and white point settings, perhaps?).
Most importantly, LR needs a clone tool equivalent. I realize this is somewhat photoshopy, however I can do just about everything else I generally do to photos in LR, and I would really like to have this so I don’t need to go to PS at all unless I want to do something very fancy. As it is, almost all of my non-portrait photos end up needing to go into PS for minor items, ie telephone wires. I would really rather only use PS if I want fancy stuff (HDR, Montages, Merging, fancy color correction, filters, etc.), and do all my quick touch-up work in LR.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:07:19 +0000

For geotagging, I’ve been very happy with Geosetter:

http://www.geosetter.de/en/

It integrates with Google Maps and has loads of features like favorite locations, GPS tracklog importing, and auto-populating the EXIF location fields, which makes tagging large batches of photos a snap. Lightroom geotagging would be ideal, but this is probably the next best thing (Just do a “read metadata from files” and LR will pick up the GPS information, which will then be included on all photo exports).

Though lately I’ve been using the Nikon GP-1, so I only use geosetter to fill in the holes for indoor shots and the like. Still, it’s a great application.

My personal Lightroom pet peeve – whenever I’m inputting metadata (like contact or location) the field loses focus as I type. I don’t know why it does that, but it’s annoying as heck.

For feature requests I have a few:

1. Network storage! It drives me nuts that I can’t work with the same catalog on my desktop and laptop, and doing the import/export dance every time I go away for a weekend drives me nuts.

2. Full size preset previews. You get them in the tiny little Navigator window – I want to see them rendered on the full size photo before applying them. Right now I have to apply, undo, apply, undo.

3. Better plugin support. I’ve yet to come across one that integrates really nicely – and I think this is the fault of Lightroom, not developers. Also, the necessity of making a TIFF file before you can even begin working with a plugin just feels clunky, and you lose the whole develop history of the photo doing that. I understand why they need to use the TIFF images, but they could make it a whole lot less clunky.

4. In addition to vintage film effects, I’d like to see more creative effects in general. One of the things I love about the online photo editor Picnik is the full complement of one-click creative photo effects you can apply. I understand LR is targeted at professionals who don’t necessarily have a use for googly eyes or warhol-izing their photos or making collages – but as tacky as those things are, they’re also fun.

(Incidentally – have you checked out Nik Software’s stuff? Silver Efex Pro and Color Efex Pro has a lot of film effects stuff that might be what you’re looking for, though with the annoyance that it’s a plugin.)

By: » Top 10 Ways to Improve Adobe Lightroom 2.6 and Beta 3.0 – Thomas Hawk Photo News Today: News and Pixelosophy – more than 34,000 posts

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:53:16 +0000

[...] Source and Read More: thomashawk.com [...]

By: DJ Paine

DJ Paine — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:30:22 +0000

hey thomas, quick question {maybe a blog post for u to do?}
when you decided to start using lightroom, what were the best few place to learn? how did u learn it? podcasts? videos? books? what was great and what was crap?
thanks man.