Lightroom 5 is now available to try or buy

RockyNH_RIP

Senior Member
Just bought it and downloading the upgrade as we speak - only $79.00 for the upgrade.

Thanks Dave and Sam.. was curious on price.. I will likely d/l it tonight... Any issues or concerns with the install related to catalogs and any plugins?

Pat in NH
 

vindex1963

Senior Member
I loaded Elements 11 and LR 5 over the weekend and maybe it's just me but Lightroom is frustrating and way over my head. Elements is easy to navigate for me. Does LR5 require a steep learning curve or am I not giving it enough of a chance?
 

nickt

Senior Member
I loaded Elements 11 and LR 5 over the weekend and maybe it's just me but Lightroom is frustrating and way over my head. Elements is easy to navigate for me. Does LR5 require a steep learning curve or am I not giving it enough of a chance?
I warmed up to Lightroom much easier/quicker than Elements and I settled right in to having fun, but I still have plenty to learn. Maybe because I use it more than Elements or because I watched a lot of the free Adobe videos. I don't know why, but I found it easier to get started in Lightroom. I hated Elements. Lightroom is probably a similar learning curve to Elements and we both just formed different first impressions. Its a great program and good to have both Lightroom and Elements in your toolbox.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
I loaded Elements 11 and LR 5 over the weekend and maybe it's just me but Lightroom is frustrating and way over my head. Elements is easy to navigate for me. Does LR5 require a steep learning curve or am I not giving it enough of a chance?

You have to wrap your head around never "saving" anything in LR, it operates on a completely different level. In LR, everything you do is non-destructive so nothing actually "saves" to the image. All your changes come as a set of instructions with the original file so that nothing about that file is ever changed. In a way they're all the changes are virtual.
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
I loaded Elements 11 and LR 5 over the weekend and maybe it's just me but Lightroom is frustrating and way over my head. Elements is easy to navigate for me. Does LR5 require a steep learning curve or am I not giving it enough of a chance?

My wife, MoabLady, came to the same conclusion. She tried Lightroom, CS6, and then finally Elements with no input or influence from me. She said LR was just flat difficult and confusing. CS6 was way more than she needed. Elements was just right for her.

 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I loaded Elements 11 and LR 5 over the weekend and maybe it's just me but Lightroom is frustrating and way over my head. Elements is easy to navigate for me. Does LR5 require a steep learning curve or am I not giving it enough of a chance?

I don't think there's a steep learning curve, but a lot depends where you're coming from. This about it as a basic digital darkroom (hence the name - you keep the light on). The Library module is where you store your negatives/contact sheets and notes about the shoot. The Develop module is where you "print" the photos from the negatives, with the updated print getting stored as a thumbnail in the Library. The rest are nice to haves but you could live with just those two. As Dave states, there's no "saving" involved and no additional files that you have to create until you "print" a JPG for use somewhere using the Export function or something else.

Scott Kelby's book helped me understand the power of LR3 and I've been a user since (just downloaded 5). Between that and the vids that area available on the net you should be able to grab hold of it quickly. It's not necessarily intuitive if you haven't used Adobe products before, but with some guidance you should be able to pick it up quickly.

For me, it's now become more of a workflow manager with most of my edits being done in CS6 (which I then save as a PSD file and depending on the photo I will stack it with the original RAW file in the Library section in case I ever want to go back and revisit the edit. You can do the same thing with PSE11, if you find that what you can do in LR isn't sufficient (there are a LOT of cool tools in there if you explore long enough - especially when you utilize your eye dropper selective editing tools with the various sliders).
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
BTW, I've purchased my upgrade from LR4. As I approach running out of space on my MacBook Pro, having the ability to put photos on an external HD and still have access to apply edits to them in LR5 made it an easy sell.
 

carguy

Senior Member
I bought v4 a few months back for about $100. Upgraded to v4.4 online

$79 for the update to v5??

Are there $79 worth of updates? 80% upgrade fee seems pretty steep.

Tap'n on the Galaxy S3
 

RockyNH_RIP

Senior Member
I bought v4 a few months back for about $100. Upgraded to v4.4 online

$79 for the update to v5??

Are there $79 worth of updates? 80% upgrade fee seems pretty steep.

Tap'n on the Galaxy S3

Joe, I agree with you on the "steep"... BUt realize also that you and I both bought LR4 at a reduced price, hence the upgrade seems steeper.

They are also trying to steer people to the "Cloud"

This is also possibly the last Upgrade direct, futures may be on the Cloud Subscription (so I am getting mine now as updated as I can)

Features?? You have to check for yourself what is of value to you.. but for me:
Advanced Healing Brush (really big for me)
Smart Previews
New straightening features

These make it worth it to me...

Pat in NH
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Just went to edit my first image in LR5 and when I went to send it to Photoshop I get the following message...

Screen Shot 2013-06-11 at 9.38.39 AM.png



Like all Adobe error messages, it's absolutely unclear as to what my choices mean, and worse yet, there are no updates that I can actually apply that are available yet. At least Camera RAW 8.1 will (supposedly) be supported in CS6. But this is what we have to look forward to.

Joe, if you bought LR4 after LR5 Beta was announced then you obviously missed all the warnings in various posts here about investing now in 4 when you could use the Beta for free up through the end of June. LR4's price didn't drop until the week LR5 Beta was announced. Alas, live and learn. The additions to 5 are well worth it for me, which is why I'm there already. It depends on what you shoot to see if they are, so I suggest you visit the various launch pages and review the features. For me, the ability to work on images that are on a separate hard drive is significant enough without the new features - but the new features are great. So glad they put the boxes for Lens Correction and CA Adjustment back on one tab again - no need to visit separate tabs.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
I converted all my images when I imported my catalogues into LR5. You will also need to upgrade ACR in your CS6 application. According to Nasim, a ACR update w/o a new PS is very unusual for Adobe and he believes this is an effort to avoid the outrage that an ACR update available only for the newer CS7 PS would cause. In the past Adobe used ACR as a carrot and stick approach to push people into buying their latest version. So it would seem pressure from an outraged public has caused Adobe to tread gently as the get closer to their evil CC empire. :(
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Thanks, Dave. Normally PS prompts me for updates, so I assumed it wasn't available yet. I read Nasim's piece this morning. To say he's unhappy with Adobe would be an extreme understatement.
 

carguy

Senior Member
Just went to edit my first image in LR5 and when I went to send it to Photoshop I get the following message...

View attachment 40259


Like all Adobe error messages, it's absolutely unclear as to what my choices mean, and worse yet, there are no updates that I can actually apply that are available yet. At least Camera RAW 8.1 will (supposedly) be supported in CS6. But this is what we have to look forward to.

Joe, if you bought LR4 after LR5 Beta was announced then you obviously missed all the warnings in various posts here about investing now in 4 when you could use the Beta for free up through the end of June. LR4's price didn't drop until the week LR5 Beta was announced. Alas, live and learn. The additions to 5 are well worth it for me, which is why I'm there already. It depends on what you shoot to see if they are, so I suggest you visit the various launch pages and review the features. For me, the ability to work on images that are on a separate hard drive is significant enough without the new features - but the new features are great. So glad they put the boxes for Lens Correction and CA Adjustment back on one tab again - no need to visit separate tabs.

I believe I bought 4 before I saw messages about 5 Beta. No worries, still cheaper than PS :)

Tap'n on the Galaxy S3
 

Lradke

Senior Member
I was checking it out earlier (the info videos) and if it is faster than 4 that would be great! My LR4 is slow on my laptop.

I'll be getting the demo, if possible to try out..if I can, I'll be posting my thoughts.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
One feature that I'm liking is the horizon correction addition to the lens adjustment module. Often my seascapes have either a hill on one side or a wave that makes it a little hard to get the horizon right. And although I'm sure it's not a perfect fix, it is nice to have a second opinion. The other big draw, as is true with all new Adobe PS products, is the new version of ACR. With LR5 we have what may well be the last update of camera raw we non-CC users will ever have.

And then something Jake mentioned earlier is the external hard drive support that I'll have to look into since I've not heard anything about this yet. But if true (and I suspect it must be) then that right there is a huge selling point since I've zillions of images on various external drives I'm still putzing with the 30 day trial but I'm pretty sure I'll be paying up for the new version.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Is it that much better than LR4 to jump to 5? ;)

The new features have been well documented, so the that much better is subject to what you shoot and how you use Lightroom. If you have no plans of upgrading to recently released cameras and lenses in the near future, don't use perspective correction, brushes, etc., and in particular don't travel or keep photos on external storage then there's probably not much there you need that you don't already have.
 
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