Lightroom 6 ?

madFive

metal[H]ead
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
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Ok, so my new D750 is taking some amazing photos, but the raw files are 30+mb each, and my current copy of LR (4.4) is incapable of importing the NEF files. I got the Adobe converter to turn my NEF files into DNG which will import into LR 4.4, but now duplicating every raw file is taking a lot more disk space. At this rate I'm going to need a lot more HDD space very soon, so I'm starting to think a new copy of LightRoom will be cheaper than adding more hard drives to my already crowded main rig.

Now I'm wondering which version of LR to buy. I see the current version is 5.7, which tells me V 6.0 isn't far away.

Does anyone know the official release date of LR 6? A quick search hasn't turned up much besides rumors and more questions. Should I go ahead and buy V5 or will it be worth waiting a few weeks/months for V6? I am absolutely NOT interested in a monthly subscription-based "lease" of any new software, so if V6 is going to be one of Adobe's new cloud-based products, FUCK IT. I will just buy version 5 and be done with it. If I'm going to buy V6 it has to be available to BUY as an upgrade to my current V4 licence. Any advice on the purchase of my next version of LR would be appreciated!

Also, does anyone know if there is any IQ degradation when converting from NEF to DNG raw files? It looks like I need to go ahead and stick with the DNG converter for a little while 'till I upgrade my copy of LR. I'm wondering what issues I need to look out for when converting my raw files. Thanks for any info!
 
I feel the same way you do about subscriptions. It's pretty much why I will never buy Adobe pro software. I thought Lightroom had already switched to a subscription model. If you can still upgrade without a subscription in the year 2015, then grab it while you can. And then start looking at non-Adobe alternatives for future upgrades, if any.

That's just my two cents. Good luck.
 
I believe Adobe has made it perfectly clear which direction they are going in. LightRoom 5 can still be purchased as a standalone product, even on Adobe's site though they do make it harder to see. Look for the standalone option in the lower right on the LightRoom product page.

I just helped a friend pick up a digital download copy from B&H for $134 although they seem rather slow in e-mail the key out.
 
I believe Adobe has made it perfectly clear which direction they are going in.

Can you expound on this more? It's not perfectly clear to me yet. ;)

So you're saying LR6 will definitely be subsctiption only? Or that we will still be able to buy it as a one-time purchase?

I know LR5 can be purchased stand-alone; I was about to buy it from Amazon, but now I'm just wondering if it's worth holding out for LR6. My search last night indicated that it should be released in March, but I'd like more concrete info if I'm going to sit around waiting for it.
 
LR5 won't disappear overnight after LR6's release. I'm sure Amazon will still have a few hard copies left, should LR6 be sub-based.

That being said, if you choose to pick up LR5, and LR6 gets released within 30 days of your purchase, Adobe will grand you a free upgrade to LR6. Most rumors point to LR6 being released by the end of the month, though how accurate those rumors are is questionable.

Also, you should make friends with a bunch of 2TB drives. I know I did after switching to D800 ;)
 
Download the 5.7 trial version and use it for a month. Then you can wait out V6, and see what the purchase options are.

My D800 made me friendly with the rating options in LR, and the DELETE key on the keyboard. Discounted 4TB hard drives during BF 2013 also helped.
 
Oh - yeah forgot about the trial periods. And also haven't looked at large capacity drives lately. Both good ideas - thanks
 
I thought Lightroom had already switched to a subscription model. If you can still upgrade without a subscription in the year 2015, then grab it while you can.

Lightroom 5 is still available with a standard perpetual license, and Lightroom 6 will be also -- the leaks from the retailers who mistakenly posted their product sales pages too early show a box and a full purchase price (130 euros, in the case of the French retailer who made the first mistaken listing).

Who knows about the future beyond that, but for at least another year or two, there's no change.
 
Bumping a slightly old thread but if you are looking for LR5 on a disc be sure to pick it up when it's in a bundle. You can get LR5 + 2TB WD 2.5" portable for like $110 when they go on sale. I think adorama and a few others do this deal from time to time.
 
Bumping a slightly old thread but if you are looking for LR5 on a disc be sure to pick it up when it's in a bundle. You can get LR5 + 2TB WD 2.5" portable for like $110 when they go on sale. I think adorama and a few others do this deal from time to time.

Yeah, +1 for just keeping an eye out for bundles. I just bought it about a month ago with a free canon printer for $60 total. Gave the printer away.
 
Good to know - thanks! My current plan is to keep using LR4 + DNG-Converter until LR6 is out. Hopefully some official word will come along soon. And I got about 200GB of space left before I need to start looking for a new HDD. Thinking I will go for one in the 4TB range, but I'll definitely look out for bundles too.
 
its weird, in past Camera Raw and LR was released at the same time....

Camera Raw 8.8 has been released 3 weeks ago or so, and no sign of Lightrooom 5.8....

they must have some serious bugs to delay the release like this...
 
$10/month for Lightroom *and* Photoshop.

No, I don't like it either, but it's cheaper than actually buying the new versions when they come out, and you don't have to pay for it all at once (expensive for Photoshop).

On another note, Lightroom 6 is supposed to support GPU acceleration, which the software really could use. Of course, it would be nice if it used it *well*- we'll see on that.
 
Yeah the $10 month really isn't bad for a software product combo that many people use everyday. I need to start taking more videos because I'm paying for Premiere also :eek:.

I really wish LR 6 would come out right meow because I have a super massive collection of scanned 35mm pictures that I'd like to process with the new software.
 
I've already got PS and Flash CS6 which are all I need at home besides LR, so paying a subscription fee for LR would pretty much triple the cost for me (shortest possible version of my anti-subscription rant). :cool:

I'll be avoiding any Adobe subscription licenses for as long as I possibly can.

I really wish LR 6 would come out right meow because I have a super massive collection of scanned 35mm pictures that I'd like to process with the new software.

Seriously!! Where is my LR6 already?! I NEED it for working with raw files from the new camera, so I don't have to keep using that stupid DNG converter and doubling all my file-sizes. I have been on the verge of just installing the v5.7 30-day trial for weeks now, but at this point I'm glad I didn't because LR6 has been delayed so long my 30-day trial would have expired by now and I'd be dead in the water 'till V6 is released.

On another note, Lightroom 6 is supposed to support GPU acceleration, which the software really could use. Of course, it would be nice if it used it *well*- we'll see on that.

Yeah, so much cool stuff in LR6 - can't wait! It also finally includes panorama stitching and HDR compositing without having to open PS. I'm also looking forward to better video capabilities (been in there since V5, but that's one thing I was missing in my V4), being able to combine multiple video clips and render out as one video will be very nice to have since I don't have other video apps on my home pc.

Now the only thing on my wish-list that's missing (at least as far as I know) is red/blue channel swapping for infra-red photos. If I could figure out how to do that in LR I would pretty-much never need to open PS except for the rare occasional high-end painting or layering type jobs. (does anyone know if channel-swapping or color inverting is possible in LR5/6? How do you do it?)
 
Best option for the money is 500px's "Awesome + Adobe" package which is:

Photoshop CC
Lightroom
Lightroom Mobile
and 500px Awesome account

for $13.75 a month ($165 a year). Fairly reasonable, all things considered. Adobe I think has been faithful so far with its line of CC products. Since they moved to the subscription format, the updates have been regular and significant. Under the hood technologies on Photoshop especially have moved up quite a bit since introduction 2 years or whatever it was ago.

EDIT: Forgot to mention why I was saying this in the first place, I was going to say, you might as well subscribe now, and you'll automatically get 6 when it drops anyway. MN Scout below says the same.
 
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Why not just install the 30 day trial now, and after the 30 days sign up for the CC subscription? You are only looking at $20-30 max additional out of your pocket depending on the delays. You'll have smaller file sizes, none of the DNG business, Lightroom edits will already be with your files. More time to learn. Now all the files you work with won't be as seamless come your adoption of Lightroom.

If you are going to do it, just do it now.:D
 
Lightroom 6 is released. There is both a CC and 6 version. 6 doesn't have some connected features. They also released an Android version of the mobile editing.
 
some info here
http://kelbyone.com/lightroom-cc-live-webcasts/

Can I still buy Lightroom or do I have to subscribe?
You can still buy it; the purchased version (which will not include access to Lightroom on your mobile devices) is called “Lightroom 6” and will not receive any future feature updates. New features or enhancements will only be added to Lightroom CC.

thats a dirty tactic to try and force you to subscription.
 
Sweeeeet! It's about time! And just in time for a lot of work I need to process. :D

It looks like they raised the price since last time I bought too - now it's $150 for the one-time purchase. Dirty tactics indeed.

But hey, unless they release LR7 less than 15 months from now, I still consider this a win for the stand-alone version. I don't care about a mobile version, and I highly doubt I’ll care about any “connected features” I assume are just for getting your pics onto social sites faster. As long as v6.0 works with the files from my camera, I should be good with that for at least another 2-3 years.

I'll be buying 6.0 when I get home tonight. I just want to look over the 6.0 feature list first and make sure it's not missing any of the major features it was supposed to have over v5.7 (HDR, pano-stitching, video editing etc). Hopefully it's not gimped right out of the gate somehow. :rolleyes:
 
My gpu isn't supported for acceleration. Only 6 years old common! :p

Tried the HDR merge on a sequences. I'm really liking it. First image I tried look nearly identical to my single image edit that had adjusted shadows, but the shadows are really clean on the merged version when they weren't on the single image. Wish I'd kept some bracketed images that I deleted a few months back.

I have some 48GB DDR3 memory 6x8 PC3-10600 ECC Registered up on craigslist right now. If that sells, I seriously might put that towards a faster Nvidia GPU.
 
I can has panorama! :D Wow - the panorama stitching works really well - very cool! I threw a bunch of photos into it, only half sure these were even shot to go together in the first place, couple of them processed years ago with different exposure settings, and they came out completely seamless after cropping! Now I have a giant 24400x2350px raw image to process.

Can't wait to try out HDR - gotta find some images I can try it on...

So far I am seeing zero differences between V6 and V4.4 as far as the exposure controls are going. I'm a little surprised to see that 2012 is still the current process option. Interesting. At least there's no learning curve to deal with at this point.

Lots still to explore but so far it seems nearly identical to 4.4, with just a few new features hidden around.

And it looks like Adobe had a hard time separating all the CC features from V6.0. I had to install the Creative Cloud Application Manager to get it to verify my licence, and I have a tab for Lightroom mobile in the LR preference, even though that's not supposed to be included in V6. It kindof looks like they expect me to switch to CC any minute now, so they didn't bother taking any of that stuff out. :rolleyes:

And... it says it's using my GTX760 for camera raw, but it still took forever to render that giant pano image, so I'm not so sure how much good it's doing at this point. :p
 
@madFive,

Did you end up getting the full release for $150 or the upgrade for $79? How do you like it compared to 4.4 (which is what I'm currently using). Based on your post above, it doesn't seem much different. I've gone through the list of new features, and none of them really appealed to me.
 
@madFive,

Did you end up getting the full release for $150 or the upgrade for $79? How do you like it compared to 4.4 (which is what I'm currently using). Based on your post above, it doesn't seem much different. I've gone through the list of new features, and none of them really appealed to me.

I went for the full $150 this time. I was already on an upgrade licence - figured it was time to start a new ticket just to be on the safe side.

And yeah, the main exposure and coloring controls are almost identical to 4.4. There's definitely a lot more similar than there is different. I mostly had to upgrade so it would support my D750 NEF files, but besides that it looks like the new Pano and HDR merging and a few other bells & whistles are all that has changed. There seem to be some cool improvements to the masking and spot-adjustment options. There were also some fairly significant video-editing capability improvements from LR5 that I'm glad to have access to now.

I'm sure I'll be discovering more new stuff as I get more hands-on time. I'm definitely glad I upgraded though. This software will pay for itself in the next year just in hard-drive space at the rate I'm shooting lately. :cool:
 
I made the jump from LR3 to LR5- at that point due to purchasing a 6D, with LR5 being current- and *that* was a big jump.

LR4, 5, and 6 seem to be very similar in use, and I believe all use the same 'process version' which means that your Develop module doesn't change much. Speed and stability improvements along with more integration of photography specific features from PS- and now very basic videography features from Premiere- seem to be the order of the day.

I just got LR6 up on my laptop; right now, I can't say that I see a difference, but I don't have much to work with on here.
 
Can now move the adjustment pins to move the entire adjustment mask. Helpful if you need to copy from one composition to another that is a bit different.
Hidden Gems in LR 6/CC
 
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Lightroom 6 now includes "spyware" called MarkMonitor

https://www.markmonitor.com/
Every time you launch Lightroom now (version 5 didn't do this) it sends few packages to addresses in 54.68.xxx.xxx or 54.218.xxx.xxx ranges to servers hosted by amazon and registered to MarkMonitor.

What it sends i'm unsure.



Just a FYI.
 
Can now move the adjustment pins to move the entire adjustment mask. Helpful if you need to copy from one composition to another that is a bit different.
Hidden Gems in LR 6/CC

I already have run into a situation where that was an issue; somehow, a piece of hair had gotten behind the mirror in my camera, where I couldn't see it through the viewfinder and didn't notice it in previews on the back until it was too late.

I was able to do something similar, but it was one hell of a hassle!
 
I already have run into a situation where that was an issue; somehow, a piece of hair had gotten behind the mirror in my camera, where I couldn't see it through the viewfinder and didn't notice it in previews on the back until it was too late.

I was able to do something similar, but it was one hell of a hassle!

A hair that is waving around and in a different location in each picture? That would suck majorly!

Further clarify what I said:
There has always been the option to copy development adjustments from one image to the other. CTRL-SHIFT-C or using the right click menu. The new feature when combine with CTRL-SHIFT-C is being able to click on a Pin created using the adjustment brush and moving the entire mask around.
 
The hair was almost exactly stationary; my issue, however, was that shots were in both landscape and portrait modes, where I had to make a mask for each, and further that the shots required more extensive fine-tuning due to the 'green' florescent lighting.
 
ive used lightroom trial for a long time, i finally bought lightroom 5.7 and havent used it since. I switched to fuji system the jpgs straight out of the camera only needed a crop -- white balance, color, contrast were so good i stopped post processing.

Now i just got a samsung NX500 to shoot 4k video and its jpgs are also good, but just learned yesterday lightroom 5.7 doesnt support samsung raws. Using that DNG converter is a pain!
 
Lightroom 6 now includes "spyware" called MarkMonitor

https://www.markmonitor.com/
Every time you launch Lightroom now (version 5 didn't do this) it sends few packages to addresses in 54.68.xxx.xxx or 54.218.xxx.xxx ranges to servers hosted by amazon and registered to MarkMonitor.

What it sends i'm unsure.



Just a FYI.

From their site

Great brands trust us to help them
fight online counterfeiting and piracy

So ya, wondering how they are trying to stop piracy..cause it isn't working..
 
ive used lightroom trial for a long time, i finally bought lightroom 5.7 and havent used it since. I switched to fuji system the jpgs straight out of the camera only needed a crop -- white balance, color, contrast were so good i stopped post processing.

Now i just got a samsung NX500 to shoot 4k video and its jpgs are also good, but just learned yesterday lightroom 5.7 doesnt support samsung raws. Using that DNG converter is a pain!

lightroom 5.7 does support samsung raws, it might not support MX500 since its a new camera, and lightroom support for version 5 stopped.
 
I agree Megalith, but until then, it's better to use a raw processor that will take Fuji raw and turn it into a universal raw or tiff file (although if you're a Fuji user, you probably already know this). It's an unfortunate step that quite literally doubles the amount of space all your images take, but at least there is an option.

Adobe is always bad at this stuff. If I was to really get picky though, I'd be pissed at Capture One (Phase One) for not getting tether support on more cameras, like Fuji and Pentax (effectively making them not viable studio options... and I've thought about hopping ship....) Of course they have an economic incentive to not support, as the Pentax 645z could at 1/4 the price could go head to head with an iq250. Although Pentax still hasn't seized the opportunity to make leaf shutter lenses... If they did, I don't see an option for Phase One and Hasselblad other than to at the very least halve prices. (For the uninformed, the 645z and the iq250 share the exact same 50MP Kodak CMOS sensor. But Phase One has an advantage of LS lenses and tether support on the industry standard Capture One, which if you're doing that type of work is a big deal).

Anyway, this is minutia, but I spent a lot of head space thinking about the economics of this stuff and bang for the buck as well as utility.
 
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Are you using a recent Fujifilm camera? What's wrong with it?

The conversion in Lightroom tends to smear and lose fine details.

I agree Megalith, but until then, it's better to use a raw processor that will take Fuji raw and turn it into a universal raw or tiff file (although if you're a Fuji user, you probably already know this).

Got any recommendations for a PC? The software I've seen seems to be Mac only.
 
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