Lightroom Classic experiences

[Ad Dieleman]

Yesterday evening I took the plunge, after making backups left and right of my catalog, images and other data and the complete internal drive of my iMac. I was planning to hold off, but then I saw David Kilpatrick say that the new Camera Raw process offers better image quality. Can't pass up on that, can we?

I was a bit weary because of some problems reported in the Photoshop Family community, but installation was a breeze and everything works as before as far as I can tell now. There's one problem I reported: the rendering in the Library module is weird sometimes. Fortunately the Develop shows what I feel is right, so that's not a real problem for me. In the meantime an Adobe support guy asked me to provide some extra information.

None of my presets got messed up, not even the customized metadata panel at the right set up by Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Preset Builder. I use three of his plugins and I had to register them again at $1 each; a bit of a hassle but at least he provides a smooth registering process. So far, so good.

 

[WestOkid]

Yesterday evening I took the plunge, after making backups left and right of my catalog, images and other data and the complete internal drive of my iMac. I was planning to hold off, but then I saw David Kilpatrick say that the new Camera Raw process offers better image quality. Can't pass up on that, can we?

I was a bit weary because of some problems reported in the Photoshop Family community, but installation was a breeze and everything works as before as far as I can tell now. There's one problem I reported: the rendering in the Library module is weird sometimes. Fortunately the Develop shows what I feel is right, so that's not a real problem for me. In the meantime an Adobe support guy asked me to provide some extra information.

None of my presets got messed up, not even the customized metadata panel at the right set up by Jeffrey Friedl's Metadata Preset Builder. I use three of his plugins and I had to register them again at $1 each; a bit of a hassle but at least he provides a smooth registering process. So far, so good.

I did the upgrade as soon as it was released. Went well for me on Windows 10 machines. All plug-ins, presets, and libraries are as they were.
I think it feels a bit quicker overall. Probably because of the way they are building the previews in the library that you mentioned. Since I use dual monitors I really only us them as a quick reference, so maybe that's why the difference isn't obvious to me.

In any case no issues to report.

 

[robbie36]

Lightroom upgrade went ahead with no problems for me. Photoshop not quite so good - having problems with 'select and mask'.

 

[christilou]

I have the paid for Classic. When I go to the dialog box for updating it says I could lose all my personal presets..... I have a lot of these!

 

[Ad Dieleman]

In Photoshop Family community I saw some posts on bad shadow rendering in Lightroom's Develop module if GPU support is switched on. Indeed I see that too, shadows block up a bit, so I unchecked the "Use Graphics Processor" box in the settings' Performance tab. Adobe will fix that at one time or another, don't really care; it seems that use of the GPU is especially helpful for local adjustments and even with GPU support off the local adjustments seem much faster than before.

 

[Golfhacker27]

I have the paid for Classic. When I go to the dialog box for updating it says I could lose all my personal presets..... I have a lot of these!

Are these stored in the same folder and format as a purchased/imported preset? If so, then you can back them up to a folder or USB key and then reinstall (if you lose them).

 

[Ad Dieleman]

In Photoshop Family community I saw some posts on bad shadow rendering in Lightroom's Develop module if GPU support is switched on. Indeed I see that too, shadows block up a bit, so I unchecked the "Use Graphics Processor" box in the settings' Performance tab.

Adobe supplied a workaround that worked for me, see this thread.

Photoshop not quite so good - having problems with 'select and mask'.

'Select and mask' is one of the features that make use of the GPU. Maybe, just maybe, it's a related issue. Just by looking around I found the place where I could modify Photoshop's Camera Raw GPU settings in the same vein as those for Lightroom, but so far I didn't find a config file that changes GPU use for Photoshop itself. You might consider opening a problem report in the Photoshop Family community, Adobe support people participate quite actively in that forum.

Also my problem report about posterization in the Library preview has been addressed: zooming in to 1:1 generates a new preview without posterization. It wasn't a big problem anyway, just something to be aware of.

 

[robbie36]

Adobe supplied a workaround that worked for me, see this thread.

'Select and mask' is one of the features that make use of the GPU. Maybe, just maybe, it's a related issue. Just by looking around I found the place where I could modify Photoshop's Camera Raw GPU settings in the same vein as those for Lightroom, but so far I didn't find a config file that changes GPU use for Photoshop itself. You might consider opening a problem report in the Photoshop Family community, Adobe support people participate quite actively in that forum.

Also my problem report about posterization in the Library preview has been addressed: zooming in to 1:1 generates a new preview without posterization. It wasn't a big problem anyway, just something to be aware of.

That was a good call... Turning off GPU use (under prefs -> performance) solved most of the problems although 'select and mask' is very laggy with my A7rii files.Hopefully this will be resolved in a follow up update.

Actually I am pretty happy with the new PS features - the best of which can be found in this video...

For Lightroom my major complaint is that the 'Book module' hasnt seen an overhaul - since LR5 in fact - and it wasnt particularly brilliant then.

 

[Ad Dieleman]

That was a good call... Turning off GPU use (under prefs -> performance) solved most of the problems although 'select and mask' is very laggy with my A7rii files.Hopefully this will be resolved in a follow up update.

Meanwhile Adobe came up with a settings change that works for Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom, making the earlier fix with config.lua redundant (I checked). It's here, scroll down. The settings file location is indicated for Mac, you or someone else will have to figure out where that thing is under Windows. I also read that updating the GPU's driver is often helpful and that you should do that by going to the GPU's manufacturer site because Windows Update isn't always up-to-date.