This thread is intended to be a compilation of the flaws in Lightroom. What needs to be fixed in the next version? What is not working properly? What causes crashes? What features should be added? What did Adobe fail to include that is in equivalent software?

We can post on the Adobe web site until the next millenium and our individual suggestions might never be noticed. On the other hand, several of the participants on the forum are directly identified with the design of the software. Hopefully they will forward our combined suggestions.

Here's two of the major issues that must be addressed in any upgrade. These are discussed in other threads:

(1) Lightroom must import ALL files and not only the raw files. So if the CF card has raw files, jpeg files and wav audio files -- all with the same file name -- all three will be imported into Lightroom.

It is the software equivalent of criminal negligence that Lightroom now arbitrarily imports only the raw files. That means that when the photographer erases or reformats the CF card, he or she loses all of the other files.

Lightroom can incorporate a very simple filter so that only one type of file is seen, and the photographer can delete all the others if you choose to do so.

In the meantime, the import function in Lightroom is so severely crippled that it is essentially useless for importing from CF cards.

Use the import function in Photo Mechanic instead.

(2) Lightroom needs to include the ability to play back audio wav files recorded on Canon pro bodies. This should be seamless, and Photo Mechanic is an excellent example of how the feature should work.

As long as Lightroom lacks this feature it can't be used for reviewing and editing photo files. At least not if the photographer makes extensive use of the audio function while shooting and needs to play those audio notes back when reviewing and editing.

1) LR needs to be able to write to a network drive.
2) Without being able to correct for barrel distortion, in addition to CA, means I always have to reopen most images in PS to finish the image. I may as well use PS to begin with.

I wouldn't mind seeing a dodge and burn control, though I don't know if that is feasable the way LR is set up. I doubt it. Other than that maybe some speed improvments when dealing with large numbers of images.

Personally I never use LR to import off the card, instead I copy my card to where I want it in my file structure and then index that in LR.

Noise control is horrible.. I'm sure Adobe can do better than that. The high ISO images processed from LR is decades away from the likes of C1PRO et al.

I haven't played too much with this yet. Did lightroom incorporate the nifty auto CA/fringing removal that RSP had? The CA controls are nice but it "just happened" with RSP.

I haven't used RSP but LR can correct fringing.

Here's a few ones that would make my life easier (in no particular order):

1. Zoom to 1:1 with Crop Overlay Tool
2. Search for keyword's synonyms
3. Dodge & Burn
4. Local contrast enhancement
5. Split (and merge) libraries
6. Conform to keyword capitalization when suggesting keywords
7. Bring PKS and Noiseware into LR without the round trip to PS
8. Generate an optional log file of the import sessions

Be sure to fill Bug Report/Feature Request on Adobe website (here).

I know. Does it do it automatically like RSP?

No, it doesn't.

I agree on this point. I posted a question about Preprocessing Noise parameters on import based on ISO Metedata, similar to what could be done in RSP. I can provide what I have set up there for various ISOs, but it is specific to a Canon 20D and was done by someone who put an extensive amount of work into RSP to do this and determine the best parameters to apply ahead of time. The nicest aspect was that you could obviously have different ISOs on the same shoot, import and let RSP handle each different one automatically.

Jay S.

You should be able to "Place in Photoshop" a raw image as a Smart Object just like in Bridge.

An option to turn off back ground jobs, eg the meta data uppdate, if You have a lot of picturs, i have 70 000, then all those background issues sinks the whole computer for a log time. The meta data and keyword counting and data collection takes a lot of power and make the program useless.

Roine

2 huge ones, Speed. Seriously slower than it should be. And the ability to render a folder of images to screen rez, not just the ones visable in the window. This would make scrolling MUCH faster

Hi

1. Fix all PC related issues
- like crashing with CF card import of 100+ images
- Including the shadow option in overlays for slideshow (only on mac)

2. more speed+++. The time it takes to render previews or change images before a clear image is dispayed seriously hinders workflow

3. Fix speed issues related to applying spot healing tool. this essentially freezes its use, the more 'spots' the slower it gets

4. Prevent rendered jpeg preview degradation as more adjustments are made

5. Sharpening - aka RSP + unsharp mask

6. Noise reduction - aka RSP. High ISO files are poor in LR

7. Apply keyword functionality to folder structure.

8. Stacking - apply stacking in not just the folders.

9. Auto snapshot on export

10. Add ISO filter to the metadata browser in the LIbrary

11. How bout direct tethered shooting capacity from camera

Thanks

Also

12. soft proofing for print

Hello

abt spot healing, a version, selectible, where I only mark the spot and LR makes a per picture dessision for the source, today it only copy current to the other pictures, so source may vary and it isn´t so usefull if the target movs in a serie.

Roine

Speed, Bridge 1 and ACR is far far faster at rendering previews andshowing changes or zooming in to 100%, it's not good enough.

The recovery highlights tool works by lowering contrast in the highlights rather than actually recovering the data as the minus exposure tool does, this is simply lazy given that the fill tool works as it should i.e. actually lightening the shadows rather than adjusting the contrast in them.

There needs to be rotate in the develop mode! It's crazy to have to go back to grid mode (with the 5 secs that it takes) each time I want to rotate. Not being able to star more than one pic at a time except in grid mode is silly too.

1) "Loading..." time is inexcusably slow
2) Ability to define multiple steps in zooming (fit-->50%-->100%)
3) Real USM/Smart Sharpen type sharpening

I just tried rendering 100% previews to see if that cut the loading time down, yes it did but it still takes 6-9 seconds to show at 100% (instead of 15!) and I have no idea how that is possible, even if there was a full size jpg to load, PS can do it in half a second, why does it take 8 seconds for LR to load and show a section of what has to be a pretty small file?

Of course the rendering takes an age and a half. I'm thinking of just going back to Bridge/ACR, it's just far far faster.

I would like it when:

--->> I can put text over an image (visual copyright protection) so when my images are in a webgallery my copyright will always be there...and I don't have to open them up in CS first and put it on there with an action.

--->> I could put plug in filters in it....like alien skin exposure....so I will have a nice starting point

Have to work with LR more to come up with other needs.

This is called a "watermark", and you can add one from the web gallery page.


According to Schewe, this will be possible to make when the plugin API for Lightroom is available. And if I recall correctly, this was supposed to be made available after the 1.0 release (again according to Schewe). So this will apparently become possible sometime soon.

1) A proper Folder tree that works like the folders in the Finder/Windows Explorer. Let me create, rename, move folders etc and have these reflected in the OS.
2) Soft proofing
3) Noise reduction pre-sets like in RSP

The need to work over a network is critical. I know it has been raised before , both here and elsewhere. And the reason given by Jeff (please forgive me if this is incorrectly attributed) was that most photo studios are small/one man operations. This may be so, I am a prime example, I am a small studio working in Auckland, New Zealand, for local editorial and advertising clients. But even I have more than one Mac, and not just the desktop/laptop thing. I also have a partner who does most of the post production, but some times we both do, to meet deadlines. So currently Lightroom doesn't work for us. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Lightroom. But until the "library" can reside on a server, and be accessed by more than one operator at a time, perhaps along the lines of the "Version Cue" model used in Creative Suite, it will not be a major part of our workflow. Sorry guys.

Jason Berge.

PS: A little off topic, but relevant I thought, especially considering another of the busy threads today. A small point for the whole Photoshop/Lightroom/DNG team. With the issue of medium format digital backs and reliability, someone mentioned that when they bought their new back they kept their old one as backup. A very sensible idea I thought. Also for some types of work, older backs are still useful. I do a lot of editorial product work, where the 6mp files out of an old Leaf Cantare are perfect. If I sent them Valeo files for there 20 shot per page layouts, they would freak. Unfortunately I can't quite work with the MOS files from my six year old camera in any of the new Adobe programs. Apples latest update to the OS has just enabled it to generate thumbnails in the finder for the Valeo and newer backs, which has "accidently" enabled the older MOS files as well, but only in B&W. "Old soldiers never die" and all that. I still expect to be using the Cantare in another 10 years, the files don't appear to be that dis-similar to the newer generation. Please make DNG an option at the very least, so people can use their older cameras alongside newer ones in an integrated workflow.

Cheers

Delayed...

The reject flag does not work properly. When viewing a slide show, if I type "x" an overlay comes up indicating that the photo has been flagged as rejected. However, it has not. I use slide show for a first viewing and the x key function would be quite useful - if it worked.

Some kind of database recovery tool. I've had hangs twice which lead to shutting down and upon relaunch... "We're sorry, the Lightroom Library is corrupt and cannot be used."

Good times.

Full support for Phase One files would be nice.

If you plug in a CF card with Phase One RAW's Lightroom pretends to import them but it only imports the thumbnails. The work around is to download the CF card files to the hard drive and then ask Lightroom to import the folder. Once this folder is in Lightroom you can then ask for DNG conversion. It's a bit of a pain to say the least. I expect it's Phase Ones fault for chosing .tif as the extension for it's RAW files.

Any better workarounds out there?

Damien.

PS: I love Lightroom and welcome further development.

Auto keyword generation for Virtual Copies and Grayscale.

While in develop it would be nice for these 2 keywords to be auto generated for a particular image one is working on if VC or GS are chosen. This would save the hassle of going back to the library to the create keywords for each image, and would allow you to view all VC or GS images if so desired at a later date.

Auto Import moves new files, rather than copying them, to the destination folder, despite what the text says in the Auto Import Setting window.

1. I am SO frustrated with lightroom! Why in the world do only the thumbnails with the three dots that show in the current view get processed? If I have an entire folder of 1000 or more images and each image has the three dots, I want ALL the images to process regardless of whether or not I actually see them in the current view. I don't want to have to hold LR's hand and scroll to the next set of images so it can keep updating. This is a huge time waster. Is this not a no brainer or am I missing something?


2. It shouldn't be hard to render a couple hundred or so images at a simple screen resolution. This is how I edit. I view each image one by one full screen. Using the arrow keys, I click to the next image, the next image...and so on. I like to go FAST and I like a good fully rendered image the instant I hit the arrow key. When an image comes up that I like, I flag it or tag it as a "pick" with the P key. Heres what really drives me crazy...only the images that show in the current view when I switch back to grid view get processed into images large enough to view full screen without taking at least 1 second to two to render. Once all the "dots" are gone in grid view, I can then switch back to full screen view and continue blazing along clicking from one image to the next. I would be a happy camper if I could just walk away and have LR render a couple thousand images into screen resolution. Unfortunately, In order for it to render an entire folder of a 1000 or so images, I have to pretty much "baby sit" the program by switching back and forth between grid (so it will render everything in the current view) and then back to full screen view so I can continue flipping speedily through the images at screen resolution. Once I have made it through all the images that were updated in the grid view, if I keep flipping, I have to wait a good 1 second or so for the next full screen image to become clear. 1 second sounds like I am just impatient but at the speed with which I edit, and comparing it to the preview speeds in Adobe Bridge, or even ACDsee, where there is no wait time at all, I consider this to be a major flaw.

I want to believe that I am missing something...some setting somewhere or something. I have searched everywhere high and low and have tried everything....render standard previews etc. (You would think that rendering previews would do just what I am wanting)

Sighhhhh....this is such an awesome piece of software. Its got so much going for it. Unfortunately, because of the problems stated above, I have a serious love/hate relationship with this program. Right now, I am in the hate part. Yesterday, I was loving it. I love being able to select a bunch of images in the library and do quick exposure adjustments to whole selections of images etc. Ok...I'm exhausted. Others have pointed out issues that I also would like to see changed.

Here are the biggest issues I ran into:

1. Importing from a PS Elements 4.0 catalog was buggy and incomplete. I think this may have been because I have .jpg and .nef files for the same images in some directories, but in any event the import was not completely successful. Moving the NEF's out of the way seemed to work around the problem.

2. The fact that it cannot import both NEF and JPG images in the same directory is a major transitional issue for me. I've got lots of images where I've processed NEF to JPG. Lightshop throws away the processed JPGs.

3. Lightroom makes minimal allowance for JPG in the workflow. The way you get into photoshop is via .PSD or .TIF, which eats a LOT of disk storage. I'd prefer to go Lightroom->PSD->Photoshop CS3->JPG, with the PSD going away and the JPG ending up in the catalog. Having a 5 MB NEF AND a 35 MB PSD (16-bit mode) is kinda excessive. A first-generation max-quality JPG is just fine as the end-point of my workflow. Lightroom pretty much makes this workflow impossible.

4. In a lot of my older images, the EXIF 'date' is the date I did my post-processing and the 'Capture Date' is the date I shot the images. The thumbnails only let you put the Date, not the capture date, on the border. Come on now, that shouldn't be hard to fix.

5. The color calibration in Lightroom remains inferior to Nikon Capture when working with NEF data. I vastly prefer Lightroom's overall workflow, but I shouldn't have to compromise on quality. Adobe's known for a long time that they lose on quality to Capture, they really ought to solve this fundamental problem.

6. Importing images is excruciatingly slow.

7. In develop mode, the main image shimmies and shakes as various sliders are moved. Pretty annoying.

8. Library search facilities are really primitive.

That's about it. Overall I really like the Lightroom workflow, I just with Adobe would get it right. Long-term, I think they will and this will become a great piece of software. Right now, I'm not sure its up to snuff.

1. After "tab" away the side panels in the Library, one loses any indication of the image magnification. I would like to see the magnification moved to the lower task bar.

2. I'll "me too" the speed concern. I too am prepared to do something else while LR builds the high-quality previews, but once this is done I want to move between these previews with "no" hesitation.

3. In Develop I would like to have an option to change the cursor from the "hand" to "crosshairs" so that I was sure to which point the RGB readings referred.

The error report produced by importing from an existing location needs to be:

1. printable or storable in a file - if you have more than a few import errors the dialog box is useless.

2. It would be nice for the stored or printed report to indicate what error was found upon for each file.

The import function needs to be more robust, I've had problems with hundreds of files including dozens of raw files from a Canon 1Ds that open fine in ACR. Importing current work from a CF card seems to be fine. Processing legacy images from disk is almost problematic.

Hi

Would like to have the option to turn on or off as desired to automatically apply a keyword for 2 crucial actions in Develop.

Creating Virtual Copies and/or Grayscale images.

Making virtual copies on hundreds of images can be a little hard to follow. Some don't make the cut or get left behind. It would be nice to able to bring all of them up together using keywords so as to further manage.

Vewing all of ones' black and white images, generated by pressing the grayscale function, either via a virtual copy or snapshot, would be made easy if a keyword was generated upon this action.

Cheers
Brad

All of the above and...

It'd be nice to be able to set sharpening/noise reduction values while making adjustments in Develop and having an option to disable them when developing the images (Export and Edit in…)

Best regards,
Notko

A very simple selection tool, like a featherable lasso, for making rough adjustments in a non-destructive RAW state...Like Lightzone, except better.

Of course I realize that this would steal to much fire ($) from full blown PS, but it sure would be great.

Stacks don't round-trip between Bridge CS3 and Lightroom 1.0 (both are the released versions on Windows). I realise it isn't possible to round-trip this data if the files are in different folders. However, if all the stacked files are in the same folder, it just needs code adding to Lightroom to handle the stack data in the .BridgeSort file (analogous to the way it can be set to handle the XMP sidecars).

Another CS3 problem, already mentioned in this thread, is that you can't open a file as an ACR Smart Object in Photoshop CS3. Again, this can't be hard to fix - even if all that can be taken into Photoshop are the 'develop' settings - those equivalent to the ACR 4.0 settings - that's fine for me. Having to fire up Bridge or load the file manually into Photoshop CS3 to get this functionality by virtue of setting Lightroom to put the parameters in an XMP sidecar is a nuisance.

Something goes very wrong on my system (Windows XP Professional SP2, Kaspersky AntiVirus for Windows Workstations 6.0.2.678) when files are on a network share expressed in UNC format - \\SERVER\SHARE. The SYSTEM process gets pegged at or around 50% on this dual processor box when that's the case. It's seemingly not Kaspersky Antivirus' fault - if I disable on-access file scanning, it still happens. Close Lightroom (or only use files on local hard disks) and the problem goes away. I've seen other people complaining about this - it looks like a bug and I should probably report it to Adobe.

Finally for now, these two have been wished to death, but I'll add a "me too" - release the SDK (a Noise Ninja plug-in would be very useful for me) and laptop sync facilities.



David

It really looks, that the SPEED depends on the computer used, I'm totally happy with the speed and don't need it any faster. ( Info: 17.000 images in libary )

What I really want:

1. BIGGER IMAGES, the only reason why I still have to use Bridge is because Lightroom can't handle images larger than 10.000px, come on plz such a limitation is so old fashoined.

2.Local adjustment tools ala Photoshop masks, or Lightzone system

3.Don't need sharpning at all, Ok perhaps a better output sharpening.

4. Better noise reduction would be great, but not that important.

Point 1 and 2 are way more important for me especially point one. PLZ get that done.

Well... I guess one good thing is that everyone seems to agree that the layout and workflow that lightroom provides is really great. I would agree with the previous post that ISO in the metadata browser would be kind of helpful, for me at least. But the main thing for me has got to be a speed improvement.

I agree with davidlsmith, the fact that lightroom only processes the thumbnails that are visible on the screen is a bit stupid. I do the same thing that he said, have to sit there and wait for the current screen to finish just so i can scroll down one more screen and wait again.

so, i don't really want/need anything to be added. i love the features that are already there. it does almost everything i need it to do, it just needs to do it faster

Can you comment on the SDK timeframe? Thanks...

Please see my posting on the compact flash card causing LR to crash. It was listed yesterday. That should definitely be fixed.

In the Slideshow module, you cannot change the order of the photos. We need to have some way of dragging the photos to put them in the order we want. Secondly, the only way to add text to the individual photos is to put something in the caption line in the metadata. That doesn't work very well and the sizing doesn't work even if you move the template around. There needs to be an easier way to put in text.

Carol Strickman

No...

1. In develop module using windows, using the mouse wheel to adjust settings is way too aggressive in almost all field. Adjustments should be smal and even (eg: white balance in 100 kelvin or exposure in 1/10 stops)

2. Fix the bugs then add features/make changes. Especially the out of memory error.

Gordon

That's a shame.

It's one of the things I'm itching in my fingers for, because I had some ideas about plugins that I might want to make myself.

Fortunately(?), though, I haven't had anywhere near the time needed for that, so the delay hasn't really hurt me.

My 'suspicions' would be that we will see the first update on V1.0 in the next few months (pleassse....Mr Adobe ). This may be to add new Camera capability rather than any major improvements but I am hopeful we may see one or two updates and fixes.

Shame the SDK has been delayed as Jeff Schewe has mentioned I would love to see a Photokit Sharpener plugin (Jeff Schewe & co at PixelGenius) as the Sharpening is very lame indeed. I am sure Jeff would too


Also a Noise Reduction plugin would be a handy.

Either that or Adobe make some significant headway in both areas as these really are the only thing which means a round trip to Photoshop for me (ok - High Pass/local Contrast as well but I can live without this bit).

Fingers Crossed......

Jon

I like Lightroom and will continue using it.

Things I hope are "fixed".

1. Collections are very effective way to combine directories that have similar
images. Collections can overlap and can be equivalent to a project.
So a workflow based on collections should be fully supported by LR.
i.e. All functionality including for example stacking (for similar images)
available when working on collections. So stacks need to span directories.

2. Computer slows down too much when importing. Importing needs to run as
a background job or at a lower priority.

3. Autoimporting is pretty strange. I would like to instead define a directory(s)
with the option to include subdirectories that lightrooom monitors for any new
files. Then I could use the BreezeBrowserDownloader to simply add files
directly to the monitored directory. Seems to be a double move otherwise.

4. As I understand not all of the information in the RAW files is being used
since some of it is proprietary. Sometimes DPP seems to create better
looking images even though there is not as much control. But I could
be wrong here. Perhaps Adobe could do a deal with Canon?

5. JPEG output would be very desirable.

6. As a DAM tool it would be good if LR handled more file types.

7. Must be made faster, esp faster previews.

8. CA correction does not work well for me. Other plugin software in PS is
much much more effective.

9. Sharpening and Noise control needs to be extensible using plugins.

10. In grid mode I would like to see ISO, Speed, F-stop.

11. The clone/heal tool is a little jumpy and difficult to use.

12. More global edit tools in LR would be great.

Ain't gonna happen in your lifetime unless photographers demand that Canon and Nikon stop using undocumented and proprietary file formats...this is simply not something Adobe can do anything about...Adobe HAS developed a standard raw file format that some cameras use...but Canon and Nikon claim (incorretly) that THIER formats are "better" for their cameras...horsecrap...

The backup on import from a CF Card needs to be fixed so that it does a real backup.

Here is how it works now:

1.It creates a sub-folder under the one you specify. Its name includes the date imported.

2. It copies the files from the CF card with their CF card names to the created sub-folder.

3. You have lost any connection with the files you renamed and the backed up files.

4. In case of a hard disk failure, the only way to use these files is to import them again. Then you have lost all the editing you have done in the pase.

5. It is useless.

LR needs to back up files on import to the exact folders selected with the exact file names as defined in the import dialog. How else could it be useful?

Wil

Its not useless, its not what you want. It is useful. Many of us used it on the recent Amazon tour with Michael (Michael included).

You're on location. You have a laptop and you've shot 8 gigs of images. You want to back up the images from the card to two locations. That's it. We used two external drives for safety and to free up space on the laptops.

Once I import all the files into LR and build useful stuff in the database, that's easy enough to backup or clone. But for ingestion of images, the feature does just what I want it to do.