Archives for June 2015

A Workaround for Lightroom 6.1 De-Haze Slider

June 22, 2015 by Spence Munsinger

I did some looking further into what exactly Adobe was withholding from Lightroom 6.1 Standalone vs Lightroom CC. The basic capability to De-Haze is apparently in both versions. The user interface in Lightroom 6.1 simply doesn’t have the De-Haze defined slider, which the upgraded Lightroom CC now has.

The same effect can be realized in Lightroom 6.1 using presets – Prolost has a free set of presets specific to the De-Haze functionality. This is awesome, and I found the set so intriguing I went ahead and paid for the entire Graduated preset collection to play with.

The very interesting piece of this is that the De-Haze preset works with Lightroom 6.1 – not with Lightroom 6, only with the upgraded 6.1 version – and addresses an internal Dehaze function not available through the UI…

Here’s a partial look inside one of the De-Haze preset template files:


	value = {
		settings = {
			Dehaze = -14,
			EnableEffects = true,
			ProcessVersion = "6.7",
		},
	},

.

Note that this requires the image to be using Process Version 2012. In Lightroom, Develop Module, go to Settings -> Process to verify at 2012 – if not you can go to Settings -> Update to Current Process (2012) to bring the image up to date.

Adobe has suggested they can’t release new features to Lightroom 6.1 Standalone – this pretty much demonstrates that in this case that is not true – this is basic functionality available within Camera RAW and made available potentially in both Lightroom 6.1 Standalone and Lightroom CC – and disabled in the UI in Lightroom 6.1 Standalone. This is cripple-ware, intentionally crippling a program to extort money. Not one of my favorite things

—spence

Filed Under: writing

This is California…

June 18, 2015 by Spence Munsinger

Hand Car Wash, Studio City

Filed Under: writing

Alternates to Lightroom CC…

June 18, 2015 by Spence Munsinger

I’ve never liked the Cloud model, especially Adobe’s CC. Initially the price was $29.99/month (2013) which was a discounted price from $49.99/month. Right now it’s $9.99/month for a Photography version, Lightroom and Photoshop.

The only Adobe product I really use is Lightroom, and I recently upgraded to Lightroom 6.1. I paid an upgrade license and a full license price, for a total of roughly $220. Right now Adobe offers the standalone Lightroom 6, and the Lightroom CC version ($9.99 and comes with Photoshop…). So for $120 per year (for now) I could have continued to use Lightroom as Lightroom CC. I rarely use Photoshop (I use an older Photoshop Elements program which has worked just fine when needed). My costs would have been roughly the same, either way.

Except – except that Adobe in the Cloud can alter and manipulate the experience and the pricing at will. With a standalone version I am NOT forced to upgrade at any time and I can keep using the results of extensive refactoring and categorizing and keyword hierarchy, without risk of change. I can choose not to pay more money to Adobe. I can let the program slide for a version or two.

Adobe recently upgraded Lightroom standalone to 6.1. And, as they promised, it lacks a feature now available to Lightroom CC. There is no plan to make the de-haze slider available to Lightroom standalone 6.1 any time in the future, in fact Adobe has stated they won’t make it available. Yes, they mentioned that new features wouldn’t come to Lightroom standalone. But it still pisses me off.

Lightroom has struggled with the Fuji X Series sensor for three years. Capture One does a much better RAW conversion from this sensor than Adobe Camera RAW. In fact some photographers swear it does better with all RAW formats. It costs $299. It is supported very well by Phase One as a standalone version exclusively (no cloud bullshit). I purchased Capture One to use as a RAW converter back when Adobe couldn’t seem to understand the Fuji sensors, as part of deciding to move to Fujifilm cameras, mostly away from Canon.

Capture One has to be approached as a different image management paradigm, and a completely different working environment. It was different enough that after struggling with C1 and starting to get shortcuts down and image manipulation fluid, I gave up and I went ahead and stuck with Lightroom and upgraded, for now – but after the 6.1 update leaving me behind the Cloud version – I think I’ll be re-examining that decision.

—spence