Lightroom 5 Beta

I love it when Adobe does the Beta tests for Lightroom. I'm still using LR3, had skipped 4 and looking at 5 for my next upgrade. I've just done my first test photos, it works fine, lags a bit here and there which comes across as slower than LR3, (I just installed OS Mountain Lion 10.8.3 system software on my iMac which could be part of this. The noise reduction seems about the same as is the sharpness controls, there may be differences I don't see yet. I've only done three photos and already miss LR3 because I guess I know it so well and anything new is, well new, you have to get used to it. What is very fun and very useful is the Radial Filter, I am amazed how well it works plus the controls, and it saves a lot of time for me as I often shade areas beyond the center of interest using the brush. The spot removal tool so far leaves too much of a circle, I played with the opacity but on something a little larger I had to go to the brush to soften the edges, but it could be me and not the software. I haven't tried using the spot removal as a healing brush yet.

For me it'll be a big deal if they can improve the noise reduction even more than what it is now, with cameras having new sensors to help this along, I doubt I'll be buying any of them very soon, keeping to my IDMKIII (lordy I love that camera) and if I can get another stop of ISO noise reduction, that would be pretty wonderful. I often shoot at ISO 1600 and 2400 when doing even and street shooting, plus I really like shooting outdoors in the city just as the light drops off while the city lights are coming on. Kind of magic. Extra noise control (which is already excellent on LR3) would be a plus. Granted Adobe tends to put that till the last with these Beta tests if I remember right.

Okay I'm back and just tried the spot removal tool as a healing brush and it's going to totally rock but I have to get used to it. One thing I ran into repeatedly all ready is that the place being healed tends to come out darker, and I did try moving the selected area to clone or heal (tried both) and eventually had to live with it and then take the brush to lighten the areas up 1/10th of a stop and soften it a bit to blend it. I tried with the opacity which helps but so far I'm hoping for a little more control or something, not sure quite what to ask for.

Have you used the (selective) Enhancement Brush yet? For me that was the game changer.

Coming from LR3 the big change you will have to adjust to will be the difference in the Basic controls introduced in LR4 (P.V. 2012). Brightness is gone and Exposure is entirely revamped. P.V. 2010 Exposure was a lineal shifting of everything to the right (like raising exposure in camera) and could cause clipping if pushed too far. Brightness was on a curve, rolling off at the top. Now, Exposure rolls off and a positive adjustment even of +4 won't cause clipping. In fact, even at 0 Exposure is content aware and will roll off highlights to do auto-recovery. Old Recovery was a roll off of highlights that could recover highlights but at the cost of flattening them and losing detail. New Highlights is a pull down at the top of the tone curve that increases highlight detail, often amazingly.
LR4 was revolutionary, LR5 much less so but with some very convenient additions. The Radial Filter is great and I have especially liked using duplicate filters, one working outside the circle and the other inverted to work inside. There is a good set of introductory videos here:
http://blogs.adobe.com …5-beta-now-available.html

My experience with the new spot tool has been similar to yours. I think the edge is too hard and it would benefit from the inclusion of an adjustable feather. At times it has even left a thin light colored outline around the cloned/healed area that needs to be blended in with the brush or a second heal.

Better NR was part of the LR3 revolution because it was required (and made possible) by the real core of the change in Process Version, the new demosaicer. This remains the basis of LR4 and LR5, so I doubt we will see much change in NR itself, but a big improvement to LR4 was that NR strengthening was put on the Local Adjustment Brush and Grad Filter and in LR5 it is also on the Radial Filter.

^"Now, Exposure rolls off and a positive adjustment even of +4 won't cause clipping"
What are you talking about? An adjustment of +4 definitely causes clipping. Sorry if I misunderstood.

tombu wrote in post #15851161
^"Now, Exposure rolls off and a positive adjustment even of +4 won't cause clipping"
What are you talking about? An adjustment of +4 definitely causes clipping. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Oops, my bad. That should have read +2. I was doing an examination yesterday of ISO 25,600 on my 5D2 and ISO 1,600 underexposed by 4 stops and pushed in LR4 and the number +4 got stuck in my head.

To see a graph of the Exposure adjustments in P.V. 2012, see this:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com …77413.msg619625​#msg619625
" PV2012 rolls off the highlights rather than clipping them (within limits). The +2 EV exposure adjustment places the highlights short of clipping."

I noticed the Saved Presets that were available with LR3 are not in LR5 beta, I really liked the ones for black and white. I assume that they came originally with LR3 since I've never made any effort to add anything in this area (or should I say, I don't even know how - never bothered to go that way).