Lightroom 4

Hey Im looking for get lightroom 4 for ease of use with editing in conjuction with someone else. As I realise now if you make a catalog in Lr4 then bring it to a Lr6 user they need to update it and then it will be unusable to Lr4.

Also possable solution I know someone with Lr3 so if a Lr4 catalog is opened and edited in Lr3 will it be able to be brought back to Lr4?

Each full version of Lightroom is not backwards compatible with any previous version. If you open a Lr3 catalog in v4, a new v4 catalog will be created which wouldn't be able to be opened in Lr3.

Damn so yeah I need Lr4 then

There is a real difficulty with backwards compatibility between LR3 and LR4, and that is that Adobe introduced Process Version 2012 with LR4. PV2012 uses a completely different processing engine by default than LR3, and PV2012 is one of the big reasons to upgrade. You can though choose to use the older PV2010 (actually you still can, even in the latest LR CC version). Moving edits from newer to older versions of LR is possible, you will need to perform the edits in the normal way, and then ensure that you have LR write the edits to an XMP file. You will then need to import the images to the older version of LR, during which LR should read the XMP file, for images already in the catalogue you will need to have LR read the XMP file again. As long as you are using the same PV then any instructions that are not included in the older version are simply ignored. This could still be problematical, since there are significant differences between LR4/5/6/CC regarding the tools like local brushes, filters, spot healing, etc. all of which would be lost in the older version. To go back to LR3 you would need to really hobble the later versions of LR in that you would need to be using PV2010.

Alan

So is there an easy was to get Lr4 so not have to deal with this problem?

Lightroom 4 is ancient in software years. Why are you looking to get into outdated software? What are your perceived benefits rather than getting the latest version?

Basically Im editing for someone who only uses Lr4 so I make the files unusable after I edit with my Lr6 so if I got Lr4 on the cheap I could edit using that for those gigs.

DThriller wrote in post #18148973
So is there an easy was to get Lr4 so not have to deal with this problem?

No you can no longer buy a legitimate copy of LR4 unless you can find some dealer with an old copy on the shelf, which is not going to be very likely for a five year old product that has been superseded about four times, if you count the several CC major releases. What version of LR do you have? and what version does the other person you wish to work with have? Any computer that will run LR4 should also be able to run LR6 or LRCC, although the performance on older hardware won't be stellar. I was running LR4 on an old Dell laptop with a Dual Core Celeron processor, 3 GB RAM, 240GB SSD (upgraded from 240 GB HDD when I upgraded to Win 7) which was bought around 2008 or so. I tried the LRCC trial and it worked OK, just never bothered to purchase. So it maybe that upgrading to a current version, either 6 or CC would be the answer.

Alan

That would be my recommendation too. Talk them into upgrading. Show them how the benefits of going from 4 to 6 or CC are well worth the cost.

Start taking photos for this client with a 7D2, (or 80D) which would require the updated LR to edit the files.

Well Im not trying to tell anyone whay to do so if I can manage to find Lr4 Ill get some editing jobs but if I cant Ill have to pass on them. No big loss Id rather be shooting.

I see them on ebay for $250 but On pricipal am not paying that. Im not even super confident that paying one would work on my computer then id be **** out of luck. Ive seen some for $50 but they are teacher/student ones and ive heard they are really complicated to validate.

If you're doing the editing, wouldn't you be providing the final images (in either JPG or TIFF)? If the other person will be doing some editing after the fact, you could export to DNG.

...I thought of that with the dng but its not as convenient for them to tweek edits bc the history dosnt carry over in the catalog. Other then that it would work.

Still looking

I'm not sure if this would be OK or not, if you were only using this for working for the one customer. The LR licence IIRC allowed you to install LR4 on two machines, as long as you were only using one at a time. If the client is installed on one machine then in theory he could also install on your computer as well. You could then do his edits for him on his software, as long as he was not using LR at the same time. It's not like you would be wanting to use his copy of LR4 for anything else, since you have the later version for all of your other work anyway. You can still download LR4 from the Adobe website if you have a legal LR4 key to use. Oh just be aware that LR4 is not compatable with modern UHD monitors, since it doesn't do screen scaling.

Alan