I'll start by saying that I've been a Lightroom user since version 1 and love LR3.
It seems everyone is loving the fact that you can now export slideshows with music and I like that too, BUT I can't stand the fact that you can no longer play music as you did in LR2. I don't know if it's exactly the same on Windows as it is on Mac but I use a Mac and have a music library in iTunes with a large amount of music purchased from the iTunes Store.
I rarely if ever actually make or export a slideshow from Lightroom and one of the things I liked in LR2 was that after a long day of shooting I could come back to my computer, import the images and kick back to watch a slideshow with an iTunes playlist playing. I could choose any play list, create a new one or use any of the library, playing in sequence or random order. I really liked that.
Now that they've changed the playback options in LR3 I can no longer select a playlist. Not only that but I can't select any of the protected audio files I've downloaded. That means I'm forced to use non-protected songs and can't create a playlist without going to other applications and creating an mp3 file with the songs I want, in the order I want with the timing I want. Not practical and the playlist is always the same.
Even if I was ok with the new playback option, having a 3:30 minute song playing with a slideshow of 800 images just plain sucks.
Unless there's something really obvious that I'm missing, I find the new options much less appealing regardless of whether I just want to run a slideshow for my personal use or to export for a client.
How do others work with this? Are there options I'm not making use of that correct this or allow me to use a playlist in LR3?
