LR v3.0 Wishlist

Question

1) Move the Keyword List panel back to the left side of the screen, or give us an option to have it display there instead of the right side.
2) Drag panels from one side to the other.
3) Drag panels from one monitor to the other.
4) Display panels in the secondary window (optionally).
5) Open new catalogs without relaunching LR.
6) Open multiple catalogs simultaneously.
7) Web-based catalogs (e.g., at Photoshop Express, Flickr, etc. This is very complicated and might be well beyond the scope of LR, although it is cool).
#8 Include original filename in metadata (seems that this feature disappeared in LR 2?)
9) Play better with Spaces - e.g., at the present time, if LR is not open in the current active space and we click the LR icon in the dock, it doesn't take the focus. It should.

Answer 1

[email protected] wrote:
>> [email protected] wrote:
>> Suppose I know that I'm going to print a particular image at
>> 4x6, and I want to see how the sharpening will look. I can zoom
>> until it's approximately 4x6 on my display and apply sharpening
>> until it looks right.
>
> See, that's the problem...a computer display is a low resolution
> device. Even at 104 PPI (my Cinema Display's native resolution)
> that's less 1/4 the resolution I often print (480PPI). So, exactly
> how are you going to determine the sharpening and noise reduction
> you'll need for a 4x6 print when you are looking at a 1/4 resolution
> device?
Once again, I'll say that it depends on my intent. Perhaps a specific
example will help. This weekend, I went through the 150 pictures I took at
my daughter's birthday party. I culled them down to the 35 good shots and
did some cropping, basic color correction and sharpening to make them look
good to my eye on my monitor. I then uploaded them to SmugMug (at full 10
megapixel resolution) and told all of my relatives who'd been breathing down
my neck that that were there. They'll go there and view them onscreen,
possibly ordering prints of the ones they like (or downloading and printing
on their own, in some cases).
There are all sorts of variables here that are utterly beyond my control,
and not just related to sharpening - how does SmugMug interpolate from the
full image to the various sizes they provide? What kind of color correction
and sharpening does the SmugMug print service do? What paper do they print
on? What print service or printer do my download-and-print relatives use?
How calibrated are my relatives' monitors? What's the resolution of their
monitors? How good are their eyes? ... the list goes on and on.
What I'm going for here is a good enough sharpening (and color correction,
and so on) to give a good enough base so that when they finally see the
pictures through the lens of all of the variables, they don't say "Rob,
those pictures sucked." And I want it fast enough and easy enough that I
can take those 150 pictures down to 35 good ones very soon after the
birthday party so that the relatives don't say "Rob, you never send us
pictures of the kids."
For all of this, I absolutely positively don't want to go to 1:1 for
*anything* unless I have to. If the picture looks good onscreen at
approximate viewing size, it's good enough for me and for my relatives.
Now, on the other hand, when I worked on the picture I submitted for my
town's Spring Photo Exhibit last year, I wanted much better than "good
enough", and so I was willing to go to 1:1 for sharpening. I also made sure
my monitor was well-calibrated before starting, did paper-specific soft
proofs, and spent several hours in Photoshop tweaking until the picture
looked great. That's an entirely different process serving an entirely
different purpose. (I'll note in passing that Photoshop let me do
sharpening at any resolution, not just 1:1. Obviously the Photoshop folks
don't agree that all sharpening must be done at 1:1 like the Lightroom folks
do. I bet that makes for interesting lunchtime discussion in the Adobe
cafeteria ...)
> The design of the Detail sharpening and noise reduction is to make it
> look "good" at 1:1, then use Lightroom 2's auto output sharpening for
> the print. You can see the sharpening and noise reduction at 1:1 and
> the output sharpening is hidden entirely and applied only on the
> output pipeline and visible only on the print-which is the only
> reliable and accurate place to look at the final sharpening result.
I completely understand LR's intent. But as I hope my example shows, even
objective-sounding terms such as "reliable" and "accurate" are subjective in
varying degrees in different environments and when applied to different
purposes.
On a slightly unrelated note, I'm curious about your experience with a 480
PPI printer. I'm considering replacing my printer and have been thinking
about what what resolution to look for (among other factors). Various
experiences I've had and some reading I've done suggest that for most cases,
250 PPI is more than enough, so I'm interested in hearing whether the higher
resolution has made a subjective difference to people viewing your prints.
Thanks in advance!
Rob