Last Updated on 06/21/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
Dear Adobe, thank you for the recent addition of preset syncing. It took you long enough
There are two different camps and trains of thought when it comes to presets with Adobe Lightroom. Some photographers scoff at them, stating that they’re going to use their own knowledge to get to the solution and not going to make it easy. More often than not, those photographers fail pretty hard. It’s a stubbornness if not a very specific creative vision that these photographers have for themselves. But those who embrace presets either genuinely like the look, are wannabe film photographers, or use them to satisfy clients. And for that reason and for those photographers, preset syncing is huge.
And it should have been here a long time ago.
Adobe should be praised for this update. It’s mega. It’s fantastic when you combine this with the recent changing of the way profiles and syncing works. But in my eyes, it’s not enough. Time after time, Adobe Lightroom is still incredibly slow for me and many other photographers. The architecture of the program is built on years of existing code. Perhaps this is why Lightoom CC Classic (the one I’m most referring to) is so much slower than Lightroom CC and mobile, which are more or less stripped down versions of a much bigger program.
At the same time, I’ve felt that Adobe Lightroom CC Classic still can’t edit the way Capture One can. I’ve been using Capture One for more than a year now, and I genuinely can’t see myself going back. What Lightroom has going for it, at least when it comes to testing cameras, is the fact that they sometimes have the support faster than C1. But if you’re not testing cameras and lenses for a living, this is a very moot point. Seriously, no one else will care. Instead, you’ll care much more about just getting better RAW files and edits. The way that Capture One forces you to think about editing is much better. Instead of spending a ton of time in the basic panel, you’ll instead work a whole lot in the color section. It will teach you more about exposures, how colors in a scene work, etc.
Adobe in my mind is the last great American photography company. Think about it: Kodak and Polaroid aren’t American anymore. Adobe is leading the way in so many different applications that are industry standard for lots of photographers because their products work and have a core integration system. But their products can be much better.
Adobe, this isn’t a letter to you to tell you that Capture One is still better than you. It’s a plea from a photographer to ask you to please fix things. I understand that it is difficult. Your products had performance and speed enhancements years ago. But then that got bogged down after a month or so in a way that I want to equate to early Android phones falling out of use after some time.
Other programs don’t have this problem. Only yours does.
Thank you for listening to us though; please fix Lightroom.