Little Juice Coupe wrote:
You keep ignoring the fact that Lightroom does red-eye reduction as well as spot cloning and healing and it does so without actually altering the original image. Meta-data editing. So if LR can do these three pixel level edits and use meta-data for that instead of alter the actually image…
I’m not ignoring it, but I know how that works and it works a little differently than you may think. The best way of looking at it is to say that Lightroom reads the RAW data, and then produces a *NEW* file from those data after demosaicing them. That’s why the original data remain untouched. This new file consists of RGB pixels just like any other RGB image, so Lightroom can make pixel based edits just like any other editor. So essentially, the file *does* get changed. It’s just not the original file. The difference between the Lightroom method and what most other RAW converters do, is that Lightroom doesn’t save this new RGB file afterwards, but discards it after use. Each time it needs the image again, it just reads the RAW data again and goes through the same steps of demosaicing and then making pixel-based corrections like red eye reduction or cloning. The instructions for those steps is what is saved in XML.
This also doesn’t change the fact of what I was saying and that that Adobe did a very sloppy and messing job of implementing live filters in CS3. If the above 3 things can be done without the need for SmartObjects or altering the actual pixels then live filters could have been done in CS3 in a similar fashion. The problem is Adobe wanted quick and dirty instead of done right.
I agree that it’s sloppy, but I don’t agree with the observation that this is because Adobe wanted a quick and dirty solution. Photoshop is completely different than Lightroom. Photoshop doesn’t use metadata editting, it edits pixels. That’s its strength, but also its weakness. If it does non-destructive editting, it must do so by means of layers (like adjustment layers). To make *one thing* -i.e. smart filters – fundamentally diffferent by using metadata editting, without changing the entire program completely, was probably impossible.
Yes, Adobe could have rewritten Photoshop from scratch and make it a metadata editor as well, but that would take years. Lightroom took about three years! And for all we know, this may be an ongoing project already. In the meantime, we have to live with the fact that Photoshop is not a meatadata editor, which means that non-destructive filters have to be done the ‘smart object’ way.
What is the title of your LR book? When will it be published?
The title will probably simply be ‘Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’. It’s due end of April. Do remember that I’m Dutch, so the book will be in Dutch too.
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Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer
http://www.johanfoto.com