BUMBLEB  After spending some time with the beta and reading the release notes, I must say that I feel quite underwhelmed by the prospective features of Lightroom 2.0...

The added additions are welcome, however, there is stuff that is more important to fix before adding new fluff and stuff. Such as:

A proper library module. Adobe seems to do one major mistake. They focus on TEXT metadata for organization purposes. Adobe, let me tell you: I AM A PHOTOGRAPHER - A VISUAL PERSON. So Apple does it right with Aperture (and even iPhoto). In those, a user can see all albums, visually, and skim through them easily.

A much much more flexible print module. Aperture can layout full books!

Better branding tools. The current Identity Plate just doesn't cut it. I need to be able to load an eps or PDF file of my logo, as well as input all my contact details, and use it flexible throughout the app.

The healing / spot tool still sucks and is slow to use for anything else than the occasional dust spot.

The interface in itself is, in my honest opinion, quite... unfancy... and... square... Not

The pace of released betas (uno until now) makes be seriously believe Adobe released beta1 just to fend off the Apple Aperture 2.0 release, which does indeed boast a serious leap forward.

Why am I using Lightroom then? Because Apple is slow at adopting the various camera models I use.  (Version 2.0b1)

OLIVERNIELSEN  Lightroom is cool, apart from one glaring annoyance, at least to me: No proper retouching tool. Aperture has a wonderful one in version 2. The "spot" tool in Lightroom is slow to use. I don't wanna define a source point for every spot in an image. I know Lightroom initially tried to guess a source point for me, but often it is totally wrong. The problem is this approach is based on clone stamping. I want something similar to the spot healing brush in Photoshop. Thats what Aperture has now. Why can't Adobe, the great inventors of mighty Photoshop include such stuff in Lightroom?

Yeah yeah, I know, this is a rant. It's just that it is the only thing that is really slowing down my workflow.  (Version 1.4)

SKALLAGRIMSON  Adobe Lightroom 1.4 pulled, users asked to downgrade

Adobe has pulled the recently released Lightroom 1.4 update from its Web site and is asking users to downgrade to version 1.3.1 of the photography workflow tool.

Company officials say the decision to pull the update was based on the following bugs:

EXIF Time Stamp Error There is an error in the EXIF time stamp update technology that causes Lightroom to believe that the files are out of sync with the correct time stamp as displayed in Lightroom. Any ensuing metadata update will attempt to incorrectly modify the EXIF time stamp in the original raw file itself. This is the only metadata field that Lightroom will write to an original proprietary raw file. This error will not impact the integrity of your image data. The Camera Raw plug-in also will incorrectly change the EXIF time stamp in files converted by the plug-in. The information written to the XMP sidecar files or XMP metadata in the converted files will remain correct.

Olympus Conversion Error There is an error in converting Olympus JPEG files to other formats in Lightroom 1.4 and the Camera Raw 4.4 plug-in.

In order to downgrade, delete the Lightroom application in the Application's folder and then delete the /Library/Receipts/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.pkg file. Reinstall Lightroom 1.3.1.

http://www.macfixit.com/  (Version 1.4)

CHRIS86314  I am running a Mac G5 2.3 Dual. I had no problem with Lightroom up until vs. 1.1 then it came to a total halt.

As if 1.1 The "Write to XMP" totally stalled my Mac if it was chosen in the Catalog Settings. It would bog down my computer so much that even after I quit LR it stalled my computer. I called Adobe Support 3 times and they tried everything.. but it wouldn't work.

My previews would not load (it would show loading forever). If by chance it did load the preview was totally pixelated. At that time I only had 4500 photos in my Library. I even trashed the library and divided it up to smaller separate libraries.. nothing worked and support couldn't solve the problem

If I unchecked the "write to XMP" LR worked like a charm.

I have read many posts on this problem, even on Adobes LR forum. So since 1.1 came out I have worked in LR having to save each individual change by choosing it and hitting command+S or the XMP file would be wrong. What a pain in the A$$.

Today (9/15/07) I downloaded LR vs. 1.2 I was all excited because it said in the release that the problem with the "Write to XMP" had been fixed..

Quess What.. NOT !! My LR is not worse than ever. It won't even load a file. It took 45 minutes today to Import 50 new RAW photos I had just shot.

I went in and optimized my library (catalog, or whatever we are calling it now). I even selected all my photos (6500 of them) and hit save, thinking that it had to write all the files I might have missed saving since I unchecked "write to XMP". I took about 2 hours to save all the files to XMP but finally finished, weeding out 4 bad files in the process.

So after all that.. It is worse than ever before. If I guit and restart LR.. it just totally stalls. It doesn't work at all and it two times as bad and as slow as vs. 1.1 was.. and this (1.2) was supposed to fix everything.

I will call Adobe Support on Monday but I don't hold much hope because they couldn't fix it before even after spending about 4 hours on three separate support tickets and techies. Nobody had a clue and I actually had to tell them about the problem, not one of them knew the "write to XMP" would stall the computer Hogging 100% of your CPU. The only way to use it is to uncheck "write to XMP and save everything manually.. what an absolute Pain in the A$$.  (Version 1.2)