Adobe Lightroom 3.4 RC, and what i want to see in Lightroom 4.0
So, Adobe has released Lightroom 3.4 RC on their labs site. this usually means that the full RTM version will be coming quite soon. But what happens next? What will be coming in Lightroom 4.0? Well, i have no idea, but here is the Geek Photographer’s wish list.
- Support for multi machine owners: I have my MacBook Pro, which i use on the road when taking photos. i also have the GodBox (Big honking work station). I have my photos stored in multiple places (on the GodBox, i have a RAID 1 array with my photos and also photos stored on my Drobo. I also have my photos stored in Jungle disk). I would like some sort of automatic syncing feature so when i come home, with a new lightroom album on the laptop, for it to get synced back to my main machine. I would also like to be able to keep the meta data and maybe preview images stored on the laptop also.
- Built in GeoTagging: i have a few different cameras (Canon 5D MKII, Sony NEX-3, iPhone 4, Windows Phone 7, Samsung ST1000, etc). of these the Sony, the 2 mobiles and the Samsung all do geotagging (Sony with the help of the Eye-Fi Pro X2 card). I also have some external GPS loggers, which i sometimes carry with me. i would like Lightroom 4 to support taking the data from the GPS logger, either at import time or after, and add it to the metadata of the photos. it could also show the photos on a map. If i dont have full GPS data for the photos, i should be able to say which where taken in Dublin, New York, Belfast, Cork, etc.
- Face Recognition: this is a hit or miss one, but i think it might be handy to be able to see what photos have faces in them, and for Lightroom to tell me who they are. obviously i would need to teach it a little, but it could be very handy.
- Cluster Support: this is something that will more than likly not happen. but it would be a nice feature: I have the GodBox (Dual proc, Quad core, 12Gb Ram) a Mac Pro (Dual Proc, Dual Core, 12Gb RAM) a Proliant Server (Dual Core, 5Gb RAM), old opteron workstation (Dual Proc), and 2 Poweredge servers (one single proc, single core, the other quad core). the MacBook Pro has a Dual Core Processor and 8Gb RAM. If i could get them to all work together, it could make my workflow faster. Import the photo to my local machine (say the Laptop) and share them to the bigger machines to process. if they are doing face recognition, full size generation, etc, it could take some time. Getting 23 processing cores working on images, compared to just 2, should speed things up a good chunk, right?
- Better auto import support: i have never gotten this to work with my Eye-Fi. don’t know if its me or Lightroom, but it should be easier.
- Multiple Car Import: Dont know if this is a feature at the moment, but the ability to import from multiple cards/devices at the same time would be handy. given my current camera count.
Thats all i can think of at the moment. Anything you guys can think of?