UKC

I'd like to buy the upgrade from my current 5.7 to 6 (as a stand-alone option, not the CC subscription format) but it seems Adobe are very reluctant to make this easy for me. Has anyone here successfully done this and if so, how did you do it?

I found a link suggesting I'll need to download the 'trial CC' version then convert to LR 6. Surely there must be a simpler method of getting the v.6 stand-alone?

In reply to Fraser:
Buy the upgrade from someone other than direct from Adobe.

In reply to Fraser:

The easiest way in in 5.7 take the Help; Updates menu option.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

Okay, this will probably sound daft, but how do I do that? (I bought 5.x via the Amazon market and have since then downloaded the free updates as and when available)

In reply to John2:

Thanks, but that unfortunately takes me once again into the' CC subscription' sequence.

In reply to Fraser:
If you buy say from Amazon, buy the upgrade version (either cd or download) and when you come to install it it should take note that you have version 5.7 already installed on your PC when registering it.

Edit: not done it specifically for the 6, but have for others and it should work!

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

Thanks, you'd imagine it would be that simple but I don't see anyone on Amazon advertising an upgrade option, only the full-blown LR 6, which costs probably twice what the upgrade should.

In reply to Fraser:

Sorry, I thought that would work. I got mine through this menu https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/catalog/software._sl_id-contentfilter_sl_... . It doesn't show the upgrade option on this screen, but I did only have to pay the upgrade price.

In reply to Fraser:
Really? It was there as an upgrade option when I first replied to original post! Has it now disappeared?
Edit: it's not there now, so either it's been removed or I misread, if so sorry.

In reply to John2:

Brilliant, thanks. I'd seen that route suggested on someone's blog, but could only find it for the US site, despite much thrashing around in Adobe.com/uk.

Fingers crossed...

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

There are upgrade options but not for 6 that I could see, only for earlier incarnations. At least that was all I was able to find. Thanks anyway. I think the link mentioned above should work.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:

No worries, thanks for the suggestion. The route above worked and I managed to download the upgrade which I'm currently installing, so it seems all is well.

In reply to Fraser:

Here's a reasonable (if a little American) critique of Lightroom 6 and the upgrade process, though I think he's underplaying the convenience of having HDR and panoramic processing in Lightroom itself with no need to go to Photoshop.

In reply to Fraser:
I managed to get the stand alone upgrade from 5.7 to 6.

Lots of random pressing of different links and I got there somehow. Wherever possible they take you to the subscription option. They made it difficult to say the least

Try this:

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/catalog/software._sl_id-contentfilter_sl_c...

At Lightroom: In the 'I want to buy' drop down, select Upgrade

In reply to ChrisJD:

Thanks Chris, in the end I managed to get to the right location the other evening from John's link above. Now downloaded and installed.


In reply to John2:

Did you forget to post the link to that review?


I must admit thatI've only had a very quick dabble, but I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't a noticeably different interface or feel from v5.7. I did however manage to check out the panorama function which seemed to work very well.

In reply to Fraser:

http://pindelski.org/Photography/2015/04/22/lightroom-6/

Dear me, old age is a terrible thing.

In reply to John2:

lol, well, you got there this time, thanks

Not exactly a rave review, is it? How have you found v.6 so far yourself?

In reply to Fraser:

As I say, I think it's great having HDR and panoramic processing incorporated, and they both seem to work very well. Speed is probably improved over v5, though I initially suffered from the known bug where my video card wouldn't enable the graphics processor (it looks as though this is a problem with the driver for the card rather than Lightroom).

I do think the way Adobe are trying to hide the non-CC upgrade path is pretty reprehensible, however.

In reply to Fraser:

I read the review and also have tried out Lightroom 6. I have mixed opinions about it.

I think building pano. stitching and HDR into Lightroom was a good move and the fact that it stitches RAW files into DNG format is brilliant and unique. Yes, both features are missing options and could have been done better - a lot better - but they work for the majority of cases.

Speed is a HUGE problem. I find LR6 to be incredibly slow, even compared to LR5 which was already slow. This makes some improvements useless - for example, it doesn't matter whether the software supports modification of a graduated filter if the brush tool is too slow to use! (I've been using brush tools since Paint, and in Photoshop since Photoshop 5 on a 166 MHz Pentium. I have never experienced one that is quite as slow as Lightroom's.)

Everyone keeps repeating Adobe's statement that LR6 is "faster" but, in my experience, it isn't. Some features, like the Grid, are the same. Others are obviously slower.

LR6 is also very buggy. The Crop tool in the Develop module often breaks, for me, replacing the image of the picture with a blue rectangle with white lines. Restarting Lightroom fixes this but it is a pain. Several other features feel very flaky and unpolished - like flagging and unflagging which sometimes just doesn't do anything.

Finally, there's the promise that LR6 can use your graphics card. Perhaps it can, but it doesn't seem to work with mine. I have a nVidia GTX 780m, a very good card, and yet Lightroom is SLOWER with it enabled than without.

This release has left me conflicted because all of these new things sound like good ideas and I WANT to like Lightroom. I just wish they had done a slightly more professional job.

The bottom line is this, though: there isn't really an alternative. If you want to work with large databases of photographs in RAW format, you just have to swallow the shit Adobe kick out and buy Lightroom.

In reply to Xharlie:

If you look for Eric Chan's posts in this thread https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1822782 you will see that the adjustment brush is probably going to be faster with the graphics processor disabled, but the sliders should be faster with it enabled.

In reply to John2:
EDIT: Sorry - found posts by Eric Chan - didn't see there were more pages.

Is that really true, though? Because photographs are divided into two camps and NOBODY uses both the sliders AND the brush? It's stuff like this that makes me want to throw away all Adobe software and never touch it again.

In reply to Xharlie:

Which particular post of EC's were you referring to?

I'll fess up too: I use sliders and the brush, is there something wrong with that? I quite often paint local exposure or contrast and that seems to be the obvious way to do so. I'm not sure how you'd do the same thing with sliders.

In reply to Fraser:

If you dig through the thread that John2 linked - all half-a-dozen pages of it - you can find many posts by E. Chan and a lot of discussion surrounding the performance problems.

You're using the brush for its intended purpose, just as I am. This is intolerably slow in LR6. Reading that thread, it seems obvious that Adobe's line on this is "by design, live with it" so we are left to conclude that Lightroom is slow because they chose to optimise other things or simply don't care about what, to us, is a critical feature.

I am far less enamored with LR6 after reading that thread and the responses by Adobe.

In reply to Xharlie:

A very comprehensive discussion of Lightroom 6's use of the graphics processor - https://forums.adobe.com/message/7480830#7480830 . It is noticeable that trade-offs are involved.

In reply to Fraser:
Intresting to find that Adobe CC subscribers are leavinig their computers open to attack which is mentioned in one of the links above, the cloud is something I don't want to join and Lightroom 6 standalone appears the best option. I liked the HDR files being DNG

Gunther from Lightroom Timelapse does a review of Lightroom 6 here at 21:28 he does some comparisons on speed between versions 5 and 6
vimeo.com/125542564

In reply to all:

Okay, I had another quick fiddle with v6 this evening and it does seem noticeably slower than v5.7, even just in Library mode and mounting / displaying all the images. I checked performance and it looks like my GPU isn't being used. The local brush adjustments was definitely slower than I was used to in 5.7, which is a major bummer. I really do hope that something is improved in this respect in future .x updates otherwise I'm not sure if the HDR and pano facilities justify what was a £60 outlay.

The review on that LR Timelapse link was very interesting and the speed comparisons were quite revealing. Definitely quicker for some processes, but the presenter seems to have been expecting a better improvement from 5.x. I wasn't familiar with the site at all so thanks for posting.

In reply to Fraser:

Summary from adobe link about GPU:

1. GPU support is currently available in Develop only.
2. Most (but not all) Develop controls benefit from GPU acceleration.
3. Using the GPU involves some overhead (there's no free lunch). This may make some operations take longer, such as image-to-image switching or zooming to 1:1. Newer GPUs and computer systems minimize this overhead.
4. The GPU performance improvement in Develop is more noticeable on higher-resolution displays such as 4K. The bigger the display, the bigger the win.
5. Prefer newer GPUs (faster models within the last 3 years). Lightroom may technically work on older GPUs (4 to 5 years old) but likely will not benefit much. At least 1 GB of GPU memory. 2 GB is better.
6. We're currently investigating using GPUs and other technologies to improve performance in Develop and other areas of the app going forward.

I always expect a bit more in these upgrades - it doesn't even look any different ;-0

However, the Face stuff, HDR & Pano (easy ones only) are all big wins for me. And the fact the last two get created as RAW files is pretty cool.

Not noticed any changes in speed (running a fast hex core machine)