# Lightroom Classic August 2019 release (version 8.4)



## thommy (Aug 13, 2019)

Hi

Any thoughts or first impressions of the new release announced today?
Will not be able to test or see what it's all about until later this evening.

New features summary for the August 2019 release of Lightroom Classic

Thommy


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## mcasan (Aug 13, 2019)

Hejsan,

Maybe today we can see reports or Youtube videos from the early adaptors who could not say anything until today.   I updated last night and already had all my 1:1 previews generated.  

German review:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiywlHZjqRU

MVH, Michael


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## Paul McFarlane (Aug 13, 2019)

I've found it very stable, good to have some flexibility on GPU use.


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## Zenon (Aug 13, 2019)

mcasan said:


> Hejsan,
> 
> Maybe today we can see reports or Youtube videos from the early adaptors who could not say anything until today.   I updated last night and already had all my 1:1 previews generated.
> 
> ...



I had to put my lederhosen on to watch that.


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## Jimmsp (Aug 13, 2019)

My first impressions are good. I have a fairly fast pc, so I had no real issues before. But my impression now is that LR 8.4 is a bit quicker than it was.
I have a lot of new vacation photos to go though in the next few days, so I'll really test it out soon.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Aug 13, 2019)

I've just ugraded to 8.4 from 8.3.1 and unfortunately my graphic card nVidia GeForce 1060 is no longer detected (although correctly detected by Photoshop).
I've completed a case already opened by someone else : Lightroom Classic 8.4: GeForce GTX 750ti - Graphics Card not supported | Photoshop Family Customer Community I've the same problem on both my desktop and my laptop.


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## Jimmsp (Aug 13, 2019)

Philippe Coudé du Foresto said:


> I've just ugraded to 8.4 from 8.3.1 and unfortunately my graphic card nVidia GeForce 1060 is no longer detected (although correctly detected by Photoshop).
> ...



Strange.   My NVIDA GeForce 1050 (4GB) GPU was detected by LR.  It also was by the newest PS.


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## -dep- (Aug 13, 2019)

Same here, just upgraded to 8.4 and the graphics card (nVidia GeForce 1060) is no longer detected. Victoria's blog report on the upgrade states that the minimum  system requirements for GPU processing support has been 'increased' to Windows 10 but Adobe's minimum requirements still mentions Windows 7 and Windows 10. I wouldn't think that they would drop GPU support for Windows 7 but maybe. I only have Windows 7 so I can't check it out on Windows 10.


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## John Hoffman (Aug 14, 2019)

My NVIDA GeForce 1050 (4GB) GPU was detected by LR but only in Basic. Won't allow check mark for image processing. I can't find any info on Adobe site for the requirements for that check mark.


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## camner (Aug 14, 2019)

On my 2015 iMac (GPU: AMD Radeon R9 M395), it defaulted to "basic," but I was able to check the box for "image processing."  Too early to tell what impact this has had, but initial impressions are that LR is a bit faster (or, more accurately, it doesn't slow down as much when it does slow)


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Aug 14, 2019)

Us of GPU for image proccessing needs DirectX 12, which is avalaible on Windows 10, but not on Windows 7. So, if you're running Windows 7 you have access to the Display accelaration only.
At least when the graphic card is detected, which no longer my case (although it was in LR 8.3) !


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## Zenon (Aug 15, 2019)

Me tio. My old iMac used to offer GPU but since the update no longer avaible. AMD radeon HD 6750M. My newer Macbook Air offers ot. Intel HD graphics 6000. I'm planning to replace the iMac soon. 

So what is the best option? Leave it ion Auto or Custom. If using custon are you supposed to be able to put a check in the lower box?


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 15, 2019)

Zenon said:


> So what is the best option? Leave it ion Auto or Custom. If using custon are you supposed to be able to put a check in the lower box?


You may be able to enable the lower option when selecting "Custom", but you might also find that it's greyed out and cannot be checked. The difference is that some graphics cards have definitely been "blacklisted" for image processing (such as the Intel GT 750M in my late 2013-model MacBookPro), so the option is greyed out for these. Others may not have been actually blacklisted but are not white-listed either.....so for these you can try it to see if it works, but watch out for issues such as GPU-related crashes.


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## Jimmsp (Aug 15, 2019)

John Hoffman said:


> My NVIDA GeForce 1050 (4GB) GPU was detected by LR but only in Basic. Won't allow check mark for image processing. I can't find any info on Adobe site for the requirements for that check mark.



I have the same card. You probably need to update your driver.
I saw a fellow in another forum with the same card, but older driver, that also did not work.

I have


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## PaulJL (Aug 15, 2019)

So Adobe tells me that I must now upgrade my system to Windows 10.  Sorry Adobe, this is the straw that has broken the camel's back.  I currently run a Win7 system (studio desktop) and a Win10 on my mobile system but I am not going to go through the pain and heartache of upgrading my studio system with all of the issues that is likely to be caused to my other applications which are quite happy with Win7 thank you. I think this is the time that I bite the bullet and invest my effort in an alternative to Lightroom.


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## johnbeardy (Aug 15, 2019)

Don't you think you are cutting off your nose to spite your face? Win 10 is much better than Win 7.


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## Zenon (Aug 15, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> You may be able to enable the lower option when selecting "Custom", but you might also find that it's greyed out and cannot be checked. The difference is that some graphics cards have definitely been "blacklisted" for image processing (such as the Intel GT 750M in my late 2013-model MacBookPro), so the option is greyed out for these. Others may not have been actually blacklisted but are not white-listed either.....so for these you can try it to see if it works, but watch out for issues such as GPU-related crashes.



Thanks


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## PaulJL (Aug 16, 2019)

johnbeardy said:


> Don't you think you are cutting off your nose to spite your face? Win 10 is much better than Win 7.


Of course you are entitled to your opinion but in my experience as a user and IT professional on the MS platform since the very first Windows release, the best OS MS have ever released has been Win7. It has been rock solid, unlike earlier and later OSs. Win10 on the other hand has had 2 re-installs and countless issues with lost features between updates. Whilst Win10 now is undoubtedly better that it's earlier versions it is still a work in progress.
For me it is about time, expense and risk - either option is going to cost my time but I would not be prepared to do an in-place upgrade to Win10 for risk of screwing my system and/or some of my other important apps. I could buy new hardware and do a managed migration but that comes at cost.
Having been away for an extended trip, I now have an upgraded Surface Pro (Win10) and on returning I wanted to bring my studio system in line with my mobile system. Of course I now have incompatible versions across my 2 devices (and with Adobe's update system no way of managing which version to run on either device).
I also have the 'risk' that Adobe may significantly increase subscription rates. On balance, I think the best option is to spend my time looking at alternatives.


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## clee01l (Aug 16, 2019)

PaulJL said:


> So Adobe tells me that I must now upgrade my system to Windows 10. Sorry Adobe, this is the straw that has broken the camel's back. I currently run a Win7 system (studio desktop)


Technology advances are going to eventually make Win 7 obsolete.  Adobe is one of the first to use this technology and this is why you need to upgrade your OS.  Win8 is already out of Spec for the recent versions of LR.   If upgrading your OS is such a challenge, don't blame Adobe, blame Microsoft.   If you have to pay to upgrade your OS, it costs too much.


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## Jimmsp (Aug 16, 2019)

PaulJL said:


> ....
> For me it is about time, expense and risk - either option is going to cost my time but I would not be prepared to do an in-place upgrade to Win10 for risk of screwing my system and/or some of my other important apps. ...



Which apps are those?  Have they not been upgraded to run on Win 10?
I can understand keeping a Win 7 system around to run a mission critical app.




PaulJL said:


> ....
> For me it is about time, expense and risk - either option is going to cost my time but I would not be prepared to do an in-place upgrade to Win10 for risk of screwing my system and/or some of my other important apps. I could buy new hardware and do a managed migration but that comes at cost.
> .......
> I also have the 'risk' that Adobe may significantly increase subscription rates. On balance, I think the best option is to spend my time looking at alternatives.



I have looked at alternatives as well so I am prepared to migrate if Adobe forces me to be cloud based only ( I doubt if they will) or if the price is doubled (I doubt that as well). BTW, I converted from Win 7 to Win 10  years ago, and would not go back. On new hardware, Win 10 has been solid as a rock for me.

IMO, and many others,  the best RAW converter alternative to LR is Capture One.  But it comes with a price as well, both in expense and in learning time.
I have been running both CO and LR in parallel for years. I still do.  Each has their strengths and weaknesses. 
If you only will buy and run CO, be prepared to pay more money than you pay Adobe. But you get a very good product.
CO's approach to post processing is different enough from LR that there might be some significant learning time involved.
Be prepared to buy and pay for a new DAM - CO's catalog is very poor.  I'd recommend iMatch, but be prepared to spend time learning  it. I continue to use LR as my DAM.
Be prepared to buy and learn  new HDR and panoramic software. I have a couple of them that I occasionally use instead of LR.
Be prepared to either give up Photoshop, or pay more for it. I'm not sure you can get a new version for Win 7.
If you shoot higher ISOs, you will also need some better noise reduction software. CO is quite good on low ISOs, but LR is better on high ISOs.

For me, keeping up with hardware technology is as important as keeping up with software technology. It is just an investment that I am willing to pay for.


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## PaulJL (Aug 16, 2019)

Jimmsp said:


> Which apps are those?  Have they not been upgraded to run on Win 10?
> I can understand keeping a Win 7 system around to run a mission critical app.
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for this most useful information. I have limited budget these days and will have to think very carefully about the value of the feature sets for various solutions. I've no doubt that I will be making value judgements and more than likely accepting a lower feature set than Lightroom gives me at present. Disappointing for me but a reality of life.


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## PhilBurton (Aug 16, 2019)

johnbeardy said:


> Don't you think you are cutting off your nose to spite your face? Win 10 is much better than Win 7.


Not to mention, that Microsoft is ending support for Windows 7 on 14 January, 2020.  Explained: Windows support services

After that, it would not be wise to use that Windows 7 system to access the Internet.

Phil


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## PaulJL (Aug 17, 2019)

PhilBurton said:


> Not to mention, that Microsoft is ending support for Windows 7 on 14 January, 2020.  Explained: Windows support services
> 
> After that, it would not be wise to use that Windows 7 system to access the Internet.
> 
> Phil


MS is ending free updates after Jan 2020 but providing paid for updates through until 2023. It will also continue to provide Win 7 as a virtualised environment on Azure (although I'm not sure how useful this would be for mass image manipulation). MS is obviously on a push to get Win 7 users to migrate but they are having huge resistance from the user base who have high regard for Win 7.
As of July 2019 Win 7 still had a third of the desktop market worldwide (a figure that other OSs can only dream) and I'm a little surprised that Adobe seems to disregard such a large desktop market but I guess that their commercial boffins have done their sums. Interesting that Win10 1709 has already gone into end of life but is still supported by LR 8.4. This suggests that the decision by Adobe is not driven by the MS road map but by their own development priorities.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Aug 17, 2019)

Adobe as deprecated use of OpenGL for graphic acceleration. They now use DirectX 12 which is not available in Windows 7, only starting with Windows 10.
They apply this to the new feature "Use GPU accelaration for image processing", but unfortunately also to the basic Display GPU acceleration, which in LR up to 8.3.1 used OpenGL.
The consequence is that no GPU acceleration at all is available in LR 8.4, since both use DirectX 12.


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## Paul_DS256 (Aug 17, 2019)

I just ran into the issue of Adobe's switch to only DirectX 12. I was upgrading my GPU to the latest release which offered DirectX 12 and OpenGL 4 but I had no idea that DirectX 12 was not available on W7.

I've started to investigate, reluctantly, to upgrade to W10 but Dells Window 10 Support page does not list my computer as one that has been tested with W10 and a note they are not upgrading drivers.

So I am now torn since I had a perfectly good system that I have no need to upgrade except the software gods are demanding it.  Dell and Microsoft with support from vendors like Adobe are forcing me to make decisions on the future OS and software I want to use. This is nothing this forum can solve except provide a place to vent.


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## thommy (Aug 13, 2019)

Hi

Any thoughts or first impressions of the new release announced today?
Will not be able to test or see what it's all about until later this evening.

New features summary for the August 2019 release of Lightroom Classic

Thommy


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Aug 17, 2019)

It's more a matter of technology evolution. Not upgrading your hardware/software locks you to the technology they support. New technology appears every time and developpers takes advantage of these to add new functionalities, which, at some point, cannot be available on old hardware/software.
You can't ask editors to stop adding functionalities and new technology.
I agree this is frustrating, but it's your choice to stop this evolution on your machine.
I resisted to upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 until yesterday because I didn't have the need of this change. I knew, however that sooner or later, I'll have to upgrade when too much functionnalities I'd like to have will be unavailable. This happened with this latest LR version, so I did the upgrade. It was not a pain, and took 1 hours only. Of course, before I did a ghost of my Win7 system disk in case something went wrong so I could revert back to Win7 quickly. But, all went fine and I just had to install Open Shell to get the same menu as in Win7 (I hate the Win10 menu, not efficient enough for me)


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## Zenon (Aug 17, 2019)

PaulJL said:


> Thanks for this most useful information. I have limited budget these days and will have to think very carefully about the value of the feature sets for various solutions. I've no doubt that I will be making value judgements and more than likely accepting a lower feature set than Lightroom gives me at present. Disappointing for me but a reality of life.



Just to add to Jim's comments about CO. If you like to keep up and have the latest improvements CO is an on annual upgrade system. Next one will be in sometime in Nov. If you don't get a discount when you purchase it can cost $450 in the first year.


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## Jimmsp (Aug 17, 2019)

Zenon said:


> Just to add to Jim's comments about CO. If you like to keep up and have the latest improvements CO is an on annual upgrade system. Next one will be in sometime in Nov. If you don't get a discount when you purchase it can cost $450 in the first year.



Just for your info, I have not upgraded every year. I had been using CO v7 for quite a while. Then they did a major overhaul on v12, which I then upgraded to. It is unlikely I'll upgrade to v13 unless there is something really significant.  Between LR Classic, CO 12, and Photoshop, and a few other 3rd party apps (Topaz, PTGui, and Photomatix) I have everything I need. 
I continue to work on my camera & photography skills - all of this software can't improve a 3rd class photo to a 1st class photo.


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## Zenon (Aug 17, 2019)

Jimmsp said:


> Just for your info, I have not upgraded every year. I had been using CO v7 for quite a while. Then they did a major overhaul on v12, which I then upgraded to. It is unlikely I'll upgrade to v13 unless there is something really significant.  Between LR Classic, CO 12, and Photoshop, and a few other 3rd party apps (Topaz, PTGui, and Photomatix) I have everything I need.
> I continue to work on my camera & photography skills - all of this software can't improve a 3rd class photo to a 1st class photo.



Of course no one has to upgrade every year and not suggesting anyone should. I read several forums and there seems to be a lot of people who get the next upgrade for any software they use.  So it can be an expensive first year for those who do.  Another thing to be aware of is if you purchase software within a few months of the upgrade you don't get it. That happened to me with DXO.  It's was a little frustrating.


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## PhilBurton (Aug 18, 2019)

PaulJL said:


> MS is ending free updates after Jan 2020 but providing paid for updates through until 2023. It will also continue to provide Win 7 as a virtualised environment on Azure (although I'm not sure how useful this would be for mass image manipulation). MS is obviously on a push to get Win 7 users to migrate but they are having huge resistance from the user base who have high regard for Win 7.
> As of July 2019 Win 7 still had a third of the desktop market worldwide (a figure that other OSs can only dream) and I'm a little surprised that Adobe seems to disregard such a large desktop market but I guess that their commercial boffins have done their sums. Interesting that Win10 1709 has already gone into end of life but is still supported by LR 8.4. This suggests that the decision by Adobe is not driven by the MS road map but by their own development priorities.


All the points about Azure are irrelevant to the average individual desktop user.

The challenge for any software vendor is identifying which populations are still active in the marketplace for new products.  Adobe may have concluded that Windows 7 remaining users are not potential customers.  Those people will become Windows 10 users by default over time, as they eventually replace their older systems.

As was already mentioned, it costs lots of money to test a new release, and that test has to be done for each different OS, for both Windows and Mac.


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## EdHinDC (Aug 18, 2019)

Is anyone else having trouble with the new release and HDR merge? Mine is getting stuck - it just churns on "building preview" and does nothing.


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## Jimmsp (Aug 18, 2019)

EdHinDC said:


> Is anyone else having trouble with the new release and HDR merge? Mine is getting stuck - it just churns on "building preview" and does nothing.



I just went back and redid one I took a couple of months ago - and it was fine.

What OS and computer system?


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 19, 2019)

EdHinDC said:


> Is anyone else having trouble with the new release and HDR merge? Mine is getting stuck - it just churns on "building preview" and does nothing.


Hi EdHinDC, welcome to the forum! Are you on macOS 10.14.6 by any chance? There seems to be a new issue introduced with that OS update that's being investigated here: Lightroom Classic: Cannot merge panorama in 10.14.6


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