OK, folks, we had more than 3,200 respondents, and here are the results of the most-popular new feature suggestions from my readers:
Fascinating stuff! I wanted to vote for every one because your ideas were spot on! Alas, there can only be a few at the top. Let’s look:
#3 (Combine Library and Develop) led for a long time, but in the final hours it fell back a bit but just 30 votes separated it from the #1 spot, and most notably, the “Ability to put text anywhere on a picture or boundary area” was only 5 votes off the #1 spot, but we have to hand it to your #1 most-requested feature:
#1 “Holding Alt while brushing should use the current brush in erase mode (size same, settings, etc.).”
That seems like such an easy switch — I would love to see Adobe do it. Numbers 2 and 3 seem much more complex (for an engineering side, but I’m not a engineer so I’m usually wrong about how long software takes to develop) , but of course with the wonders that Adobe’s engineers pull off on a regular basis, they could probably tackle either one with ease. Relative ease. Some. ease. OK, they’re probably hard as anything. Who knows?
Wait! One More Quick One-question Survey!
Could I get your vote on which of the seven ideas I posted in my series here on  “Things I’d love to see added to Lightroom.” It’s an even quicker one-questions survey, and I love to see which of one of those you thought would be the most helpful to you:
Here’s the link (and thanks in advance for participating).
Check back tomorrow for the results! 🙂
Best,
-Scott
P.S. Thanks to everybody who took the time to take the poll. Much appreciated indeed.Â
Wow! One of my suggestions made it to the top of the poll. Maybe Adobe will pay attention and implement it after all.
Here are a couple more ideas that seem to be very easy to implement:
1. When you drag photos over a collapsed collection set, hovering over it should make it expand.
2. To create a new adjustment with all parameters set to zero, first I have to click “Newâ€, then hold Alt and click “reset†link. Why not combine this into one action – clicking â€New†while holding Alt creates a new adjustment AND resets all its parameters at the same time.
I humbly submit that macros and presets are not the same. Consider that Photoshop has presets and actions. In my everyday use of Lightroom, I could really use macros.
In my mind, I completely segregate the activities of organizing from those of processing. I appreciate that LR has two separate modules and would not wish them integrated. Truly I don’t see the need, bulk edits can already be done by applying presets or quick edit. Perhaps as suggested above offering the option of a grid for the filmstrip may satisfy navigation needs. Recognizing that folks have their own ways of working efficiently, I am open to hearing why this would be a beneficial feature, but please do not make the interface more complicated or confusing.
Rather than “integrated”, I meant to say I would not wish them combined.
Maybe it’s because I love making photo books, and the layouts were fine for the first few books, but they are a little old. Being able to drop a picture where ever you want on the page, and size and shape it the way you like does not seem like a big deal. And we know Blurb doesn’t care. So PLEASE Lords of Adobe, just do it!
And thanks for pulling together this survey Scott, it’s always nice to know where people’s heads are at regarding functionality. I’m so glad to not be the only one longing for this change!
Regarding #4 for macros, that’s what presets are in LR. Set attributes in various panels and apply them whenever you want, even when importing.
I’m good with all these, but I’d really just love to be able to choose which window goes where on my 3 monitor setup. For now, the ‘second’ display is not full screen and just sized to fit the whole display.
I was amazed that no one thought of inverse check box- Let’s that you want to brighten a part of the photo and darken the rest. Don’t you think it is reasonable to paint the area to brighten only once, then duplicate the pin, check inverse and darken the rest?
I think the survey should be what is missing and not what of all these you wish lightroom had…
Scott,
Is there any doubt you’re drooling over “B”, making it as fast as PM?
That would be incredible.
I would love a better print module that would allow for collages and even Photoshop templating!
Virtual copies sidecar files please!
Virtual copie is a great feature but has one major flaw: it never get saved outside the catalog and is completely lost should you have to re-import a folder. To work around this one has to duplicate a raw file. Not really practical.
Would be nice and efficient to automatically store a virtual copie parameters in its own sidecar files.
#1 Alt for an eraser seems reasonable. It’s not much of a stretch now to just click the button, but I’m all for more shortcuts.
#2 Text on a border or boundary. Only if it is part of the watermark options and not part of a module.
#3 Combine Library & Develop modules. Sounds great in concept, but might not work that way in reality. There’s only so much space on the screen and you would now have to show the tools and info from 4 side panels on one screen. Aperture did this by using a tabbed panel interface. You could switch tabs with a keyboard shortcut just like you can change LR modules with a keyboard shortcut. I think it would satisfy most people and be easier for developers just to add a grid view to the Develop module or at least make the film strip expandable to more than one horizontal scrolling row.
#4 Macros of repetitive steps. You already have metadata presets, develop presets, and export presets. What other steps are there to automate?
#5 Custom pages in book module. I don’t use it often, but the entire thing seems to be built around the Blurb engine with PDF and JPG added as an afterthought. I’d like to see the PDF book export as a single file. No reason to have the cover separate. If making a Blurb book, you are better off using their software since you are able to order a variety of products. I’d be fine to eliminate this module completely.
Re: #4 – The ability to record macros…
I’ve been using a keyboard macro utility on both Macs and PC since the early 90’s that allow for reassigning keys as well as stringing commands together as a macro… in ANY software including the OS itself.
Mac: QuicKeys, iKey, and currently using Keyboard Maestro;
PC: Someone else will have to recommend a good current title. Search = pc keyboard macros for some suggestions, or try Quickeys (Startly) for Windows (it was buggy the last time I worked full-time on a PC many years ago).
They all pretty offer the same abilities, even recording mouse positions, movement, clicking and scrolling.
I couldn’t live without a macro utility for all of my software, so I personally don’t need Adobe to include this feature for LR.
PC side tool – AutoHotKeys, have used it a lot for years – but it’s not working at a level where macro/recording could be if the development team did it, and could access the history and all feature code under the menus. Also reassigning shortcuts etc., same thing. I think they’re really missing out for the power user, even with the preset facilities they have. Hopefully they’ve coded underneath to facilitate automation of this sort.
As I mentioned, I haven’t worked on the PC side for many years now, so I can’t comment on the shortcomings of AutoHotKeys.
However on the Mac side with Keyboard Maestro, I string a number of actions together, including scripts and variables hooked into the desktop and other programs (either running or to be opened), with one key command.
KM is far more powerful than what Adobe ever could integrate in any of their software programs. If they can’t figure out how to add and move around text blocks in LR… well…!
hope Adobe doesn’t get any ideas from this. These features was on my least desirables :p yes, I took the survey
I think I’m right in reading somewhere (might even have configured it myself but not at home right now) that, if you have a Wacom tablet, you can configure the “erase” end of the pen to act as an alt or opt-shifted press which actually selects the erase functionality of the brush?
If it’s not exactly this I’m sure it’s something pretty close…
Re Repetitive Steps.
A step along the way would be to allow custom keyboard short cuts and compose our own panels. With custom keyboard short cuts we could create our own favourite single character shortcuts, so we do not have to drop a mouse or wand. We could put our favourite commands on a panel and have this panel available all the time. If the command belongs to a different module, then Lr just moves to that module. Having all our favourite commands convenient, plus existing Lr presets, etc would go a long way to improve efficiency.
Aside… Photoshop also badly needs the ability for a user to create their own custom panels. It would revolutionize an outdated GUI and provide real usability to PS users. It is shameful that the clunky flash based diy kit was dropped before a proper replacement was provided. The button option on the actions panel will give you a hint of the potential.
Final point. Adobe needs to seriously to give some love to the ExtendScript tool. 20 years out of date, with key missing fields from important methods.