Lightroom 6 - new photo merge function not working

[menos I M6]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Today I migrated from LR5.7 to LR6 for a test to try out the new photo merge function.

 

I usually use this function for the occasional stitch I do, but mainly to stitch panorama film scans.

Until now I used photoshop to do the stitching and file clean up before I could import the files into Lightroom.

I hoped with LR 6 I could skip the intermediate step.

 

Unfortunately the Lightroom 6 panorama stitching function does not work with the very same files, Photoshop CS6 works perfectly :-(

 

It always throws an error message within the black screen of the photo merge pop up window.

 

This is what I stitched with photoshop - a Widelux F6 shot, scanned with a Konica 5400 scanner, resulting in three half frames and then stitched in photoshop:

 

 

 

Anyone has positive experience with the new photo merge function with Lightroom 6 ?

[menos I M6]

Found a quick workaround, experimenting further:

if you crop away any film borders from the negative scans and then create new tiff files from those crops, the Lightroom 6 photo merge function will work with the files.

 

Photoshop is smart enough to ignore these film borders and smartly merge the files, retaining logical borders, while Lightroom 6 photo merge does not.

 

It appears, just cropping the files within Lightroom 6 is not sufficient. For photo merge to work from within Lightroom 6 the ORIGINAL master file chosen of the photo merge function must not have any interfering borders (like those you get when scanning full frame negatives).

[gyoung]

Presumably of you crop the scans within the frame before saving them in the first place it would work?

 

Gerry

[menos I M6]

Yes Gerry, this will work but is not a solution I am afraid. I scan all my film full frame with borders and will crop if I want to (not always the case) within Lightroom.

 

Photoshop's photo merge function can easily handle merging these files. It would be fantastic, if Lightroom 6 could too.

 

It seems the photo merge function in Lightroom 6 is dumbed down for marketing reasons (understandably, as it costs only a fraction of a full PS license).

It is a pity though, as this very function was my major drive to upgrade at cost the moment I saw this function advertised.

 

For digital files without any borders this is apparently working fine (which is better than not having the feature), so I am half happy, as I do not have to drag around gigabyte sized panorama tiff files from merging in Photoshop, but simply deal with non destructive editing in panorama DNG files, created in Lightroom - much smaller and much more functional on top.

 

I was just hoping, the good people of Adobe would consider more the users who use Lightroom for their film based photography (there still is no convenient way of inverting negatives directly in Lightroom, a feature I am waiting for years now).

[Pintpot]

Hi, I upgraded to LR 6 half an hour ago, just did this, it only takes a few moments.

View from Tandle hill - taken some time ago M8. (6shots)

Regards

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[Pintpot]

This is a 5 shot HDR merge

Uppermill Lancs, M8

 

LR 6 is faster than Photomatix and the colour is far better, I'll have to try a single shot HDR next

Regards

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[Pintpot]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Single shot HDR - reprocessed as -2 stops, as shot & plus 2 stops - then HDR in LR 6

Heaton Park, Manchester

Regards

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[jpattison]

I was just hoping, the good people of Adobe would consider more the users who use Lightroom for their film based photography (there still is no convenient way of inverting negatives directly in Lightroom, a feature I am waiting for years now).

 

Hi Menos,

 

Some time ago, I dragged the end points of the Tone Curve and repositioned the lower left at upper left, upper right at lower right, giving a direct inversion of the image.

I made it into a user preset. It still works in LR CC. (on my Mac)

You have to close the bottom section of the Tone Curve display first (by clicking the little icon lower right), and drag slowly to get 0:100 and 100:0 displayed in the corners.

 

 

Cheers,

John

tone curve.tiff

[sanyasi]

Single shot HDR - reprocessed as -2 stops, as shot & plus 2 stops - then HDR in LR 6

Heaton Park, Manchester

Regards

 

my bias is against HDR.  Having said that, for my money, the 5-shot looks far more natural to me than the 1-shot HDR.

[Mantice]

I tried it yesterday because of the handy photo-merge: without the need to install another software.

 

But after plug in some hard to stick images from the past, especially those crashed on Hugin 2014, the result was pretty medicore...  At the end I uninstall it few hours later and did not look back (yet).

 

Plus the need to go online to register prior to software installation bothers me personally, unlike the "install-it-my-way" V5 I'm currently using.

 

Just my 2-cent, YMMV.

[menos I M6]

Hi Menos,

 

Some time ago, I dragged the end points of the Tone Curve and repositioned the lower left at upper left, upper right at lower right, giving a direct inversion of the image.

I made it into a user preset. It still works in LR CC. (on my Mac)

You have to close the bottom section of the Tone Curve display first (by clicking the little icon lower right), and drag slowly to get 0:100 and 100:0 displayed in the corners.

 

 

Cheers,

John

Thanks John, yes I have used this workaround for a while back when until I just got sick of the screwed up sliders in the development module when using the inverted curve :-(

I simply went back to inverting tiff files in photoshop first.

 

The issue is not the extra step to go through photoshop for the inversion - the issue is that IF Lightroom could do the inversion and any following non destructive adjustment to film scan files - I could indeed simply output my film scans in RAW files and have more information (hence dynamic range), than locking myself into tiff files.

 

It is not a convenience issue, but an issue with restricted quality. If Lightroom could non destructively invert negative scans (RAW files), film scans could be done at a higher quality level without intermediary steps (including reducing quality during file format change).

 

Another feature I always wanted would be a proper VueScan Lightroom plugin - where I could scan directly from within Lightroom ;-) But this is really pie in the sky stuff, isn't it? 

 

I tried it yesterday because of the handy photo-merge: without the need to install another software.

 

But after plug in some hard to stick images from the past, especially those crashed on Hugin 2014, the result was pretty medicore...  At the end I uninstall it few hours later and did not look back (yet).

 

Plus the need to go online to register prior to software installation bothers me personally, unlike the "install-it-my-way" V5 I'm currently using.

 

Just my 2-cent, YMMV.

The pano stitching feature of LR6 is really limited and some other new features are questionable, but I wouldn't go so far and discard it.

I am ways away form making up my mind about general improvements, but my first impression is that LR 6 is A LOT FASTER during certain operations, making it already an instant improvement for me when working with it.

 

I had a quick play around some files, that where known to cause me trouble when editing on a mere 15"MBP Retina instead of the MacPro and these files seem now really zippy in LR6, while they where a pain in the behind to deal with in large batches in any revision of LR5.

Somehow LR5 never ran really responsive on the Retina (when dealing with Leica S2 or Nikon D800E files).

 

I am absolutely with you with Adobe'nomics (the absolutely moronic way of dealing with online purchases, license checks and new upgrade formats).

I am a German citizen, living abroad most of the time and always had a hard time understanding why in a globalizes economy as of 2015 one of the largest players in their industry does this stupid fencing into single countries web-shops in licensing as Adobe does.

 

I had to create another Adobe ID just to be able to buy my LR6 update !? WHAT???

 

Unfortunately once you are using Lightroom as your main tool, you have to go through the update paths, which will end for me the very moment, Adobe enforces the CC CRAP also to Lightroom users. The new license checking and install method might very well be the beginning of this.

 

Nevertheless - so far my feeling tells me that LR6 is a really solid Lightroom 5.8, which comes with some good speed improvements but should not have cost ~75 EUR to upgrade to, honestly.