Something's not right!  I upgraded to Lightroom 4 but I don't see the new sliders I've heard so much about, in fact everything in the Develop module looks the same.  

Question No 7:   Have I made a mistake whilst upgrading from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 4?  

Answer:  Adobe decided to introduce 'Process Versions' so that we can choose which processing engine we want to employ for any image in our library.  

Lightroom 3 was released in 2010 and so the process version associated with it is PV 2010.  All images imported and edited prior to Lightroom 4 are associated with PV 2010 and its Develop Module sliders and tools.  Whereas all images imported after upgrading to Lightroom 4 are associated with PV 2012 and its Develop Module sliders and tools.  

If the image is associated with PV 2010, when you are in the Develop Module there is a warning exclamation mark next to your image in the lower right corner of the loupe screen.  



If you click on the exclamation mark you are given three options:

• Update all filmstrip photos to PV 2012.

• Cancel.

• Update the individual photo to PV 2012.

Caution:  With the upgrade from Lightroom 2 to 3, we recommended that you go ahead and update all the photographs in your library to the then new version PV 2010, however, ......

This is not the recommendation for Lightroom 4.  With Lightroom 4, when you upgrade images processed in PV 2010 to PV 2012, about 40% of them will look worse, 40% of them will not look much different and about 10% will look better.  I suggest that you leave previously processed images as is and do not update them.  Process newly imported images in PV 2012.  The exception being if you have an image in PV 2010 that you are not happy with, you might wish to update it and see if you can do better. 

The point being, only update as needed on an image by image basis.  If you do update an image and find you do not like the change, then simply go back in history to PV 2010.

Next Blog:  LR 4 Develop Module Hints.