X-Equals Presets and Lightroom 4 – What’s Next?

X-Equals Presets and Lightroom 4 – What’s Next?

“The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
oft go awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!”

-Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”, November 1785 (Paraphrased)

So … what’s up?

As you know, we at X-Equals have been providing the best presets available to Lightroom for years, and we have had no major compatibility issues with our product and Adobe upgrades thus far. So when Adobe rolled out their new Lightroom 4 beta (which we will from hereon refer to as LR4b) we started to look at forward compatibility relative to our existing products and we figured it was time to update you on our positioning around product compatibility across this upcoming version of Lightroom.

Lightroom 4 brings about some awesome … yet substantial change.

The primary areas of concern we have encountered so far has been in the use of the Tone Curve, Clarity and the Basic corrections (blacks, whites, shadow, highlights and so forth). Presets that use process 2010 versions of these tools simply do not function in LR4b’s Process 2012 – so we had a decision to make: upgrade all previous versions of X-Equals Presets to be Process 2012 compatible or just upgrade select packages?

We chose the latter.

So, as of today, all X-Equals products are 99.99% Process 2010 compatible and work just fine with Lightroom 3 and Lightroom 2 (with exception of the Grain sliders which can be fickle at times). In addition, all X-Equals presets work just fine with the Lightroom 4 beta – if you change the Process option in the Camera Calibration tab to process 2010.

Of course, if you are not planning to upgrade to Lightroom 4 anytime soon, everything will continue to work swimmingly in Lightroom 3.

Here is our current plan.

We are currently working to update XeL: Black and White to process 2012. Due to the modular nature of XeL, this is not an overwhelming process, as we know exactly which presets must be updated to Process 2012. Currently, incompatibilities exist amongst any preset designated as Curve, in the CurveKick family of creative adjustments, and the Special Effect family of creative adjustment presets. This update should be completed in the next two weeks or so. We plan to have a Lightroom 4 compatible version of XeL: Black and White ready by the end of February which we will make available to current customers – FREE of charge.

In the mean time, you can simply avoid using these deprecated presets as all of the other presets still function as intended, or you may simply choose to change the Process Version in the Camera Calibration panel to Process 2010, which allows the presets to work as intended. Forthcoming XeL releases will eschew process 2010 entirely for Process 2012, and development will resume on those once XeL: Black and White is revised.

We are not planning to update X-Equals Cold Storage volume 1 and 2 and Creative Production Presets Volume 1 to process 2012. All three were originally developed for Lightroom 2. Cold Storage 1 and 2 are being replaced by the XeL platform, and once the complete XeL Platform is released, each of the emulations will be updated and available within that product.

As far as Creative Production Presets (CPP) Vol 1 in concerned, we may revisit many of the presets in future Creative Production Preset releases, but for the time being that product will not be upgraded to Process 2012. However, all future CPP products will be built on the XeL modular preset platform with complete Process 2012 compatibility.

Luckily, the upgrade from Process 2010 to 2012 will not be too painful for us. The XeL platform is very modular, which has limited the amount of work that must be done. We do not have to fix every preset, only those that have been affected. About 30% of the total presets in XeL have been affected by the 2012 upgrade, and the updates should be quick.

Also, the XeL update for Process 2012 will not just be used to enable functionality. We have been going back to the reference works and trying to improve upon or original efforts utilizing the new tools that Process 2012 offers us. The XeL platform was designed with upgrades in mind, and we will be able to handle this and future upgrades in just as quick and agile a way as we are now.

There you have it.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments you can find us on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or right here on the Blog.

We’ve always been nimble in our response to customer feedback, and we’re rocking on updated products in anticipation for the final release of Lightroom 4. Anyone who buys the current version of XeL:B&W will get a complimentary upgrade to the new version, so don’t feel like you have to wait. And if you are sticking with Lightroom 3, you may want to grab XeL now before the upgraded version gets the 2012 update.

We will continue to support all X-Equals products. Even if a product you use is not getting upgraded or if you are still running on a copy of Lightroom 2, we are still ready to help alleviate any woes you may encounter in the use of our products.

We are excited for the new opportunities we have with the latest version of Lightroom, and look forward to providing the best Lightroon Presets and companion products out there so your workflows are quick, creative and consistent!

Michael W. Gray and Brandon Oelling – X-Equals – Click. Download. Smile.