Lightroom Desktop: Please add red eye removal

@benjamin_warde That is totally pathetic.  There must be a business reason (hoping to get folks to subscribe to Photoshop?) that explains the intransigence to adding such a basic tool.  Time to come clean and actually make customers the priority.

@Brandt Sakakeeny

 Your comment is rather pathetic too. Instead of stamping your feet and screaming like a 3 year old, why don't you just turn off the on board flash on your camera or learn more about how to edit photos? Real photogs don't use flash that can cause red eye...

Real photogs don't use flash that can cause red eye...

Indeed, if red eye in lots of shots are your problem, your problem is needing to learn basic photography. But one can remove a great deal of red eye anyway, using spot correction on the eye with negative saturation etc. I'd provide an example but don't capture images with red eye, but one can see the effect using such a correction on something red. 

The issue is fixing scanned photos that were taken in 1990s, not natively taken photos today.  And the reality is I've got a hundred other hobbies that take precedence over this; I need an easy fix and Aperture was an easy fix, and I'm still mad about being forced to transfer to a far inferior platform.

Don't judge people who use Iphones etc not "real" kit.

I've had iPhone's for years, just got the 12Pro. I know how to turn OFF the flash, do you? 

I provided a way to remove red eye in LR. Better yet, keep this in mind: GIGO:Garbage In Garbage Out 

Re: my point to DGrainger, this is not about taking pictures today; it's about an easy fix for scanned photos from the 1990s that do have red-eye. That said, I don't disagree with Martyn's point (which I am paraphrasing) that effective software solves problems quickly and easily.  Many of us have lives far too busy for a work-around.

I provided an easy fix. 

I also suggest that the poster should learn how to use Photoshop, which DOES have redeye removal.

@benjamin_warde  Hi ben

This has been requested for 3 years. It was marked as being under consideration. 14 months ago ago you said it would be done at some point in the future? Implying some reasonable point in the future. I don't understand why you have not updated the community? Is this function coming or not? While I accept the advice of my learned community members that flashes can be switched off, my kids often don't and then are sooo disappointed. Or is this just some crazy way to get us all to buy photoshop as well??

Please respond

Thanks

Martyn 

@martyn_williams_jd0oga3s57gp6: "Or is this just some crazy way to get us all to buy photoshop as well??"

It is NOT all about you. These products are extremely complex, and decisions have to be made about prioritizing what are the most and what are the least urgent changes, and also a cost vs benefit consideration. In the greater population of users, what percentage are sitting around on a puckered sphincter, full of angst about Red Eye, especially when there are ways to deal with it already?

It was marked as being under consideration.

Seems that after three years, the consideration has been made, no? 

Made sometime in the future? Perhaps, the future still exists. 

In the meantime, there are ways to reduce red eye in LR; maybe you should try it? 

ok. last post then I will shut up about this for another year. 

1) It took two years of lobbying to get this "under consideration"

2) The product was labelled as being "the same" as the old classic version. We were sold something that did not do what the classic version did, and surprise surprise, Adobe was disingenuous about this. That's a wrong that should be righted. 

3) Don't patronise us - "products are complex" Adobe has a market cap of $240 bn. They can work this stuff out, and resource it. 

4) "In the greater population of users, what percentage are sitting around on a puckered sphincter, full of angst about Red Eye," - actually I skipped thru the topics, and this is one of the most popular on the cloud community. Very few topics get close. Even including the ones complaining about duff rollouts. I don't know what % of course, but it is a higher % than any other topic, and it should be fixed. You should not claim a product has the same features when it doesn't that is plain wrong.

So over to you Ben? 

So, you say that management decisions should be based on the amount of clamor by visitors to one forum, comprised of users from cell phone toting teens on up to those that have taken the time to study, rather than by actual research?  We are not voters in the inner city in this process!

@martyn_williams_jd0oga3s57gp6  " Adobe has a market cap of $240 bn. They can work this stuff out, and resource it. "

Market cap has nothing to do with the underlying company. Market capitalization is simply the number of shares outstanding multiplied by the current market share price; it has zero to do with the finances of the company. Market cap is NOT the same as Net Worth.

No corporation "has the money" represented by shares which are HELD BY INVESTORS not the company itself. The only time a corporation receives cash is when the shares are initially issued. From there on,share price/value devolves upon holders of those shares.

Gosh, hope that helps you a bit!

The assumption based on my question is that I'm not a real photographer, or I don't know how to use Photoshop. I was a devoted student of Bruce Fraser's "Real World" books, and followed him (and Andrew, the Digital Dog) on color color management forums in the early 2000's, before Bruce's untimely passing. I've had some practice in the subject of color correction, but time moves on and I value easy features more and more the older I get. I was simply looking for a feature that exists in prior versions of Lightroom, and was scratching my head as to why I couldn't find it.

Fair comment again, and while I apologise to DGrainger for using Market Cap'n as a proxy for value (which it is - the markets view of future cash flows / discount rate) . Market value is a function of EBITDA.

I may have chosen to use $4bn of EBITDA adobe squirrelled away from licence payers like us in 2019. I think customers warrant care and like for like products, irrespective of the platform. It doesn't do what we were told it would on the tin. That's why users/customers/licence payers/ebitda makers/shareholder enricheners i.e. us,  are aggrieved. 

Not overly wanting to inject myself into a very heated discussion... But I think this is quite a common feeling in general with the overall move in the software industry to needing end users to pay ongoing subscription fees to use software.

Previously Adobe and other software developers would release a new version of their software, and it would have new features that you would decide whether or not to pay for. So they were directly incentivised to deliver new features which customers would willingly pay big dollars for. Then the cycle would continue - this cycle basically funded the company (obviously along with winning new customers).

Nowadays with subscription-based software, the direct incentive for offering new features existing customers are crying out for is not as apparent. Obviously they need to keep ahead of the competition (which in Adobe's case is unfortunately almost non-existent), but the direct correlation of upgrade versions to income is sadly gone.

@nick_jensen  Software as a service, SAAS, has an interesting history. It has been driven by Apple, with their App Store offerings at extremely low prices, albeit not as complex programs as Photoshop or Lightroom.  The gap between license-purchase versions of Photoshop and Apps on the App Store was so huge that many people would not buy a license. Public perception of that gap drove a large number of software makers to follow Apple's lead in order to stay competitive, by using SAAS subscriptions. The list price of Photoshop 1.0 for Macintosh in 1990 was $895.! Over the years, I paid thousands for updated versions, so I was very glad to see the switch to subscription.

A downside to using SAAS is that that a flood of new users, able to pay $10 or $20 a month but not able to spring for many hundreds up front and also have to buy updates, introduced a new problem for companies: these newly attracted users were far less likely to have the training or interest in learning required to make effective use of such products. Admittedly there is a huge learning curve to be overcome, and folks who just want to fix redeye for example are less likely to make the effort to gain that knowledge. Therefore the cost of customer support rises considerably.

The Up side for adopting SAAS, is twofold: paradoxically upside IS that expansion of TAM, Total Addressable Market which lower cash outlay affords. The second and more important PLUS is that it smooths out and makes more forecast-able, cash flow which in turn makes it possible to do ongoing development R&D and to avoid "crisis financial management" for Treasurer of the company.

As to your comment "Obviously they need to keep ahead of the competition (which in Adobe's case is unfortunately almost non-existent)"  Adobe is the market leader, but in order to maintain that lead, there must be and is constant refinement of product. It is just that the requests and suggestions for change are numerous, sometimes in conflict, and must be triaged, as not everything everybody wants is practical or makes sense.

Hello everyone, what a lively thread we have going here!  Regrettably, I have no update to share beyond what I posted previously - we are still planning to add this feature at some point in the future, and I still don't have a specific date to share.

I know how frustrating it is when our own pet features that we can't live without aren't prioritized.  (My own is range masking - I'm still really missing that from Lightroom Classic.)  As others have mentioned, of course we need to prioritize our feature development, and we take a great many factors into account when doing that prioritization.  One of those factors is the feedback that we receive from customers such as yourselves in venues such as this, and we are very grateful for it, so thank you for taking the time.

One side note: suggestions that Adobe has been disingenuous, or somehow deceitful are very concerning.  Neither Adobe nor our customers are well served by anything less than completely accurate and honest communication.  If you can find anywhere on Adobe's site that claims that Lightroom and Lightroom Classic are "the same" please let me know and I will have it removed.  We have a great deal of information available on our site about the differences between the two products both at a high level and in great detail.

Thanks,

Ben

Here is another vote for adding this essential tool. Actually, I cannot believe that it is very hard to add it for Adobe, so maybe it is just a matter of priorities. Thank you for reconsidering.

I am going to add my void to this voice to this thread on the lack of a red eye removal tool.  It is a basic feature in almost any photo editing software package I have used for many years.  I see examples on the web where folks can do this in Lightroom Classic but now we are unable to purchase classic  now because Adobe wants to force us to subscription model.  I am new to Lightroom and this seems like a basic feature not to have available.  Seems like a simple thing to add to the healing tool set.  You have the basic software to do this in previous tools. I am dubious about subscription models to begin with.  If I don't see a red eye removal tool in the future, I will probably drop Lightroom and move onto something else.  I would not have purchased Lightroom in the first place if I knew it was missing this feature.  I am going to write a review in the App Store to indicate this.  Thanks for listening.