Today I had what I can only describe as the misfortune of purchasing the latest version of Lightroom.  I have become a big fan of Lightroom 3 since I started using it last year and I had heard the latest version boasted of improved noise reduction and raw processing.  Not only that, but the upgrade price from Adobe Japan was a steal at ¥6,900.  So I took the plunge and downloaded Lightroom 4.

Unfortunately, I got a shock when I opened the software and started using it.  It is unbelievably slow.  Unresponsive to the point of not being usable.  Adjust the white-balance sliders, the fans spin up and a good five seconds pass before the on-screen image updates.  A quick search on Google suggests this is by no means an isolated problem.  It’s very disappointing that after an extended beta release such problems are widespread.  The wait for release 4.1 begins.