Today Adobe announced the free public beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4, the digital photography workflow solution for both professional and amateur photographers. Available for Windows and Mac as a free download from Adobe Labs, the Lightroom 4 beta previews new workflow efficiencies, and features for image processing and management.

New features in Lightroom 4 beta include:

• Refined technology for shadow and highlight processing
• Native support for videos shot on DSLRs, point-and-shoot cameras and smartphones
• The ability to create beautiful photo books from within Lightroom
• An intuitive Map module with tagging controls for assigning locations
• Soft proofing in the Develop module
• Direct emailing of images from Lightroom

We encourage photographers to try the beta release and share feedback; there are a few avenues to do this:

• Submit comments at the community-powered feedback site: http://feedback.photoshop.com
• Connect with the Lightroom team directly: Facebook (www.facebook.com/lightroom); Twitter (www.twitter.com/lightroom); The Adobe Lightroom blog (http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal)

We’re really pleased with the new capabilities and expect that you will be, too. We look forward to your thoughts and comments!