John Nack on Adobe

November 20, 2009

(rt) Photography: Lightroom tips for speed-ups, more

• Scott Kelby offers a handy set of "10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users."
• The Lightroom Lab shares Top Ten Lightroom Speed Tips.
• According to LR engineer Troy Gaul, "Lightroom 2.6, in addition to adding camera support, fixes a visual glitch on Snow Leopard in loupe when panning. [Via]
• Want a one-screen way to scan popular LR blogs? Check out http://lightroom.alltop.com/. [Via]

November 18, 2009

Camera Raw 5.6, Lightroom 2.6 available on Adobe Labs

Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 and Lightroom 2.6 are now available for download from Adobe Labs. These releases add new camera support for the following models:

• Canon EOS 7D
• Canon PowerShot G11
• Canon PowerShot S90
• Leaf Aptus II 5
• Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31
• Nikon D3s
• Olympus E-P2
• Pentax K-x
• Panasonic FZ38
• Sigma DP1s
• Sony A500
• Sony A550
• Sony A850

According to Camera Raw/Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty, "The Lightroom 3 beta has not been updated with this new camera support. If you're working with one of these newer cameras and the Lightroom 3 beta, please use the DNG Converter 5.6 Release Candidate to convert proprietary formats to DNG files that can be used in the Lightroom 3 beta."

Because this is a release candidate, we'd be glad to get your feedback via the Camera Raw User to User forum.

Documentation for the Lightroom 3 Beta is live

I'm pleased to see that documentation for the Lightroom 3 Beta is live, accessible via the Web or by choosing Help > Lightroom Help (F1) in Lightroom 3.

Lightroom 3 Beta help topics include:

What's new in Lightroom 3 Beta

Importing photos into a catalog

Exporting using Publish Services

Create a copyright watermark

Simulate film grain

Update the process version

Apply a postcrop vignette

Export a video slide show

Custom print packages

November 13, 2009

(rt) Photography: Historical remixes, Lightroom tips, & more

• Here's a set of strangely diggable aquatic photos from Asako Narahashi.
• History reconsidered:
  • Iconic Photo Of JFK Assassin Oswald Was Not Faked, Professor Finds. (Adobe has worked w/Hany Farid.) [Via]
  • Bizarre B&W photos: Batman + Fidel, Darth + FDR. [Via]
• Lightroom tips via Tom Hogarty:
  • PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) plug-in now available for Lightroom 2; would like your feedback.
  • How to create a time lapse video direct from Lightroom 3 beta: [Via]

November 8, 2009

Feedback, please: Adobe raw processing vs. others

Competition is a great thing, and over the last few years photographers have benefitted as numerous companies sought to make their raw image processing tools. Various apps have leapfrogged one another, making it possible to extract better image quality even from existing cameras.

Comparing quality can be tricky. To some extent it's subjective ("I prefer skin tone A to skin tone B"), and it's influenced by default values (i.e. the starting point each app chooses) and user familiarity ("I personally am able to get better results in X than in Y"). Add to that a possible lack of awareness of the power enabled by the DNG Profile Editor.

Over the years I've heard fans of Capture One tout the image conversion quality possible in that app. Unfortunately, I've always found it difficult to get any actual, concrete demonstrations of what they're talking about. Lately a number of people (all using fake email addresses, oddly enough) have commented here about how C1 produces "better quality," yet none of them have been able to back up their claims.

So, I ask--not to pick fights, not to start any holy wars, but out of constructive curiosity: Are you getting better results with a raw image processor besides Camera Raw or Lightroom*, and if so, are you willing to share your images (raw & processed) so that we can see exactly what you like/dislike? This sort of concrete data is precisely what we need in order to keep making progress. If you're interested in participating, please add a comment or drop me a line.

Thanks,

J.

* The Lightroom 3 beta includes an improved demosaicing algorithm, so it's the best basis for comparison.

October 21, 2009

Lightroom 3.0 public beta arrives!

I'm delighted to report that the first public beta version of Lightroom 3.0 is available for download from Adobe Labs. According to the press release, the LR3 beta offers "more intuitive importing, unparalleled noise reduction and sharpening tools, enhanced slideshow capabilities and direct publishing to online photo sharing sites like Flickr." Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty writes,

For this latest release we went back to the drawing board and revisited what we believe are the fundamental priorities of our customers: Performance and Image Quality. Lightroom has been stripped down to the "engine block" in order to rebuild a performance architecture that meets the needs of photographers with growing image collections and increasing megapixels. The raw processing engine has also received an overhaul right down to the fundamental demosaic algorithms that now allows unprecedented sharpening and noise reduction results.

He also writes, "We're not even close to finished in terms of features, performance, or image quality, but we want early feedback on our improvements so that we have time to make sure Lightroom 3 is your ideal workflow assistant." Check out the rest of Tom's post for a wealth of feature details.

PS--Can it really be nearly four years since the first Lightroom public beta? Wow.

Update: Here's Adobe's Julieanne Kost introducing some of the new features:

Check out parts 2 and 3 as well, plus Scott Kelby's Top 10 favorite changes & a wealth of other LR3-related posts & resources.

September 28, 2009

A note for PowerPC-based Camera Raw/LR users

September 21, 2009

Lightroom pulls further ahead of Aperture

The past couple of years at this time (see entries for 2007, 2008), independent research company InfoTrends has surveyed professional photographers* about their choices of raw image-processing tools. It's interesting to check in on how the competition between Adobe Photoshop Lightroom & Apple Aperture is going.

Among photographic pros using the Mac,

• In 2007 Lightroom was nearly twice as popular as Aperture
• In 2008 it was nearly three times as popular
• In 2009 it's approaching four times as popular

By the numbers:

You might notice some decline in the use of the Camera Raw plug-in inside Photoshop as more pros move to using Lightroom. Let me be clear in noting that Photoshop use among these pros remains in the 90% range, and that the decline applies only to Camera Raw usage. (That makes sense as Lightroom and Camera Raw share the same processing engine, and photographers are, as expected, handling more of their raw processing in Lightroom.)

As always, everyone at Adobe couldn't be happier about the warm reception pro photographers have given LR, and we're grateful to the amazing, thriving community that's grown up around the product. The team has just scratched the surface of Lightroom's potential, and the future looks great.

* 1,045 in North America this year, a sample very similar to that of past years

September 15, 2009

(rt) Photography: Bitchin' laser portraits, Frankencamera, & more

• Laser backgrounds + Mullets = Bitchin' 80's portraits: Laserportraits.net/ [Via]
• PT'ing in one of Saddam's palaces has to qualify as one of life's stranger events. Photo essay by Richard Mosse.
• Gaston Batistini captured a nice HDR-ish balloon race photo. (via @kottkedotorg)
• Lightroom tip: You can show color selectively, desaturating all but a selected region. (Note Density=100) (via @LR_Tom)
• Behold the Stanford "Frankencamera." We've been collaborating with Dr. Levoy & team for a while. I'll try to share more details sometime soon.

September 14, 2009

Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5 Now Available

Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5 are now available as final releases on Adobe.com and through the update mechanisms available in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 (choose Help->Updates). Direct download links are here. These updates include camera support for the following models:

• Nikon D300s
• Nikon D3000
• Olympus E-P1
• Panasonic DMC-FZ35*
• Panasonic DMC-GF1

Release Notes:

• Camera Raw 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5 include a correction to the demosaic algorithms for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response. Olympus, Panasonic and Sony are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. The demosaic correction provides a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files.

• Lightroom 2.5 corrects for the following problem in Lightroom 2.4. Lightroom 2.4 on Windows continued to display the import dialog when a memory card was detected regardless of the preference setting "Show import dialog when a memory card is detected."

[Via Tom Hogarty/Lightroom Journal]

* Note that in Europe and Japan this model is marketed as the DMC-FZ38. Unfortunately, due to a metadata difference between these cameras, files from the DMC-FZ38 will not be supported until the next Camera Raw and Lightroom updates.

August 20, 2009

Photoshop Podcasts: 64-bit, Martinis, & Meth

A pair of new podcasts with Photoshop team members are now online.

First, Photoshop Architect Russell Williams sat down with Photoshop Creative:

Host Simon Skellon and Russell discuss the development of Photoshop as it pertains to Adobe's work culture and technological advancements, including the transition from Carbon to Cocoa and 64-bit support for Mac. Williams describes his role at Adobe and notes that designing a program as massive as Photoshop requires finding a balance between fixing bugs and creating new technology.

Williams and Skellon also discuss some of the most important additions to PS over the history of the program including Layers, the History panel and the Healing Brush tool, as well as upcoming additions from JDI. Williams concludes by noting that the program's wide range of use is so massive it takes an incredibly diverse team to successfully design the program, and explains, "There is always something to learn in Photoshop."

Elsewhere, "Adobe's own patient and talented Jeff Tranberry, Senior Quality Product Specialist," joined Deke & Colleen for Martini Hour:

Some of you may recall that Jeff was the one who (despite trying to have an evening out with friends) helped Deke write his free Channels & Masks Configurator panel, which houses all the tools you need to do the tasks delineated in his Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One book.

Jeff says simply, "I was happy I was able to slip the term "meth lab" into the conversation..."

August 9, 2009

Tutorial: Creating diptychs in Lightroom

I often create little diptychs & triptychs in Lightroom. I find them a great way to share small image sequences via Web galleries--without, I hope, overwhelming viewers as multiple independent shots might do.

Now photographer Jay Watson has created a handy 7-minute video tutorial on creating diptychs in Lightroom, saving templates, and importing the results to your collection:

Watch the video in full-screen mode or via Jay's blog to see higher resolution.

July 29, 2009

"Flickroom": Lightroom-style Flickr browsing

Oh, now that's interesting: Flickroom is an AIR application that uses a Lightroom-style shell to display photos. According to the site, the app:

"provides the rich browsing experience Flickr users have long deserved. The dark theme ensures that your photographs look better than ever before! You can now receive instant notifications for any activity on your photostream, upload photos by just drag-and-drop, add comments, mark faves, add notes, tweet about your photos and also view all info associated with an image from within the app."

July 6, 2009

Handy new Lightroom, ACR utilities

• John Beardsworth has created Open Directly, an LR plug-in for sending raw files from LR to another app (e.g. another raw converter) of your choice. It's free until tomorrow Aug. 7.
• Mike Wiacek's Flickr Lightroom Preset Extractor can suck processing info out of JPEGs, then turn the results into LR presets. Here are some sample images with which it works.
• The LR2ACR converter can turn all those great Lightroom presets into Camera Raw presets. [Via Glenn Mitchell]
• Timothy Armes has posted version 2 of his LR/Mogrify plug-in, useful for adding watermarks, borders, and other post-processing embellishments. [Via]

June 23, 2009

Lightroom 2.4 and Camera Raw 5.4 Now Available

Lightroom 2.4 (Mac|Win) and Camera Raw 5.4 (Mac|Win) are now available as final releases on Adobe.com and through the update mechanisms (Help->Updates) in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. According to the Lightroom Journal, these updates include camera support for the following models:

Check out the rest of the entry for details on Lightroom bug fixes, as well as DNG format options and & spec updates.

June 18, 2009

SlideShowPro for LR adds pan, zoom

I use the heck out of Todd Dominey's excellent SlideShowPro for Lightroom, so I'm happy to see that the tool has been updated with pan & zoom support (see example). From the site:

By (very) popular request, a pan and zoom effect has been added to both SlideShowPro for Flash and SlideShowPro for Lightroom. The popular animation style slowly moves still photos while zooming in/out of a particular area. It's most often used as a narrative device (by, you know, Ken Burns, who built a career on it), but it's also nice eye candy, especially when mixed with portraits and music.

SSP for Lightroom costs $35, and this update is free to current owners (download via the Account Center).

May 31, 2009

Sunday Photography: Thomas Hawk, LR tips, & more

• The Lightroom team welcomed photographer/blogger Thomas Hawk to Adobe SJ earlier this month. Thomas has detailed his visit & has posted some great images. (Lightroom/Camera Raw engineer Zalman Stern jokes, "Cool article, but if things really looked that saturated, I'd bring a Geiger counter to work to make sure they weren't radioactive.")
• Lightroom tips:
  • Shooting tethered with the Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII [Via Tom Hogarty]
  • Watermarking with Lightroom and LR2/Mogrify
• It's too easy to view a single great photo in isolation, rather than as part of a process. Art Wolfe walks through his process & outtakes, narrating the starts & stops on the way to getting a great result. [Via]
• Joel Saget captured a terrific composition of a French aerobatic team. The image is part of a solid set from the Wall St. Journal.
• Photojojo rounds up an excellent set of The Best Free Photos on the Web.

March 16, 2009

Lightroom baby develops perfectly

Tonight we got the delightful news that Ms. Harper Maeve Hogarty was born at 5:19 p.m. to Sarah Bailey Hogarty & husband Tom (also known as the PM for Lightroom). The wee lass is 7 lbs., 1 oz, 19.5 inches, and Tom is presumably compiling photographic evidence as I type. (Texting yesterday he wrote, "A Pi baby would have been awesome... Would like to avoid over-Irishing the baby with 3/17," so I'm glad things worked out.)

Congrats, guys! [Update: Here's a first photo.]

February 14, 2009

PDF containing all Lightroom 2 shortcuts

Rick Miller from Adobe's education field team writes, "I've recently had requests from users who would like a PDF reference guide that covers just the shortcuts in Lightroom 2. So I've created one...enjoy!"

February 2, 2009

Save ducats buying PS, Lightroom together

January 23, 2009

Camera Raw 5.3 and Lightroom 2.3 Available on Adobe Labs

The Camera Raw 5.3 and Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidates are now available on Adobe Labs.  The release includes new camera support for the following models:

• Nikon D3X
  
• Olympus E-30
  

The Lightroom update addresses some reported problems:

• In the Windows 64-bit version of Lightroom an sFTP upload process could cause Lightroom to crash
  
• Slideshows could return to the first image randomly during playback
  
• A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments
  
• Canon EOS 5D Mk II sRAW files could process with artifacts in Lightroom 2.2
  
• Lightroom 2.2 could cause disc burning to fail for Windows customers
  

Additional Languages

Lightroom 2.3 now provides language support for Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, Italian, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, and Swedish.  Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted some additional notes regarding language support on the Lightroom Journal.

December 15, 2008

Lightroom 2.2 now available

The Lightroom 2.2 update is now available for download (Mac|Win) from Adobe.com.  The release includes new camera support for the following models:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
  
• Canon PowerShot G10
  
• Panasonic DMC-G1
  
• Panasonic DMC-FX150
• Panasonic DMC-FZ28
• Panasonic DMC-LX3
  
• Leica D-LUX 4

The Calibration panel in Lightroom's Develop module now features an extensible set of camera profiles, designed to provide different interpretations of raw capture.  In addition the update fixes a few bugs that were introduced with the Lightroom 2.0 release; the ReadMe file (PDF) has the details on those.

[Update: Tom Hogarty says, "Beta profiles can be found and deleted from the following directories:

• Mac: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles/
  
• XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles
  
• Vista: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw\CameraProfiles]
  

December 3, 2008

Useful Lightroom, Camera Raw vids

• Sean McCormack has posted a short movie showing how to create a triptych from 1 photo in Lightroom.
• Derrick Story provides a quick video tour of two new features in Camera Raw 5.2--snapshots & the Targeted Adjustment Tool (TAT).  [Via Colleen Wheeler]  Two additional related tips:
  • You can toggle the TAT on/off by pressing the letter T.
  • You can save a snapshot from any panel by pressing Shift-Cmd-S/Shift-Ctrl-S.
• Matt Kloskowski notes a cool Lightroom tip by way of Scott Kelby: "If you’re dragging a Graduated filter gradient on to your photo you can quickly change the direction of the gradient by pressing the apostrophe key."  Matt has also posted a video showing how to use brushing/erasing tools in LR/ACR together with graduated filters, letting you erase the filter effect in selective areas.
  

November 30, 2008

Labels between Bridge & Lightroom

Reader John Schwaller asked a good question today: Why is it that if you assign a color label to an image in Lightroom, then update the file's metadata on disk (Cmd-S/Ctrl-S), the label appears white in Bridge instead of in the expected color?

The answer lies in the fact that Bridge lets you customize the text string associated with labels (screenshot).  This makes it possible to tag images quickly with custom, searchable phrases (e.g. "Urgent," "Needs client review," etc.) using just a keystroke.  Think of it as a specialized, powerful form of keywording.

When you apply a label, you're not, however, storing the color in the file metadata; rather, you're just assigning the text that's specified for that label.  If you've associated the green label with "Client approved," Bridge will display all files with the label "Client approved" as green.  If you then use Bridge preferences to change green to mean "Good to go," however, Bridge will show files labeled "Client approved" as having a white label.  This indicates that the label on the files doesn't correspond to any of your custom labels.

Lightroom doesn't offer the ability to customize the text associated with color labels*.  When it writes a label to a file, the text corresponds to the color ("Red," "Green," etc.).  By default Bridge uses different strings for the colored labels (red = "Select," green = "Approved," etc.).  So, assigning a red label in Lightroom will produce a while label in Bridge--kind of bizarre, if logical in its own way.

Short story: To make the labels you assign in Lightroom show up in the same colors in Bridge, go into Bridge preferences, choose Labels, and then change the text string for each to be simply the color ("Red" for red, "Green" for green, and so on).

The Bridge mechanism is powerful and flexible, but it's always caused some amount of confusion.  Maybe we can refine it in the future (e.g. storing both the color name & the assigned text string in metadata, then containing to display the color separately even if the label doesn't match & therefore has to show up as white).

November 21, 2008

Adobwii

Never underestimate the power of Bluetooth-enabled, motion-sensing, Adobe-flavored nerdery. :-)

• Chris Bartelski demonstrates how he uses a Wiimote to browse photos in Lightroom on his TV, even applying auto-toning & monochrome presets.  To see his system in action, skip ahead in the video to around the 8-minute mark. [Via Tom Hogarty]
• Crazy person (in the best sense) Dr. Woohoo has combined WiiFlash + Papervision3d + Flash Panels + Photoshop CS4 Extended.  It's an interesting proof of concept, and he's got some truly wild ideas in the queue.
• In case you missed it earlier, check out the Flash-based, Wiimote-powered multi-user painting system created by BLITZ Agency for Adobe MAX last year (details).

November 8, 2008

New Lightroom tools & presets

• The Photography Show blog has pulled together a huge list of free presets for LR. [Via]
• Developer Jeffrey Friedl has created a geotagging plug-in for Lightroom. According to Stephen Shankland, the plug-in "reads a GPS unit's track log, then deduces a photo's location based on the time it was taken. Although that's the same basic mechanism many other geotagging programs employ, Friedl's plug-in brings some welcome flexibility to the process by moving the process within Lightroom."
• Photodex has created The ProShow Plug-in for Lightroom, a free tool for composing rich slideshows within LR, meant for use with the company’s commercial slideshow software.

November 3, 2008

Pro Photographers Vote Lightroom!

In the Red-Green-Blue state of professional digital photography, voters are going for Adobe Lightroom in a very big way.

A year ago I shared some market research from InfoTrends that compared Lightroom usage among North American pros to that of Apple Aperture.  This year InfoTrends asked the same questions, and here's what they found photographers to be using:

• We're delighted to see that Lightroom has increased its market share among pros by 50% on both Mac and Windows.
• Aperture's overall number is up due to a greater percentage of respondents running Macs this year.  On the Mac, however, its market share is essentially unchanged.
• The survey was fielded in June and July 2008, after the launch of Aperture 2 but before Lightroom 2 was released.
• Overall Photoshop usage remains over 90% in this market.  Use of Camera Raw specifically has dipped a bit, which is to be expected as more pros embrace Lightroom.  Even so, the numbers indicate that many people continue to use both paths depending on circumstances (e.g. opening a one-off image vs. browsing a whole shoot).  That's true in my work, and I find the compatibility of settings between LR & ACR invaluable.
• Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted a few additional details about the survey on the Lightroom Journal blog.

As always the Lightroom & Photoshop teams are grateful to the photography community for all their support, and we look forward to bringing the Lightroom mojo to more photographers in the years ahead.

October 21, 2008

Solid Photoshop & Lightroom resources

Recently I've happened across a few resources that may be of interest:

Tutorials:

• PSDTUTS offers great Photoshop tutorials in a beautifully designed wrapper.  They also host interviews (e.g. one with Peter Jaworoski) with inspiring artists.  Paid membership gets you access to source files and more.
• Design Reviver is geared towards Web design, offering tips like how to design icons in Illustrator and 350+ brushes, textures, and fonts in the aptly named "Massive Hand Drawn Roundup."
  

Presets:

• To create The Full Montage, author Steve Caplin "has spent the last two years photographing, processing and preparing images" that work really well in image composites.  The readymade set, using Smart Objects & warps to enable mapping objects onto surfaces, looks particularly interesting.  Royalty-free pieces are for sale on the site.
• LiveSurface offers a large library of images ready for use with Photoshop's Vanishing Point filter.  Files "are pre-masked, layered and have embedded 3D surfaces."

Lightroom

• PresetsHeaven is all about sharing high quality development presets for Lightroom.  For more, see previous.

September 19, 2008

Lightroom 2.1 RC on Labs

A release candidate of Lightroom 2.1 is now available on Adobe Labs.  Tom Hogarty writes,

The ‘release candidate’ label indicates that this release is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing to validate the corrections and changes included in this update.  The goal of this release is to address bugs that were introduced with the release of Lightroom 2.0 and provide additional camera raw support [matching Camera Raw 4.6].

September 16, 2008

Lightroom Exposed

So, how is the world's most popular 64-bit Mac software built?  At the recent Mac-dev C4 conference, Lightroom project lead Troy Gaul presented an inside look at the structure of the application.  Hopefully a recording of his talk will be posted soon to flesh out the details, though I don't have an ETA for that.

August 27, 2008

Noise Ninja for Lightroom; LR2 videos and news

Fernando Z.* at Picture Code writes, "I just released version 2.1.2 of the Noise Ninja Standalone application, and this release features support for sending multiple photos at a time from Lightroom 2 to Noise Ninja. I've also just added a new video to our FAQ that shows how to take advantage of this new build and Lightroom 2's enhanced External Editor support." [Via Tom Hogarty]

• "To celebrate the launch of LR2," writes John Arnold, "I'll be doing one tip per day for at least a week - probably 2 weeks."  You can check out John's set of videos to date on PhotoWalkthrough.com.  (I'm looking forward to checking out the entries covering graduated filters.)

• The Adobe Design Center has posted Getting Started with Lightroom 2.  In it Matt Kloskowski of NAPP offers a sequential set of 15 videos that take a brand new LR user through the basics of what Lightroom does and how to get started using it, while Adobe's Julieanne Kost has posted a set of 3 videos that go over all that’s changed in LR2 ("Think of it as a Getting Started for upgrade users," she writes). [Via Luanne Seymour]

• Syl Arena provides detailed info on The Benefits of Shooting Tethered Into Lightroom.

* I suspect I'd be much cooler if named "Fernando Z.," and I just may have to appropriate that handle (sorry, actual Fernando Z).

August 11, 2008

Quick Lightroom bits: Presets, shortcuts, & more

• On Lightroom News, Martin Evening interviews Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty about how the LR2 feature set came to be and more.
• Lightroom Queen Victoria Bampton has posted Adobe Lightroom - The Missing FAQ, "a compilation of the most frequently asked questions, presented in a 397-page PDF eBook format."  It's now updated to cover LR2 as well as LR 1.4.1.  She's also posted a free PDF reference listing Lightroom 2 keyboard shortcuts.
• Presets:
  • Sean McCormack has created a set of over 70 graduated filter presets for LR2. "Covering both landscape and portrait orienations, as well as hard and soft line filters," he writes, "these filters come in 3 standard colours: ND (Grey), Blue and Tobacco."  Sean is selling them for €5.00 (about $7.75). [Via]
  • At Inside Lightroom Richard Earney lists a ton of handy-looking presets, handling everything from image tweaking to filtering one's image library (e.g. showing which images contain GPS coordinates, which lack keywords, etc.).
• On Daring Fireball, John Gruber writes, "I upgraded to Lightroom 2 last week, and I’ve only had time to scratch the surface with regard to learning what’s new. But so far, every single change that I’ve noticed has been for the better. It’s a remarkable improvement over what was already one of my favorite pieces of software ever."  Nice!
  

August 1, 2008

The Lightroom vs. Aperture plug-in situation

Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted some info about how Lightroom & Aperture compare in terms of enabling image editing via add-on code.  Being addicted to bulleted lists, here's my summary of where things stand:

• Pound for pound & click for click, "external editor presets" in Lightroom 2 and "plug-ins" in Aperture are the same thing.  In both cases you pick the external engine that you want to use on your image; jump into that editing environment to make adjustments; and return to your LR/Aperture library with an edited bitmap image that sits alongside your original raw file.  You get the same results with the same number of clicks.

• Unlike Aperture, LR doesn't require developers to rewrite code to work as a plug-in.  Instead, it simply lets external apps open/save image data as they normally would.  Less work for developers should translate into more options, sooner, for photographers

• Perhaps ironically, if you're using external code like Nik's Viveza plug-in (available as both a Photoshop & an Aperture plug-in), you'll retain more editability by bouncing your image to Photoshop and doing the edit there.  Photoshop CS3 adds support for Smart Filters, meaning you can go back and tweak your Viveza (or noise reduction, or lens correction, etc.) settings even after sending the results back to your library.

• If what you're after is local image editing (e.g. dodging and burning), Lightroom already offers that as a native part of its development pipeline--no rasterization or external edit required.

• If what you're after is Photoshop integration, the Lightroom-Photoshop story is unmatched:
  • The jump is faster and doesn't require creation of an intermediate TIFF/PSD just to open a file in PS.  (Instead the raw file goes through the Camera Raw pipeline, preserving your LR edits.)
  • You can open your raw file as a Smart Object and apply filters to it, preserving the editability of your raw settings and of the filters.
  • You can pass multiple files to Photoshop at once to create panoramas, HDR merges, or multi-layer PSDs.  This works especially well with virtual copies of the same image, making it possible to composite together multiple raw renderings.  Lightroom + Photoshop is the ultimate 1-2 punch.
    

July 29, 2008

Lightroom, ACR support D700

A number of people have written in to ask when Lightroom and Camera Raw will support the brand-new Nikon D700.  Good news: they already do--unofficially--in Lightroom 2.0/Camera Raw 4.5.  Unofficial support simply means that you can view and edit D700-generated NEF files normally, but because the camera is so new, Adobe QE folks haven't tested it to the point that they feel comfortable declaring official support.  The DNG Converter can convert D700 NEFs so that they can be used in LR 1.4, Photoshop CS2, and other DNG-enabled tools.

Note: LR2/ACR 4.5 add official support for the Olympus E 420 and E 520.

Lightroom 2 is here!

I'm delighted to report that the 64-bit native Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 is now shipping for Mac and Windows.  LR2 sells for $299 ($99 upgrade), and the 30-day tryout version is available for immediate download.

Tom Hogarty has posted a wealth of info on the Lightroom Journal blog, so I won't attempt to duplicate everything here.  Instead let me note some highlights:

• The Develop module now includes a highly useful gradient tool (screenshot), offering power similar to working with real-world graduated filters.
• Lightroom News offers a detailed list of all the improvements made since the introduction of the LR2 public beta.
• LR supports external editor presets, enabling easy jumps to/from apps like Noise Ninja and PTLens.  Thus Lightroom handily matches Aperture 2.1's ballyhooed plug-in support, while offering far superior Photoshop integration plus non-destructive localized image adjustment.
• Adobe Labs now hosts the new DNG Profile Editor.  This is a big deal.  In brief:
  • It enables the rendering you get in LR (or in Camera Raw) to match what your camera renders as JPEGs--frequently a pleasing starting point for adjustments.  As photographer Ian Lyons writes, with these profiles you can "approximate the in-camera JPEG rendering as well as the various styles and looks provided either in-camera or via the camera vendor's own software solution."
  • It offers demanding photographers a new degree of control for finessing the appearance of colors (e.g. skin tones).
  • In other words, we can put a fork in assertions of "Raw converter X looks like what I see on the back of my camera, so it must be more accurate than what Adobe shows" and "I just can't get look/tone/value X in LR/ACR."  Expect to hear more soon.
• Camera Raw 4.5 for Photoshop CS3 (Mac | Win) has been released & offers full support for rendering edits made with LR2 as well as profiles created with the Profile Editor.

Tons of resources are going live now, so I'll post links to what I've seen so far:

• Videos:
  • The NAPP has launched their Lightroom 2 Learning Center.
  • Colin Smith of the Photoshop Cafe posts videos and screenshots.
• Reviews and overviews:
  • As noted above, Ian Lyons gives an in-depth tour and talks about how to pair Lightroom & Photoshop to support CMYK files.
  • Scott Kelby scores Lightroom 2 Vs. My Lightroom 2 'Wish List'"
  • Mike Pasini from The Imaging Resource posts a glowing review. ("While we've only had a few days to test drive Lightroom 2.0, but that's been enough to remove 1.4 from our drive. We aren't going back.")

I'll update this list as more links go live.  In the meantime feel free to suggest resources via the comments.

July 6, 2008

Phil Clevenger on the Lightroom UI

Lightroom marketing manager/former Combat Photojournalist Frederick Johnson has posted an informative 12-minute interview with Phil Clevenger, Lightroom interface designer/KPT veteran.  Phil talks about the challenges of starting with a blank slate & establishing an interaction language; the pros and cons of modality; Lightroom's unique model for applying parametric local corrections; and much more.  I fount it well worth a look.

(Tangentially: Both Frederick and Phil show up among Kelly Castro's portraits (aka Project Make Mild-Mannered Software Peeps Look Hardass), now featured on the Adobe Design Center.)

June 30, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #53: Martin Evening

Adobe Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine has posted episode 53 in his Lightroom podcast series.  George writes,

This podcast was recorded on Friday, March 7, and Monday, March 10, 2008 in London. It gives us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the photo shoot for Martin’s upcoming book on Lightroom 2. In this video, Martin shares his inner thinking on the model selection, lighting, camera angles, along with hair and makeup, and how each plays a part in creating the final look for the book assets.

The podcast (labeled "20080310-2 Video Podcast - Martin Evening Book Project") is in the Public directory of George's iDisk.

With that, I'm sorry to report that this podcast concludes George's great series.  After 2+ years and more than four dozen episodes (linked with descriptions here), he's retiring his microphone & cameras.  On behalf of everyone who's enjoyed the content, thanks, George!

May 19, 2008

Lightroom 2 beta: Invite some friends

May 18, 2008

Take your camera to Tasmania--for free

Photographer Mikkel Aaland, organizer of the recent Lightroom Adventure down under, passed along some attractive info:

Follow in the footsteps of the Adobe Lightroom Adventure Photographers or create your own adventure on the beautiful island of Tasmania!  Here is your chance to win a trip for two to experience the natural beauty of Tasmania first hand.

 

Roundtrip economy airfare for two on Qantas Airways from one of their North American gateways - Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York City (JFK) - to the island of Tasmania. Two nights’ accommodation in Tasmania.

What do you have to do?  Just fill out a simple form & you're good to go.  Good luck & happy inverted shooting.

I've been meaning to blog about the Adventure for quite a while, but my draft full-o'-links was lost to my hard drive crash.  Therefore I'll keep it simple for now and just recommend checking out the beautiful galleries of images captured by the participants.  At the moment I'm grooving on some work from NatGeo photographer Bruce Dale.  (What is this thing?)

May 2, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #52: Martin Evening

Adobe evangelist George Jardine recently filmed photographer Martin Evening walking through the results of a photo shoot for his upcoming Lightroom book.  George writes,

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at Martin’s home in London. It gives us a rare glimpse into the inner thinking of this talented fashion and beauty photographer, as he gives us a shot-by-shot evaluation of a recent session. This video footage was taken during a photo session to create assets both for an upcoming Lightroom book, as well as for demo purposes for Adobe Systems. In it Martin describes his approach to every element of the shoot, from the model selection, the hair, the makeup, the lighting and camera angles, all the way through to the final edit.

This video podcast can be downloaded from my iDisk. It can also be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded the iPod version from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, the small version can be transferred to a Video iPod or iPhone, and viewed that way as well.

The podcast (labeled "20080310 Video Podcast - Martin Evening Fashion Shoot") is in the Public directory of George's iDisk. [Via]

April 29, 2008

So long, and thanks for all the pixels

By now you may have heard that Mark Hamburg, one of the big brains behind the evolution of Photoshop, is departing the friendly confines & is heading off to work at--gasp--Microsoft.  We're all sorry to see him go, but everyone at Adobe wishes him well in his new adventures.  I'll miss our sparring matches (a process that sharpened everyone's thinking).

Mark is not going to go work on other digital imaging tools.  After 17+ years of driving Photoshop & subsequently Lightroom, he's looking for a complete change of pace & wants to work on operating system technologies related to user experience.  Given that Mark has always been a huge Mac guy (developing Lightroom first on the Mac, etc.), it's kind of a Nixon-goes-to-China moment. He says,

Now, given that I find the current Windows experience really annoying and yet I keep having to deal with it, this opportunity was a little too interesting to turn down. I can’t imagine doing serious imaging anywhere other than Adobe, but, I needed to do something other than imaging for a while.

The cool thing is that having recently launched the Lightroom 2.0 beta, Mark leaves the product in excellent shape & excellent hands.  We're really just getting warmed up.

PS--I probably shouldn't swing at a pitch in the dirt, but I was disappointed by ZDNet's inaccurate, typo-strewn coverage of the news.  When did major news outlets decide that labeling something a "blog" means that fact-checking no longer applies?  How sloppy do you have to be to fail to copy and paste Martin (not "Mark") Evening's name correctly, or to notice that there's no capital R in Lightroom or capital S in Photoshop (errors the article doesn't even make consistently)?  At least it's a good reminder not to believe everything you read.

April 24, 2008

Tips on using the Lightroom 2 beta

• Image sharpness is a good thing... except when it isn't.  Martin Evening shows how to achieve a "'pseudo' diffusion printing technique" using the Lightroom 2.0 beta's ability to go negative on the Clarity slider.
• To even out exposures across multiple images, Lightroom features a "Match Total Exposures" command. Sean McCormack explains it in this brief video. (I'd listen just for the soothing brogue. ;-))
• Lightroom lets you create virtual copies of a single image, applying different settings to each.  New in the LR2 beta is the ability to stack virtual copies as layers of a PSD file, letting you composite and blend them in Photoshop. Mucho groovio!
• Lightroom marketing manager Frederick V. Johnson toted his camera to the Golden Gate Bridge in order to demonstrate handing off a panorama from Lightroom to Photoshop.
• Ken Milburn touches on the improved Auto adjustment algorithms in LR2.
  

April 10, 2008

Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 now available

Lightroom & Camera Raw PM Tom Hogarty reports that revised versions of the two tools have been posted:

The Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 updates have been posted to the following locations: Lightroom (Mac, Win), Camera Raw (Mac, Win). The updates provide all of the changes included in the original Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 releases but also include corrections for issues described below and in previous blog posts. The Camera Raw plug-in will also be available later this evening via the Adobe Update Manager and the Lightroom update can be located by choosing 'Check for Updates…' under the Help menu. The Lightroom and Camera Raw team apologize for any inconveniences caused by the issues presented in the initial updates

Check out Tom's post for full details.

April 2, 2008

Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe's 64-bit roadmap

As you've probably seen, among the great features in the Lightroom 2.0 beta is its ability to run 64-bit-native on Mac (Intel, 10.5.x) and Windows (Vista 64).  If you think it feels great to beat Aperture to the punch here, you're right. :-)

What does 64-bit computing mean, practically speaking? In a nutshell, it lets an application address very large amounts of memory--specifically, more than 4 gigabytes. This is great for pro photographers with large collections of high-res images: Lightroom being able to address more RAM means less time swapping images into and out of memory during image processing-intensive operations.

It's also important to say what 64-bit doesn't mean. It doesn't make applications somehow run twice as fast. As Photoshop architect Scott Byer writes, "64-bit applications don't magically get faster access to memory, or any of the other key things that would help most applications perform better." In our testing, when an app isn't using a large data set (one that would otherwise require memory swapping), the speedup due to running in 64-bit mode is around 8-12%.

Therefore 64-bit is a good thing for Lightroom now, and as the amount of data photographers handle inexorably grows, it'll become a bigger win.

The Lightroom news naturally raises the question: What's Adobe doing with Photoshop? In the interest of giving customers guidance as early as possible, we have some news to share on this point: in addition to offering 32-bit-native versions for Mac OS X and 32-bit Windows, just as we do today, we plan to ship the next version of Photoshop as 64-bit-native for Windows 64-bit OSes only.

The development is frankly bittersweet for us: On the one hand we're delighted to be breaking new ground with Photoshop, and when processing very large files on a suitably equipped machine, Photoshop x64 realizes some big performance gains. (For example, opening a 3.75 gigapixel image on a 4-core machine with 32GB RAM is about 10x faster.)  On the other hand, we work very hard at maintaining parity across platforms, and it's a drag that the Mac x64 revision will take longer to deliver. We will get there, but not in CS4.  (Our goal is to ship a 64-bit Mac version with Photoshop CS5, but we’ll be better able to assess that goal as we get farther along in the development process.)

I imagine some Mac users are starting to flip out (breathe, guys, stick with me!), so let me explain how we got here & nip a few concerns in the bud.

As we wrapped up Photoshop CS3, our plan was to ship 64-bit versions of the next version of Photoshop for both Mac and Windows.  On the Mac Photoshop (like the rest of the Creative Suite, not to mention applications like Apple's Final Cut Pro and iTunes) relies on Apple's Carbon technology. Apple's OS team was busy enabling a 64-bit version of Carbon, a prerequisite for letting Carbon-based apps run 64-bit-native.

At the WWDC show last June, however, Adobe & other developers learned that Apple had decided to stop their Carbon 64 efforts. This means that 64-bit Mac apps need to be written to use Cocoa (as Lightroom is) instead of Carbon. This means that we'll need to rewrite large parts of Photoshop and its plug-ins (potentially affecting over a million lines of code) to move it from Carbon to Cocoa.

Now let me be very clear about something: It's entirely Apple's call about what's best for the Mac OS and how to spend their engineering cycles. Like any development team, they have finite resources & need to spend them judiciously. They've decided that Carbon 64 doesn't belong on their roadmap, and we respect their decision. It's up to Adobe to adapt to the new plan.

As soon as we got the news in June, we began adjusting our product development plans. No one has ever ported an application the size of Photoshop from Carbon to Cocoa (as I mentioned earlier, after 9 years as an Apple product Final Cut Pro remains Carbon-based), so we're dealing with unknown territory. We began training our engineers to rewrite code in Objective C (instead of C++), and they began prototyping select areas to get a better view of the overall effort.

In short, Adobe has been taking prompt, pragmatic steps to enable 64-bit Photoshop as quickly as possible on both Mac and Windows. It's a great feature, not a magic bullet, and we're delivering the functionality as quickly as each platform permits.

Now, as I mentioned, I want to nip some concerns in the bud. You might think I'm a little paranoid, but I've been a passionate Mac user for more than 20 years, and I've seen more than a few controversies come and go. If any of the following come to pass, it'll really be annoying:

1)  Writers gin up controversy about Apple vs. Adobe, portraying this as a case of some tit-for-tat ("This one time, Steve wouldn't play golf with Shantanu, so Adobe is sulking!").  Oh, come on. This is why Lightroom x64 is a such a nice counterpoint: Adobe's decisions are pragmatic, not ideological. Look, Apple and Adobe share the goal of maximizing Photoshop performance on Mac hardware, and we're working together on all aspects of that story--64-bit included.

"If it bleeds, it leads," however, and writers looking to drive ad impressions will try to fabricate a grudge match.  Please don't let them.

2)  Adobe gets castigated for "dragging its feet" on Cocoa/x64.  This charge will be inevitable, I suppose, but I want you to know that we started work on the problem immediately after WWDC '07.  We started peeling senior engineers off the CS4 effort, and we'll keep pouring on the muscle in the next cycle.  This work comes at the expense of other priorities, but so be it.

3)  We start hearing all about "Cocoa Über Alles"--about how Adobe should have known that Cocoa is the One True Way™ and should have started the move years ago.  Most Mac users don't know Cocoa from Ovaltine, and nor should they: it's just an implementation detail, not a measure of quality.  I think Brent Simmons, creator of wonderful Cocoa apps like NetNewsWire, put it most elegantly: "Finder + Cocoa = Finder."  That is, rewriting one's app in Cocoa doesn't somehow automatically improve its speed, usability, or feature set.

I'll also note that Apple's Carbon Web site says, "Carbon is a set of APIs for developing full-featured, high-performance, and reliable applications for Mac OS X...  The Carbon APIs are also well-suited to cross-platform development."  I don't mention it to detract from Cocoa; I mention it to point out that each approach has its pros and cons, and in hopes that we don't hear all about how Cocoa is clearly the only way to write "real" Mac software.

So, the summary is this: 64-bit computing is an important part of the Photoshop and Lightroom story going forward, but it's not a magic bullet and we're not going to oversell it as one. We're delighted to be offering a 64-bit-native Lightroom on both Mac and Windows now, and to deliver a 64-bit-native Photoshop on Windows as part of the next release. As for Mac x64, we'll continue working closely with Apple (just as we've been doing) to make the transition as quickly and efficiently as possible.

PS: I know that users of other Adobe applications will want info on those apps' plans for 64-bit transition, and we'll work on sharing more info.  Broadly speaking, we’ll be applying similar criteria to what we followed in our digital imaging products to determine our 64-bit roadmap for the rest of Adobe’s applications. We’ll be prioritizing our 64-bit work based on the potential user benefits and the complexity of the code transition.

If you're a plug-in developer, you'll want to start reworking your code to run 64-bit native.  Note that there's an upcoming Creative Suite Developer Summit, and contact Bryan O'Neil Hughes if you need documentation on making the transition with Photoshop plug-ins.

[Update: The official FAQ on this subject is live on Adobe.com.]

Lightroom 2: The deuce is loose!

I'm delighted to announce that the beta of the 64-bit-native Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 has been posted to Adobe Labs.  Everyone is free to download the beta build and try it for 30 days, while customers of Lightroom 1.x are free to use it for the duration of the beta program.  (This build expires Aug. 31.)

My favorite feature(s)?

Unbeatable Photoshop CS3 Integration:

• Open files in Photoshop as Smart Objects.  (This way you can tweak your Lightroom adjustments within Photoshop just by double-clicking the Smart Object layer that contains your raw file.)
• Select multiple images to merge as a panorama
• Merge multiple exposures into a single Photoshop HDR image
• Load multiple files (or virtual copies of a single file) into Photoshop as separate layers in a single document

Selective image editing that rocks:

• Lightroom 2 adds a Retouch tool right within the Develop module (see screenshot).  That means you can paint regions of the image to dodge, burn, saturate/desaturate, adjust contrast, and more.  Edits are stored as metadata, just as all other LR adjustments are stored, and are applied directly to your raw images. (Because people will quickly ask, I'll point out that unlike Apple's newly released Aperture 2.1, Lightroom integrates its selective editing tools right in with the other adjustment tools.  In Lightroom you don't have to generate a TIFF file for editing, and unlike in Aperture, you can always tweak the results later.  In addition, Lightroom features Auto Mask technology for tweaking the clicked region without bleeding into neighboring areas.)

Other goodness:

• Library Module:
  • Streamlined Library layout
    
  • Smart Collections (based on search criteria)
    
  • Powerful Filter Bar to search and refine images
    
  • Suggested Keywords for simplified keywording
    
  • 10,000 pixel size limit raised to 30,000 pixels
    
  • Output-based collections
• Multiple monitor support:
  • Four flexible modes for an alternate window: Grid, Loupe, Compare, Survey
  • Live Loupe mode
• Export functionality:
  • Auto-add exported images to the Lightroom catalog
  • Auto Output Sharpening for images on export
• Develop Module:
  • Non-Destructive Localized Correction for dodging and burning specific areas of an image
    
  • Post-Crop Vignette
    
  • Basic Panel Keyboard Shortcuts
    
  • Improved Auto Adjustment
    
  • Improved memory handling through 64-bit support on OS X 10.5 and Vista 64-bit.(Not limited to develop module)
• Print Module:
  • Picture Package for multi-page layouts
    
  • Print Module output directly to JPEG
    
  • Enhanced Print Sharpening based on PhotoKit Sharpener algorithms
    
  • 16-bit Printing for Mac OS X 10.5

A ton of blogs and publications are starting to push great info live as I type this, so I'll update the following list of resources as I see things pop up:

• Write-ups:
  • Ian Lyons' comprehensive overview
  • Uwe Steinmueller's overview
  • Gilles Theophile's pensées (en Français)
• Videos:
  • A wealth of video & more from Scott Kelby's gang in the Lightroom 2 Learning Center
  • Video training from Adobe's Julieanne Kost: Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3. See also Julieanne's full list of LR topics
  • A one-hour training video from Colin Smith
  • Photoshop Lightroom 2 Beta New Features in the lynda.com Online Training Library
  • A video podcast from Adobe's Terry White
    
• The Lightroom Tasmania Adventure (kicking off now)
• A few words from Tom Hogarty, Lightroom Product Manager

As you probably know, betas have their pros and cons.  On the upside, revealing Lightroom 2 as a beta now allows Adobe to continue the very successful dialog we've been having with photographers, incorporating their feedback before releasing the finished product.  The trade-off is that the beta is unfinished, so you may want to check out the list of known issues before diving in.

With that, I'll shut up and let you get cranking.  Enjoy!

PS--Lightroom running 64-bit-native allows it to address large amounts of memory, something that can pay off when using large images in the Develop module.  Tomorrow I'll post more details about what 64-bit means & how it factors into our Photoshop roadmap.

March 20, 2008

Photoshop + Lightroom = Killer B&W

One of my favorite things about working on the Photoshop team is that we get to build a product people actually want to use when they leave work.  That means that lots of the engineers, QE folks, marketroids, and others are avid photographers, and the halls of the floor are lined with their work.

Recently, every time I've walked by the office of Kelly Castro from the Lightroom team, I've noticed really striking black & white portraits on his monitors.  Knowing that my friend & fellow Photoshop PM Bryan O'Neil Hughes had recently co-authored a great book covering B&W in Photoshop and Lightroom, I suggested he touch base with Kelly to learn more about the way he combines the two products.  Here's his report. --J.

More…

March 16, 2008

A note about the Lightroom/Camera Raw update

Ugh.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Lightroom team has uncovered some problems with the Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 releases posted on Thursday.  The updates have been pulled down temporarily while the team addresses the problems.  In the meantime Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has posted details and guidance on how to roll back to previous versions.  The most serious issue is that the time stamp generated by your camera & stored in EXIF metadata can get overwritten when you update other file metadata.

On behalf of everyone involved, I'm sorry about all this hassle.  We'll straighten things out ASAP.

[Update: Tom has posted an apology.]

March 13, 2008

Lightroom 1.4, Camera Raw 4.4 now available

Adobe has released updates to Photoshop Lightroom (Mac|Win) and the Photoshop Camera Raw (Mac|Win) plug-in, both available immediately for download from Adobe.com or via the Adobe Update Manager (choose Help->Updates from within Lightroom or Photoshop). The releases provide added raw file support for nine additional digital cameras, including the Canon EOS 450D and Nikon D60--bringing the total number of supported cameras to nearly 200. Lightroom 1.4 also provides updated printer driver compatibility for Apple Leopard Mac OS X 10.5.

According to the release notes, Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 include corrections for the following issues:

* Previous camera profiles identified in the Calibrate panel of the Develop module may have displayed poor results at extreme ends of the temperature and tint ranges. A new camera profile identified as Camera Raw 4.4 is now available and will be applied by default to all images without existing Camera Raw or Lightroom settings. The creation of new default profiles will also include the updated Camera Raw 4.4 profile. Images edited in Camera Raw or Lightroom with earlier profiles will retain the earlier profile value and visual appearance.

* In previous grayscale conversions the Color Noise setting was disabled and this could result in an image with excessive noise when grayscale channel mixing is applied.  Both the tool and effect have been enabled in Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 providing the ability to reduce noise in grayscale conversions.  In order to return to the prior visual appearance, Color Noise reduction can be set to zero.

Lightroom 1.4 includes corrections for the following issue:

* Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated.

February 24, 2008

Lightroom Podcasts #50 & 51: Photoshop integration & color correction

George Jardine has posted a pair of new video tutorials for Lightroom:

Three Options, Unlimited Possibilities (9:28)

In this tutorial I outline the basics of using Lightroom’s Edit in Photoshop command, specifically as it pertains to RGB files. You’ll learn what your three basic options are, and how they are best used to begin taking advantage of the incredible variety of workflows available, when using Lightroom and Photoshop together.

Subjective Color Correction (6:04)

In this tutorial I outline the basics of color correction, in a situation where the color and density of the photograph are wide open to interpretation. Make sure you start with a calibrated and profiled monitor, and then learn to trust your eyes to bring out the very best in your photographs, using the Adobe Lightroom Develop Module.

Both podcasts can be downloaded from George's iDisk, and can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom." [Via]

February 20, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #49: Gregory Heisler

Photographer Gregory Heisler is one of the most interesting guys I've had the pleasure of meeting in my job.  He's shot numerous covers for Time Magazine, and his work really shines in large-format printing.  Now Gregory has sat down with Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine to record a podcast.  George writes:

"Maybe you want to do a Brett Weston, and you don’t want anyone to open your files. Maybe you want your files to just die a peaceful death, and you want to pull the plug on them, and send them on to eternity. And what you want are these finished prints; they are the realization of your vision. And everything else was just a way to get there. Like you don’t actually want somebody, in a sense, reprinting from your negatives. You’re done. It’s fine. Even though with photography the temptation is that it’s always an open door, it’s fine to lock the door and throw away the key. That’s OK." - Gregory Heisler

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday February 6th, 2008 at the National Arts Club in New York City. Gregory sits down with George to have a conversation about working with Arnold Newman, his love of portraiture, and some of his thinking on a wide range of subjects including the value of the print, and the difficulties of developing a personal style.

The 1:20:49 podcast, labeled "20080206 Podcast - Gregory Heisler" is in George's iDisk. It can also be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.

February 13, 2008

A wealth of Lightroom tutorials

Digital photography experts Rob Sheppard and Tim Grey have created a wide range of Lightroom tutorials for the Adobe Design Center.

From Rob:

• Setting up an organizational system in Lightroom
• Working with color management in Lightroom
• Using the Camera Calibration feature in Lightroom
• Working with History and Snapshots in Lightroom
• Split toning for color
• Slideshows:
  • Making a better slideshow in Lightroom, part 1: Organization and layout
  • Making a better slideshow in Lightroom, part 2: Timing, music, titles, and transitions
  • Presentation possibilities in the Slideshow module, part 1: Preparing and selecting your photos
  • Presentation possibilities in the Slideshow module, part 2: Customizing the slideshow's appearance
  • Presentation possibilities in the Slideshow module, part 3: Playback and export
• Choosing a Web gallery type in Lightroom
• Creating a promo sheet in Lightroom
• Exporting from Lightroom Q&A
• Using the Print Sharpening feature in Lightroom

From Tim:

• Apply metadata, keywords, and presets as you import images
• Working with snapshots in Lightroom
• Working with the History panel in Lightroom
• Working with the Histogram in Lightroom
• Slideshows:
  • Configuring a slideshow in Lightroom
  • Playing and exporting a Lightroom slideshow
• Web galleries:
  • Creating and configuring a web gallery in Lightroom
  • Publishing a Lightroom web gallery
• Exporting images from Lightroom

February 11, 2008

Leopard 10.5.2 improves Photoshop, LR compatibility

I'm happy to see that Apple has released the 10.5.2 update to Mac OS X Leopard (check Software Update under the Apple menu).  The update addresses some snags reported in using Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom on the new OS:

• Typing values into the options bar in Photoshop (e.g. to set brush size or crop dimension) is no longer problematic.
• Prior to 10.5.2, some Apple apps (Finder, Aperture, iPhoto, Preview) could crash or fail to read some complex XMP metadata, such as Lightroom develop snapshots.  That problem has been fixed.

I've just installed the update, so I don't have more detailed notes to share right now.  That said, Macworld's Dan Frakes enumerates some of the user-friendly tweaks featured in this rev.

February 6, 2008

Get your wet floor on in Lightroom

SlideShowPro developer Todd Dominey reports that he's issued a free update to this Flash gallery component for Lightroom.  Changes include:

• New "Header" area to display a logo (with link), gallery title and gallery description
  
• New "Wet Floor" effect (see example)
  
• 4 template groups, each containing 8 variations for landscape/portrait, dimension and aspect ratio (32 options total).
  
• New inputs to directly assign an audio file and caption
  
• New Director formatting panel

Todd notes, "The templates are also a great way to get a "fitted" look really quickly, as it calculates all the dimensions for handling 3:2 / 4:3 imagery without gaps."  SlideShowPro for Lightroom is $25.

Note: It's also possible to use SlideShowPro together with Photoshop; see previous.

January 24, 2008

Lightroom Podcast #48: Gerd Ludwig

What's it like to photograph inside Chernobyl?  That's one of the many topics discussed in George Jardine's latest Lightroom podcast.  George writes:

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday November 20th, 2007 at the home of Greg Gorman in Los Angeles, Calfornia. Gerd Ludwig sits down with George to have a conversation about working with National Geographic on many interesting and diverse assignments. We discuss how he photographed inside the Chernobyl reactor, about the victims, the environment, and many other aspects that particular assignment. After that we delve deeper into his early cross country road trips photographing in Europe and India, and how his education with Otto Steinert played a key role in his photographic perspective today.

This “video” podcast includes photographs by Gerd Ludwig. It can be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded it from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, it can be transferred to a Video iPod, and viewed that way as well.

The podcast (labeled "20071120 Podcast - Gerd Ludwig") is in the Public directory of George's iDisk.

January 21, 2008

Community-powered Lightroom help goes live

Ever complained that software documentation kind of sucks*?  (Do you have a pulse?  The correlation seems to be about 1:1.)  We all have, which is why Adobe's technical writing team has been working to enhance the product docs with community-sourced content.  If you think something could be explained better, jump in and make it so.

Adobe tech writer Anita Dennis passes along the news:

We're pleased to announce the new Lightroom community help system, which provides core Adobe documentation for Lightroom as well as links to additional learning content from around the web.
 
The new site takes the current online help—LiveDocs—and makes it more useful and interactive. You can still navigate to topics using links the left side of the browser. But now, when you click a topic to read about it, you'll find a Basics panel with Adobe documentation as well as a Learn More panel that offers links to tutorials, white papers, technical articles, and other instructional content.
 
This site is administered by Adobe, moderated by community experts, and developed with the assistance of a panel of Lightroom Learning Advisors. So you'll also find links to the moderators’ and advisors’ favorite Lightroom sites, plus links to troubleshooting sites and a page that lists third-party presets, galleries, and extensions.
 
We invite you to visit, comment on our documentation, add links to your favorite tutorials and articles, and share your opinions by commenting on the links that others have posted. And feel free to send feedback on the site to us at lightroom-help-feedback@adobe.com.

If the idea of integrating community knowledge into the apps lights your fire, check out my proposal on the subject.

* I'm not picking on the hardworking Adobe writers: beefs about software docs seem to be pretty universal.  I've often wondered why that is, and I think a few factors conspire keep things as they are.  Among them:

• No one actually wants to RTFM.  We want expertise jacked straight into our heads.  As with photography, driving, or most other pursuits, it's much easier to buy gear than to learn to use it well.
• Due to publishing/localization schedules, tech writing staffs are trying to document features as they're being written, instead of after the dust has settled.  Outside authors tend to write later in the cycle.
• In-house tech writers have to be as broadly useful as possible.  That means it's harder for them to pick a tone or approach that's especially suited to one audience.
  

January 19, 2008

Panoramas, HDR, and the future of Lightroom

On Wednesday CNET's Stephen Shankland sat down to talk with my boss Kevin Connor to talk about what's on the roadmap for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  (I was there as well, but Stephen--correctly discerning that Kevin is the guy with the actual clue/plan/power--wisely focused his questions in that direction. ;-))  They conduced a fairly wide-ranging talk that hits on such topics as high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, panorama creation, and the future of Lightroom extensibility.

[Update: I see that Scott Kelby has posted extensive notes on what he'd like to see in Lightroom 2.0.]

January 6, 2008

'007 in review: Photography, design, and more

Photography:

• 2007 was the year the digital SLR boomed, reports CNET's Stephen Shankland, offering links to top stories throughout the year.  He notes that "Adobe released Photoshop Lightroom in March, and in just a few months it surpassed in popularity the earlier Apple rival, Aperture."
• Serious photogs keep seeking a nice compromise between SLR quality & compact portability.  A number of folks around Adobe's West 10th floor have been intrigued by the Canon G9; see Ben Long's review.
• Meanwhile a megapixel backlash seems to be building steam. "The more pixels, the worse the image!" says a German camera-testing lab, arguing that splitting a compact sensor into smaller & smaller bits is bad juju.
• In terms of the craft itself (which keeps proving itself death-proof), Rob Galbraith rounds up a large group of pictures of the year collections.  The sheer number of galleries is a little daunting (paradox of choice, anyone?), but I can at least vouch for MSNBC & Canada Post galleries.  I find the little NatGeo gallery underwhelming.

Adobe:

• The company was so busy (Creative Suite 3, Lightroom, new CEO...), it's hard to believe that it was just in '07 that so much went down.  Fortunately Scott Kelby provides a thorough overview.
• Zeroing in just on Photoshop Lightroom, Scott's colleague Matt Kloskowski offers A look back at Lightroom in 2007, recalling the year's interviews, cool add-ons, and more.

Design:

• The architectural smartasses at Curbed have gathered up the Top 10 Craziest Architectural Renderings of the Year.  Each one links to funny, wry commentary ("Rise, massive shadow-inducing cantilever, rise!").  Aside: Who knew a W Hotel was going into Harlem?
• One of my favorite blogs (frequently pilfered here), Core77, looks back at What Happened in '07. Herewith I'm gonna need all my pizza laser-cut, stat.
  

December 11, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #47: Catherine Hall

"So much of it is having faith in your work and your vision," says photographer Catherine Hall.  "If you believe in yourself, and you believe in what you’re doing, and you illustrate your vision, then the money will come, and everything will fall into place."  Adobe evangelist George Jardine writes,

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday November 21st, 2007 at Catherine’s family home in Lafayette, Calfornia. Catherine sits down with George to have a conversation about how her personal work inspires her wedding photography, about her personal approach to working with people, and how having the opportunity to work with people from many different socio-economic backgrounds makes it all worthwhile.

The 32:18 podcast, labeled "20071121 Podcast - Catherine Hall," is in George's iDisk.  It can also be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.

December 7, 2007

Lightroom updated to v1.3.1

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has been updated to version 1.3.1, and the update is available for download for Mac and Windows.  Fixes include the following:

• The Lightroom 1.3 Print Module could previously cause the application to crash on either OS X 10.5 or 10.5.1 during template usage.
  
• On Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.5.1, the import process from a card reader or other device into Lightroom could fail to import all or a portion of the selected images.
  
• A decrease in Develop slider responsiveness introduced in Lightroom 1.3 has been corrected.
  
• The Lightroom 1.3 Develop module could cause the application to crash if adjustments were made in quick succession.
  
• Compressed raw files from the Nikon D100 were read incorrectly in Lightroom 1.3.
  
• A possible artifact in raw file support for the Olympus E-3 has been corrected.
  
• The Lightroom FTP Plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK did not function properly if the password was not saved with the selected FTP preset.
  
• Editing or creating a new FTP preset immediately prior to using the FTP plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK would cause the FTP process to fail.
  
• Using the Export as Previous option did not work with the FTP plug-in provided as sample code with the Export SDK.

[Via Tom Hogarty]

December 6, 2007

Camera Raw updated to 4.3.1; LR to follow

Photoshop's Camera Raw plug-in has been updated to version 4.3.1 (download for Mac, Win) to address two problems discovered following the release of v4.3 a couple of weeks ago:

• Compressed raw files from the Nikon D100 were read incorrectly in Camera Raw 4.3
• A possible artifact in Camera Raw 4.3 raw file support for the Olympus E-3 has been corrected

The same fixes plus a few others are slated for inclusion in Lightroom 1.3.1, due shortly.  Tom Hogarty has posted additional details on the Lightroom Journal.

December 5, 2007

SlideShowPro Flash gallery comes to Lightroom

I'm glad to report that Dominey Design's excellent SlideShowPro Flash gallery is now available for Lightroom.  As the site notes, you can "change any of SlideShowPro's 60+ parameters and preview your changes inside a real, working preview of SlideShowPro before you publish."  The gallery offers a slick full-screen viewing option (click the icon in the lower right corner of the example here).  From within the Lightroom Web module you can upload directly to the Web server of your choice.  You can also upload to Dominey's SlideShowPro Director hosting service, which offers online tools for browsing and managing your uploaded library.  The gallery costs $25, and hosting is available at various rates (free for 14 days).

In covering this announcement, Rick LePage from Macworld also notes that Felix Turner's great Airtight Galleries for Lightroom (previously downloadable on their own) are now included with Lightroom 1.3.  So, if you've run the update and haven't looked at your Web module for a while, take a peek; you might be pleasantly surprised.

[Update: At Inside Lightroom Michale Clark talks about SlideShowPro in LR, calling it "one heck of a deal for the money."]

[Previously: You can also create SlideShowPro galleries and Airtight galleries directly from Photoshop.  See the whole Web Gallery category for more.]

December 3, 2007

Upload from Lightroom to Flickr, SmugMug, & more

One of the sleeper improvements made in the recent Lightroom 1.3 release is the introduction of a beta export SDK.  That is, developers can now hook their tools into Lightroom's export pipeline.  Jeffrey Friedl has leveraged the SDK and is now sharing upload plug-ins for Flickr, SmugMug, and Zenfolio.  I haven't gotten to try these out yet myself, but I'm excited to see developers stepping up to provide some much-requested capabilities.  [Via]

On a related note, PixelNovel's FlickrShop plug-in enables uploading from Photoshop to Flickr.

November 26, 2007

Photoshop typography, Fireworks symbols, & much more on Design Center

The Adobe Design Center says, 'Scuse me while I whip this content out...:

* New Gallery:

• Radim Malinic

* New Dialog Box:

• Adobe Magazine for Creative Professionals (September issue)
• CreativeSpark by AdamsMorioka

* New Lightroom Video Workshop from George Jardine:

• Correct an image using the Develop module
  
• Finding and evaluating photos
• Basic photo correction
• Using the Refine Photos command
• Using Sharpening & Noise Reduction controls

* New Tutorials:

• Typographic design with Photoshop
• Create a sitemap icon using reusable rich symbols -- Alan Musselman
• PDF/X Files and Adobe Creative Suite 3 -- Adobe white paper
• Using ActionScript to pause and loop the timeline in Flash -- Tom Green and David Stiller
• 60-second Lightroom videos by Matt Kloskowski:
  • Get started with cropping
  • Get started with sharpening
  • Get started with white balance corrections
• Creating scatter brushes in Illustrator -- David Karlins and Bruce K. Hopkins
  
  

Adobe training gauchas Luanne Seymour and Jen deHaan are riding herd, so check out their sites for fresh material.  And as always, check out some of the 1000+ Adobe links on del.icio.us.  Info on how to contribute links is here.  [Via]

That Synching Feeling: New Lightroom, Photoshop podcasts

• George Jardine has posted Lightroom Podcast #46, a 12-minute video tutorial covering Lightroom's synch command.  He writes, "In this tutorial I outline the basics of Lightroom’s Synchronize command. You’ll learn how to apply Develop settings across multiple photos, in both the Library and the Develop modules. I also cover some of the new selection logic in Lightroom that is required to make working with large numbers of files, well…. logical!"
• Me & Amadou Down By the Schoolyard: At PhotoPlus last month, I spoke with photographer & author Amadou Diallo about Photoshop, life, the universe, and everything (but mostly about Photoshop).  Here's our chat.  (I'm always pleased when I get to hang out on YouTube, rubbing shoulders with Rusty the narcoleptic dachshund & co. ;-))
• Over at Inside Digital Photo, Scott Sheppard talks with Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty and Photoshop Elements PM Mark Dahm about the new versions 1.3 and 6.0, respectively, of their products.  Check it out here .
  

November 15, 2007

Updates posted for Photoshop, Bridge, Lightroom, ACR

I'm pleased to announce that Adobe has posted updates to Photoshop CS3 (download 10.0.1 for Mac, Win), Bridge CS3 (2.1.1 for Mac, Win), Camera Raw (4.3 for Mac, Win), and Lightroom (1.3 for Mac, Win).  Each download page contains details about the corresponding update, but I'll hit some key points here.

[Update: Note that you can choose Help->Updates from within the apps in order to download and install the updates.  That's actually the easiest way to go.]

The Photoshop 10.0.1 update addresses the key pain points experienced by users printing from CS3, particularly on Windows.  I've posted a separate note that goes into more detail on the topic. The update also includes better support for preserving XMP metadata (including copyright) via Save For Web, through the inclusion of a new "Include XMP" option in the dialog's settings menu.  The Photoshop update does not address a problem with changing the values for various tools on Mac OS X Leopard, but Apple and Adobe are working together on a separate fix (details).

With Bridge 2.1.1, a new preference to enable High Quality Preview has been added to Bridge's Preferences->Advanced panel. When enabled, the preference addresses the problem of a soft or blurry preview appearing in the Preview panel and in Slideshow mode.  The Bridge update also remedies other problems reported by users, including a problem that could cause Bridge to lock up when using arrow keys to navigate.

Lightroom 1.3 improves compatibility with Mac OS X Leopard, fixes some bugs, and adds an option to render 1:1 previews during import.  New cameras supported in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and the DNG Converter include the following: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon PowerShot G9, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Olympus E-3, Olympus SP-560 UZ, and Panasonic DMC-L10.  The applications also now support the sRAW format produced by the Canon 1D Mk III, 1Ds Mk III, and 40D.

There's also a preview Lightroom Export SDK available for developers on Adobe Labs.  If that sounds interesting, check out what Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty has to say on the Lightroom Journal.

By the way, in case you're wondering why the download size for the Photoshop update is large, it's because the updater is multi-lingual, and on the Mac side the update is Universal Binary.

November 12, 2007

Drunken bridesmaids, the Exxon Valdez, & more in LR podcasts

George Jardine has been in the zone lately, recording all kinds of good Lightroom podcasts:

• "I joke with my couples when they come in," says photographer Natalie Fobes, "and they look around my office studio, and they see pictures from the Exxon Valdez, or from the Salmon project, or Komoto Dragons walking down the beach in Indonesia, an I kind of joke with them and I say 'Those were my long term projects, but your wedding will be my short term project!' The elements of storytelling that go into a 10 year project on Salmon, or a 6-week project on poverty in America, are the same elements that go into the coverage of the wedding day."  Podcast #43, labeled "20070824 Podcast - Natalie Fobes" is, along with the others, downloadable from George's iDisk, or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.
  
• "Today we’re doing something completely different," writes George of Podcast #44.  "Welcome to a completely unscripted conversation with 6 top women wedding photographers (Susan Stripling, Allegra, Jen Bebb, Kim Bednarski, Jen Capone, and Kristin Reimer). Come listen in to this fun and friendly conversation, as they tell all about shooting weddings. What are the most gratifying things about shooting weddings? What are the most difficult? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen at a wedding? The funniest story? The dresses. The shoes. The drunken bridesmaids. It’s all here."  The episode is labeled "20071017 Podcast - 6 Women Wedding Photographers."
  
• Podcast #45 is all about business.  According to George, "This video tutorial covers the basics of understanding Lightroom’s catalog model. We cover where Lightroom stores your previews and metadata, how Lightroom links to your source files, and how to use Lightroom with Bridge’s browser-based workflow.  Look for "20071111 Tutorial Podcast - The Lightroom Catalog - Part 1." [Via]

And while we're on the subject of Lightroom tutorials, if you're interested in geocoding your images for use with LR, check out what engineer Eric Scouten has to say on the subject.

October 29, 2007

Lightroom + Leopard: compatibility notes

October 28, 2007

Why do we photograph? A discussion.

"Welcome to what may be my very best conversation yet," says George Jardine of the latest Lightroom podcast.  "Or at least the most fun and insightful."

George sat down with photographers Jay Maisel, Greg Gorman and Seth Resnick for "a long and rambling discussion about film archives, digital archives, various sorting and editing methods, and how they all intersect. Or not... I found Jay continually driving at a singular point about why he photographs, how he edits, and why he feels shooting to please yourself is the only important thing for a photographer." [Update: George has transcribed a couple of key bits & added some comments; I've now included these in this post's extended entry.]

The podcast is on George's iDisk under "20071016 Podcast - Maisel Gorman Resnick."  This podcast & others can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed. [Via]

More…

October 16, 2007

Aperture vs. Lightroom: What do the pros use?

• 66.5% using the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in
• 23.6% using Lightroom
• 5.5% using Aperture

To be fair to Aperture, it might be helpful to remove Windows users from the equation for a moment.  Even after doing so, Lightroom's usage among Mac-based pros is still nearly double that of Aperture (26.6% vs. 14.3%).

It's also worth pointing out that photographers haven't started to abandon Photoshop as a result of using tools such as Lightroom.  (Photoshop usage overall remains in the 90% range.)  The vast majority of photographers seem to understand pretty clearly the different nature & roles of the apps, and they continue to view Photoshop as a must-have part of any serious arsenal.

Lightroom is clearly off to a tremendous start, and everyone here is really pleased & grateful to the photography community for such a warm welcome.

October 15, 2007

New Lightroom Podcasts: Chris Rainier, Steve McCurry

Adobe pro photography evangelist George Jardine has been back in the field, mic in hand, to chat with photography heavyweights.  (Note to self: Bump off George, steal his much-cooler-than-mine job. ;-))

• "It [being able to 'see and pre-visualize' in black and white] allowed me to speak of things that were beyond the color spectrum, beyond a certain reality, and go into what I like to call magical realism," says Chris Rainier.  George writes,

This podcast was recorded on Saturday October 6th, 2007 at National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington D.C. Chris sits down with George to have a conversation about working with Ansel Adams, Chris’s love of the landscape, and his sense of how photography can influence the social issues of our times. He also tells the story of the genesis of the Society’s Cultures initiative, which he currently directs. [The podcast is on George's iDisk under "20071006 Podcast - Chris Rainier"]

• "Some of the great pictures, you just look at them and you marvel at them, for the subject matter and somehow they struck a chord in you," says Steve McCurry.  "But it’s rarely about the technique. It’s not about the lens, or the film, or the light necessarily. It’s really just some story in that picture. Some emotional element which you connect with."  From George's description:

This podcast was recorded on Saturday September 29th, 2007 at Steve McCurry’s workshop in NYC. Steve sits down with George to have a conversation about photographing people, and the effort and dedication required to make great photographs. [The podcast is on George's iDisk under "20070929 Podcast - Steve McCurry."]

See also my previous posts about Chris & Steve.  These podcasts & others can be found on iTunes by searching under Podcasts for “Lightroom," or via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed.

September 22, 2007

On the personality of Lightroom

Over in the Lightroom Journal, software architect Mark Hamburg shares his thoughts on power vs. complexity & other aspects of the personality of Lightroom.  I find his thoughts refreshingly candid:

We wanted Lightroom to seem elegant. To exhibit grace. To show an attention to style beyond the utilitarian aspect that dominated Adobe's products up to that time. We wanted a richer UI experience.

We've been successful in many ways. At the same time, we are painfully aware that there are places where we could be yet more graceful or elegant.

If you're interested in more, see also Mark's interview on since1968.com, or listen to the podcast in which he & other members of the Lightroom team tackle these issues. As for the personas of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash, see previous.

September 13, 2007

Camera Raw 4.2, Lightroom 1.2 now available

I'm pleased to report that Camera Raw 4.2 (download for Mac|Win) and Lightroom 1.2 (Mac|Win) are now available for download from Adobe.com, and via the Adobe Update Manager (choose Help->Updates within Photoshop or Lightroom). 

These releases add support for a number of cameras (and yes, 40D shooters, you can stop stuffing the feature request form now ;-)):

It's possible to use these cameras in older versions of Photoshop by converting their proprietary formats to DNG using the new version of the free DNG Converter.  In case you want the full details of what's new & improved in these releases, read on for this post's extended entry.

More…

September 6, 2007

Save up to $150 buying Photoshop + Lightroom

A new promotion has launched on the Adobe.com Store: Purchasing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and a full or upgrade version of Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS3 Extended together can knock up to $150 off the total price:

• Upgrade to Photoshop CS3 + buy Lightroom: save $75
• Buy Photoshop CS3 (full version) + buy Lightroom: save $125
• Upgrade to Photoshop CS3 Extended + buy Lightroom: save $100
• Buy Photoshop CS3 Extended (full version) + buy Lightroom: save $150

Obligatory official details blurb: The bundle product discount is available only when Lightroom and Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS3 Extended are purchased simultaneously. The bundle discount is reflected prior to checkout. Bundle pricing is available only through the Adobe Store and certain select resellers. Education, OEM, and licensing customers are not eligible for bundle pricing. This offer is valid in North America only. [<--Folks are working to extend the offer to other geographies, but that's not quite ready yet.  --J.]

August 30, 2007

Fresh Podcasts: Pete Turner, Kevin Connor, Magnum

• George Jardine sat down recently with pioneering color photographer Pete Turner at Pete's home studio in Wainscott, NY, discussing how he got started in photography and his early experiments with color.  The podcast can be downloaded from George's iDisk ("20070809 Podcast - Pete Turner"), or from iTunes by searching under Podcasts for "Lightroom."
  
  
• George writes, "If you haven't been watching the Magnum In Motion podcasts... now is the time. (They are short. You do have time.) Lots of stunning stuff here."  Among the highlights he recommends:
  
  
  • Point and Shoot - Philip Jones Griffiths
    
  • Khmer Boxing - John Vink
    
  • Personal Best - Elliott Erwitt
    
  • The Revolution - Bert Glinn
    
  • Requiem in Samba - Alex Majoli
    
  • Coney Island - Bruce Gilden
    
  • Mennonites - Larry Towell
    
  • Fashion Magazine - Bruce Gilden
    
  • Chernobyl Legacy - Paul Fusco
  
  
• Scott Sheppard of Inside Digital Photo has interviewed Kevin Connor . Scott writes, " Kevin shares the details of how they setup their popular public beta programs and how they ultimately implemented the feedback they received firsthand.  He explains Adobe’s vision and synergy behind both Photoshop and Lightroom... He shares some tips, including using the “targeted adjustment” tool in Lightroom. Hear how other markets, including medical imaging, influence future application features."

August 29, 2007

Lightroom named Imaging Software of the Year

August 25, 2007

RawShooter Migration Tool now available

In the year since Adobe acquired Pixmantec, makers of the RawShooter image review & processing tools, RawShooters have been asking for a way to migrate their image settings to be compatible with Adobe Lightroom & Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw.  The solution has arrived in the form of the Pixmantec RawShooter Migration Tool, now available on Adobe Labs.  According to the Labs site:

The Pixmantec RawShooter Migration Tool is designed to provide a way to migrate the settings made in Pixmantec RawShooter Premium or Pixmantec RawShooter Essentials to visually similar settings in Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™ or Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw. Given that the controls in each application are not identical, the results of these conversions will not provide visually identical images.

August 16, 2007

Lightroom Podcasts #36-38 now posted

Adobe's Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine has gone on a podcasting tear recently:

• Episode #36, "Adobe Raw Sharpening Controls," is a video offering "a new mini-tutorial showing how Lightroom’s 1.1 sharpening controls work, to help you quickly adjust your capture sharpening in the Develop Module."
• "What’s so unique about still photography," says photographer Ed Kashi, "is that it forces you to stop, it forces you to think. It’s almost meditative. Particularly compared to the other media that exists today."  In Episode #37, Ed sits down with George to have a conversation about his career, his passion and motivation for photojournalism, and telling stories that matter.
• “I’ve always loved films," says Bob Sacha, "and I’ve always loved documentary films, partly because I love music, and I love sound. And so in a way I saw film as a way of combining what I knew from still photography with this idea of sound. Light, motion, moment, composition, those are all the sort of hard skills that we possess as photographers. Makes it easier to move over into new media.”  In Episode #38 Bob sits down with George to have a conversation about his career, his love of film, and his quest to integrate sound, video and still photographs into media-rich journalism. Bob also discusses the fellowship project he recently worked on at Ohio University.

All three new podcasts, plus previous episodes, are available via George's iDisk.  (Scroll to the bottom of the list.) [Via]

July 25, 2007

Hearing voices in Lightroom

James Duncan Davidson at Inside Lightroom has happened across a hidden little gem in the app--namely, the ability to play audio files attached to photos.  Some high-end cameras, especially those geared towards photojournalists (e.g. the Canon 1D Mk III), allow a shooter to record voice notes that get attached to images, becoming essentially part of the images' metadata.  Lightroom 1.1 quietly introduced the ability to recognize & play these annotations. It's a cool way to take notes in the field, then access them while reviewing photos.

In a related vein, Lightroom also recognizes embedded GPS metadata & offers the ability to display the location via Google Maps.  Ian Lyons has the details.

July 11, 2007

Free 177-page Lightroom 1.1 overview available

Martin Evening, photographer/author/apparent insomniac, has just released a 177-page supplement to The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book.  The supplement, in which Martin describes in detail all the new features found in Lightroom 1.1, is free not only to book owners, but to everyone. He writes,

I wanted to provide a free update for Lightroom 1.1 that would satisfy readers who had already bought the book as well as all those who hadn’t bought it yet but wanted to make sure they were up to speed on all the new program features.

The supplement is illustrated with 20MB of images and contains page cross references to the main book.  Lightroom News has the details on how to download the file from Peachpit.

July 10, 2007

Lightroom Podcasts #34, 35

Adobe Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine is back in the podcast saddle, offering up image- and video-enhanced insights into the personalities behind Lightroom, as well as tips on using the tools themselves.

In podcast #34 (a 7-minute video tutorial), Geroge demonstrates Lightroom's handy "Refine Photos" command.  Here's a brief overview of the feature (not a prerequisite for watching, but maybe handy for reference):

Refine photos is a tool used during "editing" with pick and reject flags. Once you have gone through all your photos and marked some as picks and others as rejects, choosing the Refine Photos menu item does these three things:

• Sets all unflagged photos to Rejects
  
• Sets all Picks to unflagged
  
• Turns on unflagged and pick filters, so that rejects disappear from view

The idea is to help you narrow down an edit. Let's say you're looking for one good photo. Or 10. First go through your photos and mark the best shots (assuming there are more than 10). Then choose Refine Photos. This sets all the unflagged photos to reject status, and hides them using the filter. It also sets the photos flagged with the Pick flag back to unflagged.... so that you can repeat the process. Now go back through them again... and pick your best ones out of this "refined" group. Then choose Refine Photos again. Until you're down to 10. Or whatever your target is.  This feature can work in conjunction with the "Delete Rejected Photos" command (Command-Delete).... if you wish to actually remove the rejected photos from disk. 

In episode #35, George chats with Lightroom engineer Eric Scouten:

This podcast was recorded on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at Adobe offices in Seattle, WA. Eric sits down with George to have a conversation about Lightroom 1.0, improvements in 1.1, about Eric’s photography, and how his personal methods of photo organization have played a role in the development of Lightroom’s database strategy.

Both podcasts, as well as previous editions, are available via George's iDisk.

July 6, 2007

Slimbox & more Flash galleries for Lightroom

Matthew Campagna, a kindergarten teacher in South Korea, has modified the slick, lightweight (7kb), JavaScript-powered Slimbox Web gallery for Lightroom, offering it as a free download from his site.  Here's a sample gallery generated using the template.  The site features installation instructions (straightforward once you know the file path, but something I'd like to make one-click easy in the future), as well as details on hacking the template for more options. [Via Richard Earney of Inside-Lightroom.com]

Elsewhere, LightroomGalleries.com is devoted to just what you'd imagine.  I'm enjoying the LRG FlashFlex gallery.  It has some wonky qualities, and I'm not sure what purpose the draggability of images is supposed to serve, but fortunately it's possible to tweak these parameters inside Lightroom (e.g. disabling dragging).  Use the installation instructions mentioned above to find the path to your templates folder. [Via]

If you know of other good Lightroom templates, please let me know.

July 5, 2007

Going Lightroom -> iPhone

James Duncan Davidson has figured out an easy way to carry one's photo selects around on an iPhone: By setting up a synched folder in iTunes (which manages what goes onto the phone), you can export JPEGs from Lightroom and have them automatically appear on the phone.  By saving an export preset, you can make this a one-click operation.  More info is in James's post. [Via]

As I remain stuck on my phone's activation screen (I'm starting to think that the AT&T logo is some kind of ball gag), I can't confirm the steps myself, but they sound straightforward.  Also, if you're a Photoshop Elements on Windows, you can synch easily; Apple shares the details here.

June 30, 2007

More spray, less pray with Lightroom 1.1

I'll admit that one of the features I never really understood in Lightroom 1.0 was the Keyword Stamper tool.  It seemed vaguely interesting, but I never took the time to grok its ins and outs.

No matter: the tool has now beem morphed into something that looks more powerful and more comprehensible: the metadata-centric Painter tool.  This quick video from Layers magazine demonstrates how to use the tool to paint keywords, develop settings (nice!), or other metadata onto one or more images just by clicking and dragging.  Martin Evening goes into more depth on LightroomNews. [Via]

June 29, 2007

Great new Flash galleries for Lightroom

Here's a little Friday afternoon treat: the Lightroom team has been working with Felix Turner, creator of the excellent Airtight Flash galleries, to integrate support for the galleries.  Lightroom engineer Andy Rahn has posted three gallery templates on the LR team blog, along with installation instructions.  Here are examples I generated using each one:

• SimpleViewer
• PostcardViewer
• AutoViewer

What's really sweet is the way the Adobe Flash Player is directly integrated into Lightroom, so that as you adjust the specific parameters for each gallery (image size, colors, number of rows/columns, etc.), you see the results immediately. With other apps you'd need to set parameters, export, review the results in a browser, go back to the authoring tool, tweak, and so on.

I think this is a sign of more good things to come, and if you're a Flash developer who's like to integrate with Lightroom, drop me a line.  We'll work on updating the galleries to run in the new Bridge-based Adobe Media Gallery (which uses the same engine) as well.  To use PostcardViewer directly from Photoshop, see previous.

June 26, 2007

Lightroom 1.1 now available

I'm delighted to report that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1, a free update that adds numerous feature enhancements while squashing bugs, is available for download* from Adobe.com (Mac|Win).  Besides adding the sharpening and clarity controls that debuted in Camera Raw 4.1, Lightroom 1.1 adds a ton of polish around catalog management, keywording, easier metadata synching, and more.

There's too much to list here, so check out LightroomNews for a run-down of what's new, or see the product ReadMe file (PDF).  LightroomNews plans an eight-part series covering the update, starting with a terrifically detailed overview of new menu items here.  Lots of other good info will be forthcoming on the Lightroom team blog and elsewhere.  I'll try to update this post & subsequent ones as resources become available.  In the meantime, you're welcome to suggest links via the comments.  

*The English update is available now; French, German, and Japanese editions are expected shortly.

June 19, 2007

CS3 news: "Summer of Adobe" & more

Here's a quick round-up of good Photoshop, Bridge, and Lightroom-related info I've seen lately:

• Photographer & author Martin Evening has shared a wealth of content from his new book, Photoshop CS3 for Photographers.
• Dingbat Magazine offers a deep dive across the whole CS3 line in their Summer of Adobe feature.
• Ben Long talks about a subtle, but useful, new feature of Bridge CS3: the ability to create and edit metadata templates easily, then apply these to your images.
• Dave Story and Kevin Connor, the guys who head up Photoshop engineering and product management respectively (and thus who cut my checks), sat down with Derrick Story to talk about Photoshop & Lightroom development in a pair of podcasts.
• The folks at Total Training have been making great video content for years.  They're now moving their library online.
• To streamline your photo importing, check out Julieanne Kost's video on how to optimize the process using Lightroom.
  

May 23, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #31: Develop module basics

Continuing his focus on short, practical video tutorials, Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine has posted a new Lightroom podcast. This installment demonstrates the basics of working with Lightroom's Develop module. George writes,

This mini-tutorial podcast is the second in a series that will cover bite-sized tips and techniques designed to help you get the most out of Lightroom. The focus of this series will concentrate primarily on basic color correction techniques using the Develop module, but will also touch on many other parts of the application. This tutorial shows the basics of using the Develop module to make corrections to a slightly underexposed photo.

The podcast is available via George's iDisk (look for “20070512 Tutorial Podcast - Develop Module Basics”). It's also available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom"), and via the Lightroom Podcasts RSS feed.

Tips on Lightroom Flash galleries

If you're interested in wringing the most out of Lightroom's Flash-based Web galleries, check out the Bluefire Blog.  It's written and maintained by the guys at Bluefire, the Web developers Adobe hired to build the galleries.  They get down to the nuts and bolts of how the galleries work, revealing hidden settings and more.  Note that you can find the open-source gallery code on opensource.adobe.com.

Flash galleries are a big interest of mine, and I hope to have some more good news to share on this front soon.  Stay tuned. [Related: Flash gallery hook-up for Photoshop.]

May 6, 2007

Lightroom, as rendered by Flex

Wow--now here's something you don't see every day: Adobe Flex used to simulate Adobe Lightroom. Juan Sanchez of ScaleNine was inspired to create a skin for Flex (Adobe's framework for creating Flash applications), resulting in a Flash app that walks and quacks a lot like Lightroom (at least in basic functionality; image browsing, manipulation, etc. aren't hooked up).  Source code is downloadable from the homepage.  A few thoughts spring to mind:

• Last summer Photoshop engineer Pete Falco hooked up a Photoshop plug-in that displayed 3D in an OpenGL window that was surrounded by Flash UI that looked like Lightroom; trippy.
• Lightroom has the Flash Player embedded, so I can imagine someone developing UI bits for Lightroom using Flash/Flex (maybe not the most direct way to go, but seemingly possible).
• Now, what was that about a hosted Photoshop? :-)

[Via Tom Hogarty]

April 26, 2007

Lightroom $199 through Monday, $299 thereafter

April 20, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #30: Compare View & Quick Develop

Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine is switching gears a bit in his latest Lightroom Podcast.  He's posted a video "mini-tutorial showing you how the Quick Develop Panel can help you make a snap correction in the middle of an edit using Compare View, without breaking your concentration or workflow." George writes,

This mini-tutorial podcast is the first in a new series that will cover bite-sized tips and techniques designed to help you get the most out of Lightroom. The focus of this series will mostly concentrate on basic color correction techniques using the Develop module, but will also touch on many other parts of the application. This first tutorial shows the basics of using the Compare View to edit a small group of pictures to “find the best shot,” and how to use the Quick Develop Panel during the edit.

The podcast is available via George's iDisk (look for “20070418 Tutorial Podcast - Compare View + QD”).  It's also available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom"), and via the Lightroom Podcasts RSS feed.

April 17, 2007

New guide: Getting Started in Lightroom

Last year Adobe released a series of digital photography guides to great acclaim from the photographic community.  Lots of folks chimed in with requests for more of the same, so I'm glad to report that a new 41-page title, Getting Started in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, is available as a free PDF download.  The high-res version is illustrated with 65MB (!) of beautiful images, while the lower-res version is around 1/10th the size. [Via]

April 1, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #29: Adobe raw team + Jeff Schewe

This podcast was recorded on Friday March 16, 2007, at  the home of Ruth and Thomas Knoll in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Zalman Stern, Mark Hamburg, Michael Jonsson, Thomas Knoll and Jeff Schewe ramble all over the place, discussing the upcoming ACR 4.0, compatibility with XMP and Lightroom raw controls, noise reduction, sharpening, the non-destructive editing model, shooting in dusty environments, etc. The team also spends a bit of time discussing the ins-and-outs of the raw + JPEG workflow, and why Lightroom does not support it... yet.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "20070316 Podcast - Raw Engineering + Jeff Schewe"). It'll also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

March 14, 2007

Update on building Lightroom HTML templates

March 13, 2007

Free Lightroom presets for download

onOne product manager Mike Wong has some good news to share: the company has teamed up with author Jack Davis to offer a set of 85 develop presets for Lightroom, and these are now available as a free download.  (The installer copies the files to the correct location.)  onOne offers info on how to use the presets, though I'm having fun here just messing around with the black & white settings.  Thanks to Jack, Mike, & co. for making these available to the community.

March 11, 2007

GPS in cameras, Flash, Lightroom

• Jobo AG has announced photoGPS, a $149 device that sits in the hot shoe (i.e. the mounting point for a flash) of a digital SLR. Post-processing software synchronizes data captured by the device with the corresponding images. [Via Gunar Penikis]
• This reminds me of the little Sony GPS carabiner-doohickus announced last year, as well as a subtle Lightroom feature: if your image contains GPS coordinates, you can click the Lightroom Metadata panel to reveal the location via Google Maps. Here's a screenshot (with old UI) to demonstrate.
• Photoshop Elements is getting into the game with its Flash-powered "Map Your Memories" feature.  "If you're GPS-enabled," says CNET, "Photoshop Elements can automatically use the GPS info to populate the map with photos." [Via John Lin]
• The Adobe-sponsored Tour of California put in-camera GPS + Flash/Flex to good use, as you can see in this simulation.  Michael Gough writes, "We geo-located all the photos from the event using a device that attaches to high-end Nikon cameras."
  

March 7, 2007

A nice pile o' Lightroom raves

Scott Kelby has done a great job collecting tons of raves (and a few dings) about Lightroom: check 'em out.  Elsewhere, Scott posted a lovely panorama of El Capitan, shot in recent days and stitched together in Photoshop CS3 (see notes).  But c'mon, Scott--no Zoomify?  Let's see that detail. ;-)

February 20, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #28: Phil Clevenger, Grace Kim and Mark Hamburg

"I think pretty much any software has a personality," says Mark Hamburg, "but a lot of times it's something that one sort of stumbles into, and people don't think about that as part of the design process. When I started the project, I wanted to do something that was more visually interesting, for example, than Photoshop, and tried some directions in that regard. And I did bad KPT imitations."

Mark sat down with Lightroom UI designer Phil Clevenger, user researcher Grace Kim, and photography evangelist George Jardine on Dec. 11th.  George writes,

In this podcast, we take a retrospective look at the entire design process of Shadowland, and how personality played a role in the final look and feel of the software. Phil discusses the efforts that went into designing Shadowland to help keep your photography the focus of attention, and visually more important on the screen than the user interface.

"I think the exercise really brought to light people's implicit assumptions about what they thought the Shadowland personality was, or should be. Things that were kind of hard to articulate, but people just had them as working assumptions." - Grace Kim

"While people in different parts of the country may have different notions of what sleek or stylish may mean, I think everybody knows what butter is." - Phil "Butter" Clevenger

February 18, 2007

Lightroom is here!

I'm delighted to say that after a year's worth of public testing, discussion, and refinement, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is now shipping (see the newly created Adobe PR blog for the press release, etc.).  Congratulations to the team & to all the photographers who have made this application what it is!  As a reader of this blog, you don't need me to belabor the details, so let me point out just a few things:

• You can grab a 30-day tryout version of the shipping product for Mac & Windows.  (The earlier Beta 4 build times out at the end of February, so you might want to grab the shipping version sooner rather than later.)
• You can order the product for $199 ($299 after April 30).
• The product page features roughly 2 minutes of great testimonials from pro photographers, as well as profiles of Doug Menuez, Sarah Silver, and Sye Williams.
• The product pages also include plenty of detail on the application (e.g. its tight integration with Photoshop).

In addition, Adobe Camera Raw 3.7, together with an updated DNG Converter, is available for download (Windows | Mac).  In addition to bringing compatibility with settings created in Lightroom, ACR now supports more than 150 cameras, including the Nikon D40 and the Pentax K10D.  And though the cameras don't appear on the official compatibility list, Phase One shooters will be happy to know that Lightroom and ACR now (unofficially) support a number of P1 cameras (H20, H25, P20, P21, P25, P30, & P45), and Fuji customers have preliminary support for the S5.

So, with that, thanks again for helping to guide & craft Lightroom over this past year, and happy shooting!

February 16, 2007

How Lightroom & Warcraft are related, more

The blog since1968.com has posted the second part of its interview with Mark Hamburg, Adobe software architect & prime mover behind Adobe Lightroom.  The interview discusses challenges behind building a cross-platform application; why the team elected to build first on the Mac; Lightroom's distant connection to Warcraft (the Lua scripting language); and more.  [In case you missed it, see also part 1.]

February 14, 2007

More great Lightroom resources

As we get close to really, truly shipping Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (cue X-Wing voice: "Stay on tar-get, stay on tar-get..."), lots of good resources are emerging.  Three have popped up in recent days:

• Mike Johnston of The Online Photographer rounds up new Lightroom titles from Martin Evening, Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, Tim Grey, Mikkel Aaland, and John Beardsworth, with links to buy each online.
• Matt K. has also created LightroomKillerTips.com, which he updates frequently with video clips, customer spotlights, and more. (Here's the RSS feed.)
• Michael Tapes of RawWorkflow.com has posted a series of free videos.  He writes, "We also offer a higher res DVD-ROM for $10.95 (inc US shipping) with the identical content, but a larger window size and higher quality video, although our streaming video is quite spectacular, if I say so myself!"

I'm sure I'm misssing/forgetting some great resources, so please feel free to add them via the comments (and see previous for more).

Lightroom Podcast #27: Maki Kawakita

Kabuki-influenced fashion photography is on hand in the latest Lightroom podcast. Adobe evangelist George Jardine recently spoke with Maki Kawakita in NYC about her life and work. He writes,

In this podcast, Maki talks about how her background in Japanese dance and theater has inspired the dramatic look of her colorful fashion photography. Maki currently works and lives in New York City. She also shoots assignments and has exhibitions of her artwork in both Europe and Japan.

This “video” podcast includes photographs created by Maki. It can be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you've downloaded it from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, it can be transferred to a Video iPod, and viewed that way as well. When viewing it on an iPod, be sure to access the video from the top-level Video menu (then “Movies” or “Video Podcasts”.... depending upon how you downloaded it), and NOT from the top-level Music menu. If you access it from the Music menu, you will not see all of the photographs.

Finally, it’s possible that only the audio track will be heard on devices other than Apple Video iPods, and the photographs will not be seen.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "1215 Podcast - Maki Kawakita"). It'll also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.  You can find an additional overview of Maki's work on PDN Online. (Something tells me that unlike Hillary Duff & Missy Eliott, we won't see Gwyneth Paltrow sit for a head-in-a-box portrait.)

February 12, 2007

Killing 'em softly with Bridge, Lightroom

I take a ton of photos, most of which turn out to be quite mediocre. Until now I've been using the Delete key in Bridge to blow away the rejects & move on to the next photo in line. That works well enough, but the move is kind of severe, throwing your photo into the trash. It would be nice if there were a way to "soft delete" images--flagging them for the dead wagon, but not yet moving them to the trash. So, I'm glad to say that both the new version of Bridge (available on Labs) and Lightroom (shipping very shortly) offer methods for doing this:

• When you hit the Delete key in Bridge CS3, you'll get the option to mark an image as a reject. If you choose this option, hitting Delete will mark your image with a red "Reject" label. You can then choose to hide (or show only) the rejects via the new Filter panel. Here's a screenshot of both. You can remove the rejectedness of an image by marking it No Rating (via the Label menu, or via Cmd-0/Ctrl-0).
• Lightroom lets you reject an image by hitting X while in the Library module.  To reject it and move to the next in line, hit Shift-X.  (The same convention works for setting a Pick--hit P and Shift-P.)  And from the bottom of the Library window you can click the flag icons to hide the rejects, so that they disappear when you flag them as such.  Hitting Cmd-Delete/Ctrl-Delete will then offer to remove the files from the Lightoom database, or to move them to the trash.  Note: I don't know how much of this stuff is wired up in Beta 4 of Lightroom, but it'll be working as described in v1.0.
  

February 4, 2007

Lightroom News launches, plus video training

The creative guys behind Photoshop News have now launched a new site, Lightroom-News.com. Martin Evening will be sharing duties as Editor in Chief with Jeff Schewe. Contributing Editors are photographers Ian Lyons, Sean McCormack, Seth Resnick & Andrew Rodney.

In related news, Jeff & Michael Reichmann have announced the availability of a 4.5-hour video training series for Lightroom.  For 12 bucks now (15 after Feb. 25), you can start watching the first installment today; the rest will be made available over the next few weeks.  It promises to be a great intro to the app.

[In unrelated news, go Bears!  (Okay, it's related insofar as Jeff is from Chicago.)  Though I hail from Illinois, I find myself in Amsterdam, watching the show in German--hosted, rather inexplicably, by Boris Becker (I'm listening for "ääh, ääh") & featuring Vitali Klitschko.  But I'm not complaining. :-)]

February 2, 2007

NYT Lightroom quote o' the day

"The new Photoshop Lightroom is a study in simplicity and elegance." -- Ian Austen, New York Times

As Phil Clevenger, Lightroom UI designer, says, "Yeah, we'll take that from the New York Times any day!" :-)

January 29, 2007

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 goes primetime

After a tremendously successful beta program that saw more than 1.4 million downloads from Adobe Labs, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 has been officially announced.  The press release lists a number of new features and improvements added since the most recent beta drop, and a new product page includes a tour and more details.

Some details:

• Lightroom 1.0 will be sold for $299 USD.  We recognize the investment users have made in Adobe tools, including the time invested by the more than 500,000 people who downloaded the beta.  To say thanks, Adobe will be offering a one time introductory price of $199 that ends April 30th.
• It will not be bundled or packaged with Photoshop CS3 or the Creative Suite.
• French and German versions of Lightroom 1.0 will be available at the end of February.  Introductory price of 174 Euros until June 28th, after which the standard pricing 249 Euros.
• A Japanese version will be available at the end of March.  Introductory pricing of 22,000 Yen runs until July 23rd, after which the app costs 32,000 Yen.

Also, Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty reports that the new version includes preliminary support for PhaseOne camera backs.

In conjunction with the release, the NAPP has announced a new Lightroom learning center, and I see that Uwe Steinmueller has posted a review.  I'll try to link to additional resources as I get time online.  Feel free to list good ones you find via the comments.

January 7, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #26: Jerry Uelsmann & Maggie Taylor

“There is an inherent believability that photography has, and we've been conditioned from a very youthful age to believe in images. So there is a wonderful sort of psychological dissonance that occurs when you're seeing these images where all the detail is there, but the mystery remains, and that's what I personally find attractive,” says groundbreaking photographer Jerry Uelsmann.   “I feel that I have a greater appreciation now because of the digital revolution that has occurred. Manipulated images are far more readily accepted as a viable form.”

Jerry and his wife, artist Maggie Taylor, sat down for a chat with George Jardine just before Chirstmas in their Gainesville, FL home.  George writes,

We talk about the ways in which their work is similar, how it differs, and how fantasy, dreams and technique all play a role in their creative pursuits. In the process, we touch on their sources of inspiration, and the thinking behind their choices of materials and technique. “The subject matter I'm interested in is just everyday life," says Maggie. "Things that you encounter everyday, whether these are outdoors when you're working in the garden, or something you see on the TV everyday. That becomes are a part of our subject matter for both of us. You're just working from your own everyday emotional interaction with things."

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "1220 Podcast - Maggie Taylor and Jerry Uelsmann"). It'll also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.  A brief bio of Jerry is on Wikipedia.

January 6, 2007

New Lightroom magazine to launch

The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (the folks behind the excellent Photoshop User Magazine, Photoshop TV, and more) have announced Darkroom Magazine, a new title focusing on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  Darkroom is due to be published 8 times a year, and editor Scott Kelby writes, "Here's the best news: As a NAPP member, you'll get each issue of this new magazine for free along with your regular Photoshop User magazine. The public will be able to buy a subscription to Darkroom, but only the downloadable online version---not the printed version."  I can't wait to check it out.

January 5, 2007

Lightroom Podcast #25: Mark Hamburg & Phil Clevenger

Phil and Mark sit down with George to talk about Phil's role on the team and the user interface that he's designed for Lightroom. The conversation quickly begins to wander and turn (as these conversations frequently do take on a life of their own...) to some of the broader questions surrounding Lightroom, and ends up touching on the core story and original vision for the project. This podcast also includes a description by Mark of some of his original thinking behind Lightroom's modular design.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "1127 Podcast - Phil Clevenger and Mark Hamburg"). It's also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

December 21, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #24: Thomas Knoll, Mark Hamburg, and Zalman Stern

The Lightroom podcast series continues to draw a great response, and in the latest installment, George Jardine sits down with raw processing heavy hitters Mark Hamburg, Zalman Stern, and Thomas Knoll.  They talk about what's new (and yet to come) in Lightroom and Camera Raw, analytical vs. visual techniques, Bridge vs. Lightroom, skin tone protection in Vibrance--oh, and their desire for groupies.  George writes,

This podcast was recorded Wednesday, December 6th 2006, at Adobe Systems Headquarters in San Jose, CA. Now that the raw controls in Lightroom's develop module have finally settled down into a state that they will mostly likely ship in.... the Adobe Camera Raw team sits down with George Jardine, and takes a look back at what led us here, and forward to what might come next.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "1206 Podcast - Mark Hamburg - Zalman Stern and Thomas Knoll"). It's also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

December 6, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #23: Jay Maisel & Richard Benson

Adobe Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine is kicking his podcasting game up a notch, now adding video content. On Monday Oct. 30th George visited Richard Benson’s home in Newport, Rhode Island, where he spoke with Richard and Jay Maisel about Richard’s latest work with inkjet printers. George writes,

This “video” podcast includes photos taken by Richard, as well as photos documenting the occasion taken by both myself and by Thomas Palmer. It can be viewed by downloading it directly into iTunes (if you are accessing it by subscribing via the Music Store), or by copying it into iTunes on either a Mac or a PC (if you’ve downloaded it from my iDisk). Once copied into iTunes, it can be transferred to a Video iPod, and viewed that way as well. When viewing it on an iPod, be sure to access the video from the Video menu (then “Movies” or “Video Podcasts”…. depending upon how you downloaded it), and NOT from the Music menu. If you access it from the Music menu, you will not see the photographs.

November 24, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #21: Richard Benson, Thomas Palmer

I was amazed at the number of folks who approached our pod at the recent PhotoPlus Expo and said, "Hey, are we going to get more of those Lightroom podcasts soon?  I was really enjoying those."  After a busy fall, George Jardine is back in the saddle--or rather, the headphones--recording away.  Of the latest podcast, he writes:

This podcast was recorded on Monday October 30th 2006, at Richard Benson’s home in Newport, Rhode Island. Adobe Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine speaks to fine art printer and photographer Richard Benson and his printing partner, Thomas Palmer, while they recount many fascinating stories such as working on the Gilman Paper Company book, working with Irving Penn and Paul Strand, and many other luminaries.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "1030-1 Podcast - Richard Benson and Thomas Palmer"). It'll also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

November 6, 2006

New podcasts for Illustrator, Lightroom, Photoshop

• Illustrator pro Mordy Golding has uncapped PEN, the Vector Podcast.  Each episode is available in video & PDF form, from Mordy's blog as well as via iTunes. I've been using Illustrator for 10 years, and I just learned a brutally obscure but useful transformation tip from the latest episode.  Thanks, Lasso of Truth!
• The NAPP's Matt Kloskowski, familiar to many via his popular Photoshop Killer Tips (as well as Photoshop TV), last week introduced Lightroom Killer Tips, an ongoing series of short, useful video tutorials.
• Launched in September, Jan Kabili's Photoshop Online Video Podcast features step-by-step tutorials, chats with blogfatha Robert Scoble, and more.

Also, though they're not in podcast form, I wanted to mention that Ben Long has posted two excellent follow-ups to his overview on Using Photoshop Lightroom (mentioned previously): Editing and Output.

October 19, 2006

Show your photos in NYC via Lightroom

Adobe is showcasing photographers' work via the Lightroom Tell Your Story page. Galleries created using the Lightroom beta will be on display at the PhotoPlus Expo show in New York in early November, so if you're interested in showing your work, feel free to jump in. [Via]

By the way, the team released Lightroom Beta 4.1 today.  According to Tom Hogarty, the Lightroom Product Manager, this small update:

• Resolves external editor conflict
• Corrects export orientation for constrained portrait images
• Resolves missing image error with large web galleries
• Provides Photo Binder platform compatibility on optical media

Please see the release notes for a full list of updates and corrections.

Turning Japanese: Lightroom gets localized

Some months back, an enthusiastic Lightroom user couldn't wait for Adobe to create a localized version of the application, so he or she did the translations him- or herself.  Admirable as the effort was, I'm happy to report that there's now an official Japanese build of Lightroom available for download, and the Adobe Japan team has posted a wealth of screenshots and overviews.

In other Lightroom-related news, Ben Long has posted a great intro for getting started in Lightroom.  Grab the latest beta (if you haven't already) to follow along.

October 2, 2006

Lightroom Library module in depth

On the heels of his excellent overview of the Lightroom Develop module, author/photographer Martin Evening has posted an in-depth reveiw of the Library module. He discusses optimizing image libraries for performance and file size; exchanging shoots via the new concept of "photo binders"; renaming files; converting to DNG; and more. (By the way, Martin's Lightroom book is due from Peachpit around the end of the year.)

September 25, 2006

Lightroom Beta 4 has arrived

Beta 4 of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (note the new name) has arrived on Adobe Labs. This release incorporates a great deal of user feedback^* and is the first to offer feature parity between Mac (Universal since day 1) and Windows. Important changes include the following:

• Groundbreaking changes in the way tone curve adjustments are made and displayed, giving you the highest quality results in an interface that's easier to use than ever before. (See Martin Evening's excellent overview of the Develop module for more details.)
• More streamlined and elegant user interface - We've made several changes to the look and feel based on your feedback in the earlier beta releases.
• Customizable interface - You can now display only the controls you want to be visible.
• Precision white balance selection tool
• Facility to easily rename and convert files to DNG after they've been imported to the Lightroom library
• Increased interaction between Lightroom library organizational structure and the underlying file system
• Filter and search presets to more quickly find the photographs you want
• Better performance and improved interface for the Web module features
• Support for the Nikon D2Xs and Sony A100, as well as preliminary support for the Canon Digital Rebel XTi (400D) and Nikon D80
• Develop control improvements based on community feedback, including comments from the Pixmantec user community (welcome!)

PhotoshopNews carries a more detailed list of new features and known issues as well as the the press release, and the Labs site hosts galleries from Lightroom users. Let us know what you think!

^* 325,000 downloaders & 3,400 participants in the Lightroom forum have provided a wealth of good info.

September 14, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #21: Nevada Wier

"I'm looking to expand a photographic vision, beyond the obvious, into the edge of light, into the edge of seeing, in a way into the edge of my imagination. Because intuition and imagination are such a big part of photography," says photographer Nevada Wier in her conversation with George Jardine. George writes,

This podcast was recorded on Friday May 5th 2006, at the Santa Fe Workshop. Adobe Lightroom's Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine speaks with travel photographer Nevada Wier about how she got started traveling and photographing in exotic locations. Nevada discusses in depth, the patience, waiting and effort that's often required to capture photos that "are all mine", as well as camera techniques that create "more complicated images that give a sense of the place".

This enhanced podcast includes photos taken by Nevada, and they can be viewed on Photo and Video iPods. Only the audio track will be heard on other devices.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0505-2 Podcast - Nevada Wier"). It'll also be available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

September 12, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #20: Michael Clark

"I'm a climber, and you kind of have to be to photograph the rock climbing, because you have to have the skills to get above the climber, to get in position with them, and to hang out with them
on these big walls so that you're comfortable," says photograph Michael Clark. George Jardine interviewed Michael earlier this year and writes,

This podcast was recorded on Friday May 5th 2006, at the Santa Fe Workshop. Adobe Lightroom's Pro Photography Evangelist George Jardine speaks with extreme sports photographer Michael Clark. This enhanced podcast includes photographs from Michael Clark's exciting portfolio of climbing, mountain biking, and other extreme sports. [Update: George notes that Michael's photography has been featured in the the ASMP's "Best Of" issue.]
This enhanced podcast includes photos taken by Michael, and they can be viewed on Photo and Video iPods. Only the audio track will be heard on other devices.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0505-1 Podcast - Michael Clark"). It's also available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

September 9, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #19: John McDermott

“It’s hard for me to imagine eating anything that I’ve seen on a postcard. And they (the puffins) are very cute, and so I prefer to just let them carry on… in the wild, without being anybody’s dinner,” says John McDermott in the latest Lightroom Iceland podcast. George Jardine writes,

San Francisco photographer John McDermott takes us through a detailed tour of his thinking on “not having a hard agenda”, and being open to “pretty much whatever we found along the way”. He also drops several hints indicating that he was not altogether comfortable with “our intrusive presence” in Iceland…. as a handful of photographers would sometimes be swarming over the various subjects. He describes how this led him to sometimes wait just a bit to find and set up his shot, (as with Mr. Hildibrandsson, the “Shark Man”) a strategy that definitely helps him capture images that are unique amongst all those taken during the event.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0803-3 Podcast - John McDermott"). It's also available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

September 4, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #18: Maggie Hallahan

“It’s always light, we’re always shooting, it’s catnaps two or three hours here, two or three hours there, so it’s all merging together. It’s a different kind of rhythm,” says Maggie Hallahan in the podcast she recorded with George Jardine during the Lightroom Iceland adventure. George writes,

San Francisco photographer Maggie Hallahan talks about her personal technique for approaching candids while shooting in another country, the editorial style she uses for storytelling with photography, and the variety of interesting subjects she found in Iceland. Maggie gives us a glimpse into her camera technique, describing some of the lighting and bracketing techniques she employed during the trip.

This enhanced podcast includes photos taken by Maggie in Iceland, and they can be viewed on Photo and Video iPods. Only the audio track will be heard on other devices.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0802 Podcast - Maggie Hallahan"). It's also available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

August 21, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #17: Richard Morgenstein

During the Iceland adventure George Jardine sat down with photographer Richard Morgenstein to talk about the experience. Because this is an enhanced podcast, you can view images in iTunes as the talk progresses (here's a screenshot)--very cool. George writes,

Richard talks about the weather in Iceland, the roads, and the “space” he’s found here in Iceland. He walks us through everything from the big views to the small views, and gives us a glimpse into how he found exciting compositional material everywhere in the objects and landscapes of Iceland.

Richard also discusses how the landscape interacts with the weather, and what he was able to capture using various lighting, focus and B&W techniques.

This “enhanced” podcast includes photos taken by Richard in Iceland, and they can be viewed on Photo and Video iPods. Only the audio track will be heard on other devices. I apologize for the minor audio difficulties near the end of this interview.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0803-2 Podcast"). It's also available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

August 14, 2006

Lightroom Podapalooza: #14, 15, & 16

22 hours of light each day = plenty of time for chewing the fat with photographers, and George Jardine has been uploading the fruits of his labors to his iDisk. New podcasts (each enhanced to display pictures on photo- or video-enabled iPod) include the following:

#14: Peter Krogh
Peter calls the Lightroom Iceland Adventure the “lack of sleep adventure”, not only because of the ultra-long daylight shooting hours, but because of the energy the group has found for the project. Peter talks to us about his personal expectations for capturing pictures that appeal to him, and leads us through the photographs he’s captured during the long week.

#15: John Isaac
John talks about how Iceland was still a rare treat, after photographing in over 100 countries during his illustrious career as a photographer with the United Nations. He talks about the landscape, the color, and the opportunities to study the intricate visual details of this fascinating country.

#16: Martin Sundberg
Martin talks about the photographs he’s captured here in Iceland, and how his expectation for what he would encounter was a bit different from what he actually found. We talk about the weather, the geothermal aspect of the environment, and how that plays a key role in the types of pictures he was able to capture.

The podcasts are also available via the iTunes store (search for "Lightroom") and via the Lightroom RSS feed.

August 13, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #13: Derrick Story

In episode 13, Derrick sums up what the group learned on the Adobe Lightroom Iceland Adventure project. George J. writes,

Derrick talks about the thinking behind the Iceland Adventure project, and the idea of "total immersion" for a group of very talented professional photographers. The project provided total immersion not only in the photo-rich environment of Iceland, but also in the Lightroom experience, and we discuss how that experience would work for both the book and for the beta development effort.

Derrick points to some of the specific features in Lightroom that he found invaluable during the trip, as well as talking about some of the areas where the program needs improvement. We wrap it up with some detail on how the experience would feed back into the development effort and ultimately help make Lightroom a better product for photographers.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0809 Podcast"). It's also available via the Lightroom podcasts RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

August 7, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #12: Mikkel Aaland

In the latest installment, photographer & author Mikkel Aaland discusses the Adobe Lightroom Iceland Adventure project. George Jardine writes,

This podcast was recorded Saturday, August 5th 2006, in Raykjavik, Iceland. Now that the Adventure is drawing to a close, Mikkel reflects back on the genesis of the project and the fantastic events of the week. We touch on our great luck with the weather, the fantastic landscape of Iceland, and the working conditions with a beta software product. Mikkel looks forward to incorporating the photographs that were taken by 9 great professional photographers this week into a new book about Lightroom that will be published by O’Reilly.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0805-1 Podcast"). It should also be available shortly via this RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

August 6, 2006

GPS metadata for the masses? (+ a secret Lightroom feature)

Sony has announced a funky little GPS device that promises to stamp your photos with geographic coordinates. The 2-ounce tracker clips to a belt or backpack & uses image timestamps to know where shots were taken. Looks like a nice step forward, though I'd love to see this capability built right into cameras as a simple, affordable option. [Via Bryan Hughes]

This widget reminds me of a subtle but cool feature of Adobe Lightroom: if your image contains GPS coordinates, you can click the Lightroom Metadata panel to reveal the location via Google Maps. I did a quick screenshot to demonstrate.

And hey, speaking of Lightroom, the Iceland photo squad has posted Gallery 3 of their images.

August 2, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #11: Bill Atkinson & Michael Reichmann

Bill Atkinson (the father of MacPaint, among other accomplishments) and expert photographer Michael Reichmann check in from Iceland in the latest Lightroom podcast. George Jardine writes,

These two very accomplished photographers shed some light on the spectacular environment for photography here in Iceland. This podcast was recorded Tuesday, August 1st 2006, in Nesbud, Iceland. Michael and Bill are interviewed as part of a group of 12 photographers that are here to work with the Adobe Lightroom team on Mikkel Aaland's upcoming Lightroom book project.

While listening, you can peruse the great images these guys have been taking. The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0801 Podcast"). It should also be available shortly via this RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

August 1, 2006

Lightroom Iceland Adventure is underway

The photographers of the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop Adventure have arrived in Iceland and have hit the ground shooting. They're blogging up a storm, and they've posted some beautiful images in a first photo gallery (made with that new Web gallery engine we're developing). Look for more good stories, tips, and galleries to follow.

July 26, 2006

100,000+ Lightroom downloads in 5 days

Okay, it's a little immodest to keep mentioning these stats, but I'm pleased to report that Adobe Lightroom Beta 3 for Windows was downloaded more than 100,000 times in the first five days of availability on Adobe Labs. Add that to the quarter-million+ Mac downloads already recorded, and the product is off to a terrific start. Lots of work remains to be done, but the photographic community's response keeps blowing past our expectations. Thanks to everybody for your interest & feedback so far.

July 24, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #10: Pixmantec + Adobe

In the latest Lightroom podcast, Adobe Raw team members Mark Hamburg, Zalman Stern, and Thomas Knoll welcome Pixmantec co-founder Michael Jonsson to San José, and they kick around some ideas about code integration. George Jardine writes,

This podcast was recorded Wednesday, July 12th 2006, at Adobe Systems Headquarters in San Jose, CA. In this discussion, we talk about the differences between ACR, Lightroom and Raw Shooter raw processing, and explore the best strategies for making the most of the newly expanded team.

The podcast is available as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0712 Podcast"). It should also be available shortly via this RSS feed, and by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes.

July 21, 2006

Next-gen Web galleries: XSLT, Flash, & CSS for all

More…

July 18, 2006

Lightroom beta for Windows is here!

By very popular demand^*, Adobe has posted the first publicly available version of Lightroom for Windows on Adobe Labs. Swing by the product page to snag a copy of Adobe's new pro photography workflow application. A few notes:

• There is no update for the Mac beta program at the moment. The current Mac version is Beta 3, released in June.
  
• The Windows beta will be labeled Beta 3 but is not perfectly in sync with the current Mac build (no Web Module, Identity Plates or ability to add music to slideshows just yet). There's also plenty of performance optimization left to do (and on the Mac as well, for that matter).
  
• The Mac and Windows feature sets will converge before shipping the product.
  
• If you have more questions, check out the Lightroom beta FAQ, or see Jeff Schewe's in-depth coverage on PhotoshopNews.com.
  

And with that, have at it! As always, your input will be critical in shaping Lightroom before the launch of the 1.0 version, so we look forward to seeing you on the product forum (linked from the main page).

^* I'm told that some 70,000 Windows users signed up in advance to receive notification of this launch.

July 13, 2006

Keepin' it frosty, Lightroom-style

Off to the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow, a group of photographers are headed to Iceland for the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop Adventure 2006. The group will crisscross the country for a week, working to capture its natural beauty with the aid of Lightroom, Photoshop, and 22 hours of sunlight per day. The Photoshop team's native Icelander Addy Roff will be on hand to help shepherd the group around, and George Jardine will have mic in hand to capture wayward sheep-riding podcast-fodder.

On they sweep with threshing oar^*,
J.

[ ^* I'm sure the prospect of my continuously belting out "Immigrant Song" ensured that I'd be staying Stateside for this one. ;-)]

Lightroom Podcast #9: Next-gen Web galleries & more

In the latest installment, George Jardine puts the thumbscrews to--er, talks nicely with--Lightroom engineers Kevin Tieskoetter and Andy Rahn about where things stand with Print, Web and Slideshow. George writes,

This podcast was recorded Wednesday, June 21st 2006, in the Shoreview Minnesota office of Adobe Systems. George, Kevin and Andy talk about some of the features of the Print Module. We also touch on what's great, and what's still missing there, color management in the various modules, Web output, slideshows, and a host of other topics in this casual conversation. For folks who want to dive into customizing Lightroom's Web module templates, this conversation with Andy will be essential listening.

If you feel like geeking out about the Web gallery stuff in particular (XSLT, XHTML, etc.), jump ahead to the 25-minute mark or so. I've been talking to Andy, and we're working to post the authoring details soon, so stay tuned.

The podcast is available via this RSS feed, by searching for "Lightroom" in iTunes, or as an MP3 file via George's iDisk (under "0621 Podcast").

July 8, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #8: Color Geekery & Wry Observations

Recorded in the Ann Arbor, MI, home of Ruth and Thomas Knoll, the latest Lightroom conversation features color master Bruce Fraser, Adobe engineers Mark Hamburg, Thomas Knoll, and Zalman Stern, and photography evangelist George Jardine discussing color science, asset management, and selective editing in Lightroom--not to mention such esoteric bits as "BastardRGB," "creamy software," using Perforce for asset management (!), and "Trash with Extreme Prejudice." George writes,

In this discussion, we talk about color space choices made in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, tone curves, and colorimetric vs. perceptual mappings, before wandering off into a somewhat cynical look at more esoteric subjects such as software development at Adobe Systems, the role of image management in Lightroom, and other inconclusive ramblings. I probably would have edited much of this second half, but for the sake of honesty, I’ve included most of it. It serves to highlight how complicated many of the decisions are that have to be made when designing a new piece of software in a rapidly changing space, and I so think it actually adds quite a bit of value for listeners who wonder why we make the decisions we do.

June 20, 2006

Lightroom: 240,000 downloads and counting

Passing along a quick bit of good news: the Adobe Labs folks report that Lightroom has been downloaded more than 240,000 times since Beta 1 was posted earlier this year. The response from photographers has been tremendous, and these download numbers are Mac-only. As soon as we post a version for Windows (yes, we know--it is coming!), I expect download activity to go completely bananas. In the meantime, if you have a Mac handy & haven't done so already, grab Beta 3--fresh off the compiler & ready for action.

June 13, 2006

Lightroom Beta 3 now on Adobe Labs

The second major update to the Lightroom Public Beta is now available on Adobe Labs. This release remains Mac-only, but the Lightroom Beta for Windows will be available this summer and more public Betas are scheduled to follow with additional functionality.

Beta 3 for Mac includes the following updates:

1. Before and After views in Develop
2. History of Develop edits provided
3. Live preview of HTML/Flash web output in new Web Module
4. Auto Import or Hot Folder support
5. Better handling of PSD and TIFF files
6. Resolution control in Export
7. Additional straighten tool
8. Saving module settings with collections and shoots
9. Keyword import/export
10. User can specify a custom order for images in a collection or shoot
11. More options for filtering based on rating
12. Ability to not filter lists with search string/rating
13. Black point compensation in Print
14. Can specify Develop preset to apply during import

As always, we're eager to hear photographers' thoughts/rants/raves on what's needed in this professional workflow application. Click the Community tab on the Lightroom product page for links to the forums. Thanks in advance for your insights.

June 9, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #7: Microsoft's Tim Grey

Adobe's pro photography evangelist George Jardine recently headed north to meet with the folks at Microsoft and has posted a new recording. George writes,

This podcast was recorded May 26th, 2006, at Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, WA. In this podcast, we dig into Tim's role at Microsoft as the Director of Professional Photography Community. We also talk about the recent focus on the professional photographer's workflow at Microsoft, and what Microsoft is working on to make Windows a compelling platform for photography.

The podcast is available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom") and via this RSS feed.

June 5, 2006

New Lightroom resources: O'Reilly site; eBook

O'Reilly has launched Inside Adobe Lightroom, a site devoted to Adobe's newest pro photography application. Resources include a 22-page booklet from photographer Ken Milburn, an audio interview with Adobe evangelist Julieanne Kost, and tips blogged by author Derrick Story. [Via]

Elsewhere, George Mann of dpmac.com is creating a downloadable Lightroom eBook. He's also posting daily installments from the series in his Adobe Digital Photography Workflow section.

May 16, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #6: Cool splash screen names, unite!

"Seetharaman Narayanan" isn't the only great-sounding name to grace the Photoshop splash screen over the years, and now Zalman Stern (who ported PS 2.5 to PowerPC, then left, started a company, and helped create Macromedia Contribute) has found his way back home. Both engineers joined their boss Dave Story plus George Jardine & Jeff Schewe to chat recently. George writes,

Assembling a cast of some of Adobe's most interesting and talented engineers, this podcast attempts to crack the lid, if only just a little bit, and allow you a peek into some of the issues and thinking around our cross-platform development. We've included Zalman Stern, who has worked in the bowels of Photoshop code and just a few other world-class desktop applications... now working on Adobe Camera Raw; Seetharaman Narayanan, who has been crafting some of Adobe's most ambitious cross-platform code for well over a decade; Dave Story, our VP of Engineering, who is training our focus on the big picture, to keep us firmly planted as leaders in the industry as we move into the 21st Century of application development; and finally, Jeff Schewe.... just to make sure the customer voice is always being heard!

As always the podcast is available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom") and via this RSS feed. And maybe next time we'll get Nkono Boyomo to sit in on a talk. :-)

May 12, 2006

"We're huge in Japan..."

Okay, we knew people were excited about Lightroom and wanted to see more of it, but this takes things to another level. Someone (and evidently we don't know who), impatient for a localized Japanese version, has done the translation honors him- or herself: check out this screenshot. (I'm posting it here since the site where we found it is password-protected.)

Heh--good stuff, eh? It's a great vote of support for Lightroom, and if we can coax the mystery author to take a little credit, I'll update this post with more info.

May 10, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #5: Graham Nash, Mac Holbert

In the latest installment of the popular series, Graham Nash and Mac Holbert chat with George Jardine. George writes,

This podcast was recorded April 21st 2006, at the Encino, CA home of Graham Nash. Mac, Graham and George discuss the journey Nash Editions has traveled, pioneering in the world of fine art digital printmaking. We discuss the changing perceptions of photography as art, and how the digital revolution has played into those perceptions.

Here's a photo from the recording session. As always the podcast is available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom") and via this RSS feed.

April 13, 2006

Lightroom Podcast #4: Martin Evening, Bryan O'Neil Hughes, and Peter Carides

The fourth Lightroom podcast is available via iTunes (search for "Lightroom") or this RSS feed. Photography evangelist George Jardine writes, "This podcast was recorded March 23rd 2006, at the Greg Gorman digital photography workshop in Mendocino, California. Guests include Martin Evening, Peter Carides and Bryan O'Neil Hughes joining George Jardine from Adobe Systems. George and his guests have a discussion about the workshop and digital photography workflows, fashion photography, Lightroom features and archiving strategies." PhotoshopNews also has a good write-up about the workshop.

April 3, 2006

Lightroom podcasts, vol. 3

George Jardine has posted a new Lightroom podcast. He writes:

Recorded March 23rd 2006 at the Greg Gorman digital photography workshop in Mendocino, CA. Guests include Greg, with Marc Pawliger, Bryan O'Neil Hughes and George Jardine from Adobe Systems. George and his guests have a casual discussion about the workshop, digital photography workflows, what the students are learning, about the food and wine, and the gorgeous environment for photography here on the Northern Coast of California.

Check it out by searching the iTunes Music Store for Lightroom, or via this link.

[Update: More info and photos are available on Photoshop News.]

March 14, 2006

New Lightroom podcasts now available

Adobe photography evangelist George Jardine has posted a pair of new podcasts covering Adobe Lightroom. In the first, Lightroom engineers Mark Hamburg & Kevin Tieskoetter discuss printing, color management, and more with George and Jeff Schewe. In the second, Jeff along with fellow imaging experts Bruce Fraser and Tom Fors answer questions that beta testers called in to the Lightroom Hotline. To listen in, fire up iTunes, search the music store for "Lightroom," and hit subscribe. Alternately you can try this URL (worked well for me in Safari but not in Firefox).

February 13, 2006

Lightroom Beta 2 now on Adobe Labs

The second preview version of Adobe Lightroom has been posted on Adobe Labs. Highlights:

• Now available as a Universal Binary for compatibility with Intel-based Apple hardware
• Crop and Straighten tools included in the Develop module
• Ability to add music to slideshows
• Ability to create hierarchical keyword sets
• XMP import and export capabilities. (Please consult Known Issues list for details)
• Improved Edit in Photoshop capabilities
• Improved metadata handling
• White balance support for the Nikon D2X, D2Hs and D50 cameras

February 6, 2006

Digital infrared photography with Lightroom

Think you're serious about digital photography? Would you hand over $450 and your $1500 digital SLR for an irreversible, warranty-voiding conversion to shoot only digital infrared photos? By that measure I'm a total piker, but photographer Michael Reichmann has taken the plunge. In describing the challenge of converting these files to black & white, he writes, "There is a Santa Claus after all. Adobe's new Lightroom can do just what's needed. The program has a very sophisticated monochrome conversion capability, and an even more sophisticated 'Auto' function built into it that optimizes tonal distribution during grayscale conversion." Maybe this is a hint of things to come, as camera companies look farther beyond the megapixel arms race & towards features that open new creative possibilities (and without voiding your warranty, either). [Via]

January 13, 2006

Lightroom named "Best in Show"

Macworld has included Adobe Lightroom among their 2006 Best in Show winners. Customer interest on the show floor has been overwhelming, and the Beta 1 release has been downloaded tens of thousands of times in just the first few days of availability. (I'll try to share more precise numbers soon.) Congrats, guys!

January 12, 2006

Lightroom, Photoshop demo at Adobe SJ on Tuesday

If you're in the Bay Area next Tuesday evening, please join us at Adobe's San Jose HQ (map) for the next meeting of the local Photoshop Users Group. Adobe's Pro Photography evangelist George Jardine will be on hand to demonstrate Lightroom (he's the voice on the intro video), and instructor Suzette Allen will demonstrate retouching techniques in Photoshop. Pizza and drinks will be on hand at 6:30, and the presentations will begin at 7pm; come to the East Tower lobby. If you plan to attend, please drop an RSVP (headcount->pizza) to group organizer Dan Clark.

January 8, 2006

Introducing Project Lightroom

We're extremely excited to introduce Beta 1 of Adobe® Lightroom™, our new pro photography workflow solution. If you haven't yet done so, please swing by the Lightroom page on Adobe Labs to learn more & to grab the first preview version. In addition we've posted an introductory movie, also available as a podcast via iTunes.

This is anything but a traditional launch, or even a traditional dev cycle, for Adobe. It asks for new thinking not just from Adobe, but from customers as well.

First, the product isn't finished, and that's a good thing. Letting a preview version into the wild now lets us engage the broad photography community in a new way. It's the nature of the beast that just about any 1.0 product will have some shortcomings and rough edges. The thing is, we're not going to start charging for ours until you've had plenty of time to kick the tires & help shape the feature set.

Obviously Lightroom and Aperture aim to tackle a similar set of challenges, and one might say, "Well, you guys are just releasing this beta now because Aperture is in the market." That's not the case, actually, as we've been planning since early in the project to release a public preview. But even if we were spurred by the release of Aperture, so what? Isn't it better to break new ground on openness?

Second, we're not interested in a feature war, trying to pack in more knobs and switches than Photoshop, Aperture, or anyone else. The first public Lightroom release doesn't contain all the features we've considered; in fact, it doesn't even contain all the features we've built. Rather than going for the most features, we're shooting for the right features.

So, when sending us your feedback, you might pause for a moment and ask, "What do I really need? Is the benefit provided by Thing X greater than the complexity it would introduce?" We expect they'll be things you dig & things you miss, and we want to hear about it. Most impactful, though, will be feedback that zeroes in on just what you find essential.

I frequently hear a few questions about Lightroom:

1. Who's it for?
2. Does it replace Bridge?
3. Will it be available on its own?
4. Will it be available together with Photoshop?
5. Will it be available for Windows or just for Mac?
6. What will it cost?
7. When can I get it?

Some answers, in order:

Q. Who's it for?
A. We like to say that Lightroom is for people who want to spend more time behind the camera than in front of the computer. Many photographers are really technically sophisticated about their camera gear, but they don't aspire to being computer experts. For the kind of tasks Lightroom tackles, they shouldn't have to be. They need pro-level power in a fast, streamlined package.

Q. Does it replace Bridge?
A. In short, it depends on what you're doing and how you like to work. Some shooters will want to use Lightroom together with Photoshop much as they use Bridge today. For them having an interface that's 100% tuned to a photography workflow, plus Lightroom's unique features, will mean they use it in place of Bridge. For others, however, the broad range of capabilities in Bridge (e.g. integration with the Suite, previewing PDF and InDesign docs, talking to workgroup management tools, etc.) will make it a better choice some or all of the time. That means we plan to keep enhancing Bridge's photography workflow chops. You'll be able to mix and match the tools to suit your needs.

Q. Will it be available on its own? Will it be available together with Photoshop?
A. Yes, Lightroom will be available on its own, and yes, we expect to make it available together with Photoshop. We greatly appreciate the investment pros have made in Photoshop, and we want to make it easy and affordable to keep moving forward.

Q. Will it be available for Windows or just for Mac?
A. Yes, we plan to ship Lightroom on both Windows and Mac. The Mac build happens to be ready to share now, so that's what we're putting out first.

Q. What will it cost?
A. We believe there's a sweet spot between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop, and we expect Lightroom to come in between those tools.

Q. When can I get it?
A. Now! Head over to Adobe Labs and grab the first build. As to when we'll offer a completed 1.0 version, that depends on your feedback, but we're expecting to ship later in 2006.

As I say, we're quite excited now that we can pull back the curtain & show you what we've been up to. For us to build the tool you want and need, your feedback is critical, so we hope you'll visit the Project Lightroom page, click the Community tab, and let us know what you think. It's going to be a great ride.

* To get the intro movie via iTunes, choose Advanced->Subscribe to Podcast, then paste in http://rss.adobe.com/www/special/light_room.rss

[Update: See also Jeff Schewe's detailed intro to Lightroom on PhotoshopNews.com, as well as his perspective on how Lightroom was developed. The newest episode of Photoshop TV shows off Lightroom (starting around the 20 minute/halfway mark), including some slick GPS integration (0:35 mark). And photographers Peter Krogh, Michael Reichmann, Dan Sroka, and Ian Lyons share their perspectives.]