Adobe Lightroom Public Beta Launches

I love it! It already beats Apple's Aperture by a LONG SHOT. And this is only a beta, too. Very impressive.

I totaly agree with sfegette :)

loving it loving it loving it :D

I'm having great fun with this so far and finding it useful already. Having been left out of the Aperture party (they don't support my camera) it's great to know that the real kings of digital imaging are still punching at full weight, and getting their customers involved at the right time.

So, I really like lightroom so far. very easy and inuitive, and it is only the beta. Even with only 512mb of Ram it runs fine.

This can only get better!

I love it so far. iMac G5, 20inch 2GB RAM. Better than Aperture, which won't run on my iMac. I will buy it :-)

Lightroom makes most sense as a work-in-progress update of Photoshop Elements for the Camera Raw environment, and with some improvements over the current Camera Raw functionality in Photoshop CS2. But it inexplicably divorces itself from Photoshop. The main assumption I can't now deal with is the idea that every photo can be adequately edited by applying corrections to the WHOLE image -- leaving the key Photoshop functionality of adjustment layers and masks, apparently, to what Adobe must think is a dying minority of compulsive photo tweakers with too much time on their hands.

Though I like the general workflow as far as it goes, and think the Camera Raw editor is more capable than the one in Photoshop, the other included editing tools are far too twitchy and subjective for me. And Lightroom doesn't really save me time on any images I care about, and certainly produces inferior final TIFF or JPEG files. When I do the Raw conversion in CS2, and then use an Action to apply a "master layers" stack I can work through in under a couple of minutes for most daylight images, I get perfect objectively color-calibrated files without the need to fiddle with more than 20 sliders in Lightroom, and always with less time expended. Lightroom requires way too many subjective slider judgments for most "normal" photos.

Give me full Photoshop as an optional plug-in editor for a photo in a Collection, and leave the edited result as an alternative PSD or TIFF photo "version" still placed in the same Collection I started from, and I'll be happy. Other obviously missing features will come in time, but I seriously wonder about this key central design decision. Why work so hard to make Photoshop so (presumptively) irrelevant?

Lightbox is great!
I may be a luddite, but...
I would like to see standard 5x7, 8x10... crop options
bigger numbers on the rulers on the print tab
image straigntening, a la iPhoto

I'll keep playing with it and discover more...

Lightbox would appear to have the makings of a very powerful tool but like Paul I would like to know how it will fir in with Photoshop or even Elements.

I do a fair amount of B+W work and use ConvertToB+W Pro which offers much better control over the conversion process. Is it intended to be able to integrate such tools into Lightbox?

One thing I don't like is the colouring of the GUI. I understand why those shades have been chosen but for soemone who is red/green colourblind I would appreciate more contrast between the background and the various texts etc.

Will it be possible to read the metadata from iPhoto images?

Can't compare it with Apeture as that will not run on either of my Macs.

Andrew.

Would be a lot more useful in my particular workflow (publishing) if it had better support for cmyk (saving to, exporting to, etc.).

just posted it in hte forum yet: i love this thing right at first sight and for the beginning i only wanted to ask if the videotutorial might be given as download as well? that would be great for re-watching it when not online.. thank you so far for a great job!

Thanks for all the good comments, all! A few additional points to address some of them (make sure to also post any specific feature requests/bug reports/opinions in the online forums for Lightroom on Labs, of course):

Alan- could you define 'twitchy and subjective' a bit more for me? I'm curious as to the behavior you expect with the editing tools, so I can better translate this to the product team. For what it's worth, Lightroom is not intended to render Photoshop 'irrelevant', but simply consolidate key features around a professional photographer's workflow. Photoshop is in many ways a swiss army knife, and I personally don't see it leaving my own workflow with or without Lightroom in the picture... ;-)

Spidey: CMYK support enhancement noted- thanks for raising the point.

Andrew: I believe the answer is no, Lightroom won't read iPhoto metadata (which is, IIRC, saved in iPhoto's own proprietary database), but you can selectively import photos from iPhoto into Lightroom and have Lightroom add more 'standardized' metadata at import (that's how I got around this semi-conundrum). But that's a great feature request.

Anne: it's possible we can distribute the video as a download, however it's pretty large. I'll check with the web team and see what they can do.

Ok, I'm up to 26 hours for a 20,000+ photo album import. iMac 1.9 512MB. I know I got too little RAM, but I got carried away and just had to download Lightroom. It works fairly well seeing as I'm actually under-specked to run, but no worries. Like it so far.

This is not bothering me, I already like the interface and I cannot wait for the final release. After reading on a forum somewhere that Lightroom Beta is faster than Apples equivalent. The money I was saving for Aperture is now going to be put to one side and await the release of LR, I truly believe in the power of Adobe. I like the way that elements of Aperture, Photoshop and Photo Mechanic are combined with the rudimentary editing tools. Apature has a lot going for it but I think that at the moment the feature set that is outlined so far in LR will be beneficial to the way that I control my photographs. Being able to link the shoot to external volumes is great, it would also be cool to have a way of doing a backup, which could retain the links but request the correct backup volume if a particular archived image was required from storage.

Please make sure to include a really solid IPTC interface for those of us that actually need to get the data into the metatags so we can find something occassionally.

So good, so far. Really looking forward to following the development of Lightroom.

Oh I could go on all evening making up suggestions to make this be the premier professional photography assistant.

Don't forget dual screen support, its very important to some and then have some way of being able to shoot tethered and have it behave within LR. You may also like to consider a direct method of emailing/ftpying images direct from within LR. Should I continue? Team Adobe, thank you for the alternative.

Ok, I'm up to 26 hours for a 20,000+ photo album import. iMac 1.9 512MB. I know I got too little RAM, but I got carried away and just had to download Lightroom. It works fairly well seeing as I'm actually under-specked to run, but no worries. Like it so far.

This is not bothering me, I already like the interface and I cannot wait for the final release. After reading on a forum somewhere that Lightroom Beta is faster than Apples equivalent. The money I was saving for Aperture is now going to be put to one side and await the release of LR, I truly believe in the power of Adobe. I like the way that elements of Aperture, Photoshop and Photo Mechanic are combined with the rudimentary editing tools. Apature has a lot going for it but I think that at the moment the feature set that is outlined so far in LR will be beneficial to the way that I control my photographs. Being able to link the shoot to external volumes is great, it would also be cool to have a way of doing a backup, which could retain the links but request the correct backup volume if a particular archived image was required from storage.

Please make sure to include a really solid IPTC interface for those of us that actually need to get the data into the metatags so we can find something occassionally.

So good, so far. Really looking forward to following the development of Lightroom.

Oh I could go on all evening making up suggestions to make this be the premier professional photography assistant.

Don't forget dual screen support, its very important to some and then have some way of being able to shoot tethered and have it behave within LR. You may also like to consider a direct method of emailing/ftpying images direct from within LR. Should I continue? Team Adobe, thank you for the alternative.

Hy, great program, great interface and fast. But there is a large problem for me... I use Sony DCS-F828 and am shooting a lot in RAW format. The problem is, that the program understands .jpg white ballance and curve, but it makes problems with white balance in RAW. Please let me know, if I can send you sample pictures to answer my problem.

Lightroom is very impressive!

I've used Aperture for a couple weeks now and must say in comparing the two, Lightroom seems to have a much faster importing scheme.

Some quick ideas:

Implement scroll wheel support for right-side collapsible adjustment column

Library:
add more support for IPTC Metadata.

Develop: needs to have an editable tone curve (like photoshop). The sliders are way overkill.

Slideshow:
Have a way to manually adjust high-med-low resolutions in pixel values. Instead of an arbitrary quality slider.

Also be able to adjust image resolution when creating contact sheets saved to pdf files for the need to create enlarged contact sheets.

Very nice work Adobe!

So far I'm very excited about the software; Comfortable UI, very very impressive viewing options (i.e. clearing the screen of UI clutter when viewing full-size images). The mouse-over options calling up palettes while working full screen is great! One small glitch in my version: In Compare mode, if you rotate an image while comparing it to others the image in the compare window distorts but rotates and displays fine in the filmstrip and the upper right. This requires that you deslelect the image (distorted) from the compare group and then re-select it. Upon doing so it then displays properly. If the image you want to rotate is the only image in the compare window, it will not distort and will display correctly.

I like it so far! Only been playing since last night though. Would like to see under EXIF DATA reference to file size and resolution. and to see a straightening tool as mentioned in another comment. Will keep playing and exploring as I'm pretty much a beginner with digital photograhy and believe in the process of trying to take the best possible picture in the first place and doing as little editing as possible. I do like the creative side of photoshop CS though... but want first and foremost to be a good photographer. Keep playing!

The obvious comparison between Aperture and Lightroom has to be made, but it's not as simplistic as sfegette's comment that "Lightroom already beats Apple's Aperture by a LONG SHOT."

It is likely that both products will undergo significant changes by the time Lightroom ships, so in a sense the comparison is very premature. I did a quick comparison anyway, which you can read at:

http://www.frostbytes.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/LightroomReview

but the summary is that Lightroom beats the tar out of Aperture in its import and print interfaces and I sure do like how much better Lightroom does with noisy images. These are all known weak points in Aperture which I had previously pointed out at:

http://www.frostbytes.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/ApertureReview

Not that I want to belittle the importance of those things but the overall interface, workflow, comparison, and layout capabilities of Aperture are still significantly better than Lightroom.

In any case I welcome the competition, it can't be anything but good for the rest of us.

>>but it's not as simplistic as sfegette's comment that "Lightroom already beats Apple's Aperture by a LONG SHOT."<<

Just for the record, that wasn't my comment (seems several in this thread have attributed that first comment to me, but it was actually made by 'Ben').

Although I don't mind healthy competition myself (makes for a better product for all concerned), I'll let our software do the talking, and leave the opinions/critiques to you all, thanks... ;-)

-Scott

Scott Fegette
Developer Relations
Adobe Systems

BooHoo, Woe is me! I have a G3 Laptop, no can use (yet). Hurry up abd get the iBook version up and running.

Everything I hear about it on the web is positive. O\It is said that it even beats Aperture, something I really want to see.

In my opinion as a black & white photographer, the Grayscale Mixer alone is justification for buying this software.
When I began "playing" with it I approached it with more than modest scepticism. How surprised I was to eventually tap into its incredible power. I've explored and tried nearly every approach to converting digital color to black & white. My personal choices to date are the channel mixer in Photoshop, the calibrate tab in Bridge and a plug-in called Convert toBW Pro. I am so impressed with the Grayscale Mixer that I may begin to use it exclusively for all my conversions. It seems to give me the best of all my previous choices. It allows for finite control of scale and saturation of color channels; provides instant previews and is most intuitive. Needless to say it is used on RAW files. And, after spending nearly 40 years in a darkroom, using this tool seems to recall the "old" rush of watching your tests come up in the tray. Aditionally, there is an "auto" toggle in the Grayscale Mixer which, like many other "auto" options, I was inclined to ignore. DON'T IGNORE IT! Use it as a starting place and then tweak from there.

-King

This program works very well with my work flow. Thank you. Pne little thing, I noticed the name plate does not seem to be able to rotate when it is selected to print when a picture goes from portrait to landscape.

I heard that a Windows version is in the works. Are there plans for 64-bit support? A 64-bit version would benefit greatly from the platform's expanded processing capabilities.

Carlos

Lightroom is an absolutely incredible and useful piece of software! Request: it would be really nice to have an option where the actual file name could be shown during a slideshow so a client can write down a number that he/she likes during viewing...thanks!

Elegant interface, intuitive, simplified, yet powerful. I would like to see a healing brush tool to remove a speck here and there. Hope this helps.

Sling

I take my PowerBook everywhere. It will not run Apple's Aperture because it's a G4. It only has 640 mb but it's enough to run Lightroom. PLEASE Adobe, let me buy this app for both my Powerbook and my Windows workstation. I still use Windows because I can't afford to pay for a new CS2 for my powerbook. Lightroom would be perfect. It does all I need to do to basically prep my photos. This is what I hoped for with Apple's Aperture. Thank you already Adobe for this program.

I need some type of soft proofing to assign an output profile-

I try to shoot and work / stay in Adobe RGB with a calibrated monitor- but when I output to my 4800 I have significant color issues- I would like to be able to stay in Lightroom- but soft proof and edit in a soft proof color space, based on my printer profile-

in addition- being able to "Customize" the Profile by sight and save it for future softproofing would be revolutionary- to have a rough match between output /the 4800 and what I see on my calibrated screen- without having to invest in expensive software and spectometers etc from 3rd parties.

I really would like NOT to have to go to PS to assign or review color issues.

Forgive me if this has been discussed or I am ignorant about how to do this- this was my first day of using LR- it rocks!

Scott

Reynold- Windows versions will follow the Mac release, definitely keep posted for more info on timelines/etc. as the current Mac version gets closer to launch. Glad to hear it's running well on your laptop!

Scott- I must admit, that question's probably best suited for the product team. Have you posted it in the Lightroom Beta forums yet?

http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/categories.cfm?forumid=72&catid=589

(sorry for the raw URL- Movable Type isn't allowing embedded hyperlinks right now.)
If not, I definitely would post this question there as well- the forums are where much of the product team hangs out and are collecting direct feedback/feature requests.

Hope this helps out!

Did a quick peruse and it is good to have an alt to Aperture which requires G5 or better. I tried importing tif files from scans and they did not preview or show. I have not tested if layer adjusted Photoshop files view. If they don't it would be good so that you have a complete system for completely organizing and archiving your images.

Maybe you can view but can't further adjust images that have already have layer adjustments. Also, how fast is the system with previewing really large scans and files that can be over 100mb.

First impression is 'not bad'

I miss the magnifying glass that aperature has, and the ease of 2 screen working (is it possible in lightroom? I can't find a way of doing it), oh, and the horizon level tool.

I do like the onscreen layout, and the slideshow (especially the customisation options and the music).

I like the slideshow in lightroom. Looks like to me this would be a real item. With a lot of different styles to work with.

I think there are too many image adjustments.

Hi! to the Lightroom team.
Dear friends I have a small problem, I downloaded the Lightroom beta 2 and what I got (index.cfm, index 2.cfm and index 3 .cfm) my computer with version 10.4.5, cannot open it, I got a message that quicktime cannot open it, and stuffit cannot open it either.
Any help I realy will apreciate.
Best regards.
Jhamil

Hi, Jhamil-
It sounds like your web browser is destroying the file type, the Lightroom download should be a DMG disk image file once it's completed (and you've apparently clicked to download it 3 times, hence the three files). Change the extension of index.cfm to .dmg and see if that lets you open up the disk image and install (you might want to try downloading a new, 'cleaner' version first), if that doesn't work I'd try downloading with another browser entirely. Hope this helps out.

Well, it is definately a good program and would be great if I didn't have anything. I am a Graphic Designer/Photographer and Adobe Bridge already handles the key features that appeal to me. I think that the program layout is great. I love the dim, and light out features. I also love the menus how they dissappear until your mouse hovers over them. Good job guys.

Greg