Lightroom 3 Released
- At June 09, 2010
- By John
- In Lightroom, Software
- 1
Software UPDATE
Well if you don’t know already, Abode finally released their long awaited upgrade to Lightroom with Version 3 going live yesterday. The good news for UK residents is that it’s probably a tad cheaper than most of us were expecting, this time costing £76.88 (£63.54 ex VAT) to upgrade direct from the Adobe web site. The full version is priced at £232.65 (£198.00 ex VAT), but if you qualify for the Student/Teacher edition you can obtain the full version for a mere £64.39. Mind these prices look set to rise as a VAT hike looks imminent for the budget due on the 22nd June so if you’re planning to upgrade or buy do it before then. Rather surprisingly the beta 2 version will still work till the 30th June. You can download a trial version, upgrade or buy from here.
The (slightly) disappointing news is that there are no big surprises, so pretty much what was available in the Beta 2 release is what you get, albeit in it it’s final polished state. The new features added since version 2 are:
- Accelerated with a new processing engine
- Lens Correction
- Support for DSLR video files
- Flexible publishing to sites like Flickr
- Image Watermarking
- Exportable slideshow with music (to MP4 video files)
- Easier Importing
- Tethered Shooting
- Perspective Control
- Film Grain Simulation
- Flexible Print Packaging
There are some minor changes since the Beta 2 version however, and these are detailed by Lightroom Journal Blog.
on hisAs usual there are several sites already listing the new features in greater detail. Check out the Lightroom Queen Victoria Brampton’s blog for a full listing of all the new features and changes and there’s an excellent summary by Ian Lyons at the Computer-Darkroom. Videos of several of the new features are provided at the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Learning Center, courtesy of Matt Kloskowski (of Lightroom Killer Tips) and Scott Kelby of NAPP. There’s also an introduction to what’s new by Julieanne Kost on Adobe TV here. Also look out for the forthcoming Lightroom 3 Video Tutorial by Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann which will be soon available from the Luminous Landscape site. I purchased and downloaded their tutorial on Lightroom 2 when that was released which was good value and the easiest way to learn all the new features. I can thoroughly recommend any of their videos.
Upgrading
I upgraded my Lightroom last night which installed easily and with the new version 3 seeming more responsive than the Beta 2 version. When installing, Version 3 will automatically ask if you want to upgrade your existing catalogue to version 3, which went ahead quite seamlessly but takes a while to complete depending on the size of your catalogue. I left my running overnight. Lightroom 3 will not however, change your existing picture modifications to the use latest LR3 de-mosaic RAW processing engine (now called Process 2010, with the prior version now Process 2003). In the Develop module you may see a little exclamation icon in the lower left of your picture in Loupe mode.
This means that picture is still using the old 2003 Process engine. To upgrade simply click the icon and you are given the choice to upgrade just that photo, all selected photographs or all in the Filmstrip to the new 2010 Process. This can also be achieved through the Settings | Process menu in Develop mode.
Initial Thoughts
The lens correction and noise removal features of Lightroom 3 alone, certainly make this upgrade a thoroughly worthwhile purchase for me and probably many other photographers. Both perform very well in comparison to the stand-alone packages I use (PT-lens & Noise Ninja Pro). The processing engine (Process 2010) will cause some of your pictures to look quite different so some tweaking may be needed in places, but from what I’ve seen in the Beta 2 version, the end result is much improved. I’ll reserve comment on the accelerated processing until I’ve had more time .
It’s clear that with Lightroom 3.0, Adobe have a mature, very capable and competent product and I would have no hesitation in recommending this upgrade.
Lightroom 3 Resources
Adobe Release Lightroom 3 Beta 2
- At March 23, 2010
- By John
- In Lightroom, Software
- 0
Lightroom News
Adobe today have surprised everybody today by releasing a Beta 2 version of their forthcoming Lightroom 3 software. The first beta version was released in October 2009, but I doubt anybody expected a further version before the final release. You can download the new Lightroom 3 Beta 2 version here.
Almost simultaneously with the Beta-2 release the usual first-looks, video clips, reviews and resources have appeared on the web from those in-the-know and the regular Adobe insiders.
Adobe have stated:
“We’re offering a second public beta of the next release of Lightroom to give you a chance to preview the progress we’ve made on the new features and enhancements in the upcoming version. It’s an opportunity for you to evaluate a select portion of the new features planned for Lightroom 3, to help the team discover and address issues if any, and to send feedback that the Lightroom team can use to make Lightroom 3 an even better digital darkroom and more efficient assistant for you”
However if you’ve had cause to visit the Adobe Lightroom 3 forums recently and viewed some of the criticism there, perhaps that, and I suspect the release of Aperture 3 by Apple may have played a part in this unexpected release. It may be that Adobe are buying some time due to Aperture 3 and I would hazard that an anticipated June release of the full LR3 probably looks unlikely now.
That asides there are a few new exciting features on offer that I’m sure will keep the bulletin boards and forum contributors buzzing for a while. Probably the most headline grabbing of these is functionality for tethered shooting; however it’s only for a limited set of the upper market professional Nikon and Canon models; Sony and others will presumably have to wait, but I can see this being a controversial point for starter. One other much requested feature now included is support for Video files, which can be added to your library, rated, filtered, and even made into collections. Some of the other improvements include:
- Improved performance and faster importing and loading of images.
- Full implementation of Luminance noise reduction.
- Further improvement of Colour noise reduction.
- Additional functionality to Watermarking.
- Improved folder browsing with the ability to dock folders to make it easier with long file hierarchies.
- Ability to use point curve editing in the tones curves like Photoshop
- Additional criteria in smart collections
- Sharpen brush can be set to blur
These are just a few of the enhancements in LR3B2 with much attention paid to the engine under the hood, with a lot of the bugs ironed out focus placed on improving performance and speed.
SOME First IMPRESSIONS
One of the much requested features on the Adobe forum was the ability to edit the Tone curve in the same manor as Photoshop. Well now it’s included, and by simply clicking on the Point Curve icon at the bottom left of the Tone panel, editing is switched to Point mode. Photoshop fans will be in familiar territory, but I for one for one, found Lightroom’s Tone sliders far more intuitive and easier to control.
I’ve only briefly toyed with LR3B2, however, as PC user (not MAC) I’ve really noticed a significant improvement in performance. LR3B1 I found prohibitively slow, so much in fact I seldom used it for anything but trying out the new functionality. This was a common theme amongst PC users reporting to the Adobe forum; it was almost if LR3B1 release was aimed specifically at MAC users, where it’s performance seem admirable. LR3B2 is really quite lively on a PC, rendering is much faster, so is zooming, and even switching between modules seem much more responsive. Mind I’ve yet to test this on my large desktop library back home.
Resources
If you want a quick run down of the new features and functionality of LR3B2 a good starting point would be to checkout the Adobe TV video walk-through by Julieanne Kost Julieanne Kost here, which as she so often reiterates, is excellent! If you want an more information check out the one by Ian Lyons at Computer Darkroom. Other resources can be found listed on Tom Hogarty’s Blog, and there’s another video from Terry White here.
Go ahead and download your free copy now!
Lightroom 3 to be released in May 2010?
- At February 02, 2010
- By John
- In Lightroom, Software
- 1
Software
If you mosey on down to Michael Reichmann’s excellent Luminous Landscape web site you’ll see he has announced a Winter Cheer-up competition. He’s giving away 10 copies of the full version of Lightroom 3 when it is to be released. Actually he’s not giving it away, nor is it much of a competition, you simply have to buy and download one of his video tutorials between now and May 1st to stand a chance of winning.
Michael is an Alpha tester for Lightroom so you can bet your bottom dollar he is one of those “in-the-know” as to when LR3 will be released. If his competition finishes 1st May, my guess that will be the intended release date for LR3 or very soon after.
Windows 7 – is it worth it?
- At December 07, 2009
- By John
- In Software, Windows
- 0
Software Review
I don’t know about you but I have found Vista to be the most frustrating Windows system I’ve used to date, and I’ve used almost all Windows versions since 3.1. I’ve had more crashes, BSOD’s (blue screen of death) and system hang-up’s whilst using Vista than I’d care to shake a stick at and at times I’ve sworn I’ll never touch another dam Microsoft product ever again. There’s no two ways about it, Microsoft well and truly lost the plot with Vista and have alienated more users than anyone thought possible.
Read More»Lightroom 3 Beta Release – First Impressions
- At November 05, 2009
- By John
- In Lightroom, Software
- 0
Software Review
I was quite surprised, like many others no doubt, to find out last Friday that Adobe had released a beta version of Lightroom 3 just 15 months after the full launch of Lightroom 2. They certainly managed to keep that one quiet! Lightroom has become my software of choice for DAM and RAW processing and I’ve used it from the very first beta release of version 1, so I was very keen to try out the new LR3 beta version. Some of the new features touted by Abobe are as follows:
- New performance architecture, to allow for growing image libraries
- Noise reduction for high ISO shots
- Watermarking tool
- Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
- Customizable print package for custom print layouts
- Film grain simulation tool
- New import handling dialog
- More flexible online publishing options including ability to post images to sites such as FLICKR
Needless to say, after only a day or two there are already a substantial number of detailed reviews, first looks, videos and blogs (some of which I listed below) out there already. Most of these I suspect, have been posted by members of the Alpha testing group who are able get their hands on new Lightroom versions long before the general public do. Funnily enough I’ve only seen Michael Reichmann admit to being an alpha tester.
First Impressions
Firstly, I’ve only had a weekend so far to look at LR 3 beta so these are my very first impressions. When I first saw the list of improvements and new features from Adobe I can’t deny I was a tad disappointed. Where were Soft Proofing, Lens Distortion Correction, Perspective Correction, and a decent Keyword Manager? These were all around the top of my list of improvements, and plenty of others from what I gleaned from the various forum and web postings. I can’t say Film Grain Simulation, Exporting to Flickr and Watermarking were anywhere near getting on my list, so I really can’t understand why any time has been spent on these rather trivial features. However, this is by far from the finished package, and like the release of LR2, I can only assume they are saving the best till last. At least I truly hope so. Lets take a look at some of the headline changes.
New File Import Dialog
Well it’s called a dialog box, but it’s long, thin, very dark, has rounded corners, has a horizontal work flow and dims the rest of your screen when it’s opened. It’s quite unlike any dialog box I’ve seen before. In fact once expanded, it bears a more resemblance to a Lightroom module rather than a dialog box and has side panels and even a flourish! So just what is going on here?
Well there is more functionality perhaps, but I’m really not sure about the way it’s been presented. What’s the old adage “If it aint broke , don’t fix it”. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old import dialog box in LR2 and I wasn’t aware of any significant proportion of users reporting problems with it. It performed admirably in my book so I have to confess I’m rather surprised time has been spent on developing this. You can however, you can have far more thumbnails visible (albeit with some weird vignette applied) and zoom in on photographs before importing them, which is perhaps a good thing. However, the way this is now presented, it’s now surely an Import Module, and is no longer a dialog box. If that’s the case may be we should be seeing it as proper module and listed on the Module Picker.
I can understand why Adobe have gone with the dark colour, so you can judge your colour photographs against a similar background before importing them. However if it’s going to be a dialog box, make it look like the others please, remove the stupid corners and make it match the other dialog boxes, lets have some continuity through out LR. As presented here it now looks very much like a bolt-on application and I truly hope the rest of the dialog boxes within LR are not going to end up looking like this.
RAW Processing
We’re promised faster and better RAW processing as the desmosaic engine for LR3 has completely been re-written from the ground up. However, being a PC user it’s not easy to determine, as this version seems optimised for Macs not PC’s. Just read the feedback on the forums already and you’ll see what I mean. Fast on a Mac, slow on a PC. I guess that’s understandable as I’m sure LR3 Beta is probably developed on Macs and then ported to PC’s, and who can blame Adobe when you have the awfully sluggish Windows Vista to deal with.
My primary catalog has in excess of 100,000 photo files now, and it’s got to the stage where the size of the catalog has effected the speed of my workflow even on a quad-core 64 bit system running at 3.2 gHz, so speeding up my catalog is another key feature I was looking for. Unfortunately you can’t import your existing LR2 catalog into LR3 beta so I can’t test this feature. To import files and preserve your existing LR2 modifications you have to first save your edits as XMP side car files (Save Metadata to File from the Metadata menu in the Library module or via CRTL+S) and then read them back in once you imported the files into LR3 beta (Read Metadata to File from the Metadata menu in the Library module or via CRTL+R). Unfortunately there is a bug that prevents the user importing more than one folder at a time. Thus it’s highly unlikely I’m ever going to import my whole catalog folder by folder to test this feature.
I’ve tried a few side by side comparison of how LR3 beta processes RAW files as compared to LR2 and so far I can’t tell that much difference. On a few it definitely seems better, much smoother, but oddly quite a few of my pictures were rendered noticeably darker but I suspect this is something to do with a change in the way post crop vignetting works. It’s a bit too early to for me tell.
If you import a picture processed in LR2 you will see a little grey alert icon above the histogram on the left-hand side in the Develop Module. To take advantages of the the new LR3 beta process engine and controls such as the new noise control, and new post crop vignetting, you’ll need to click on this to upgrade. You can also choose which process version to use from Settings | Process Version.
Noise Reduction
The Colour Noise Reduction algorithm has been re-written for LR3, but if you elect to use the LR3 beta process engine you’ll find the Luminance Noise Reduction option greyed out. The latter I guess is still work under progress. The Colour Noise Reduction is supposedly greatly improved, with criticism of the old version being that it tended to soften your image too much. There is a noticeable improvement with the Colour Noise Reduction but I, like most I suspect, have used well established 3rd party products (in my case Noise Ninja Pro) which have provided sophisticated results and provide the ability to apply selective noise reduction to different parts of the image. Unless the final release of LR3 intends to add noise reduction to the brush tool I see little here to threaten the wide use of the third party products or alter my existing noise reduction workflow.
Custom Print Package
Lightroom 3 allows custom print layouts which gives much more control over your print layout, and you can even add colour backgrounds if you wish. This is some welcome additional functionality, but what we really want is the ability to add custom borders, frames, mattes and text.
Watermarks
Watermarks have been improved..a little. You can apply text or graphic and adjustable size, position, and opacity.
Other Improvements
At long last you can now choose to backup your catalog when you exit Lightroom rather than the next time it starts. You can sort Images by aspect ratio now too. You can also now create a collection directly within a collection set by simply right-clicking on the collection set, and you can now select to have an icon displayed on the grid thumbnails to indicate that image is part of a collection. One other point that pleases me is that filters are no longer ‘sticky’ to a folder or collection. Many’s the time I’ve returned to a folder and wondered where many of my photographs were only to eventually remember I had some filter applied. Catalog file optimisation is now selectable from the File menu rather than been hidden. Some of the more popular print sizes have been added to the crop presets, although I’m sure most of us will have already have created our own. You can also export your slideshows as movie files, even in full HD at 1080p. Post cropping vignetting has been modified ability to select either Highlight Priority or Colour Priority, and can produce a more pleasing effect. You can also now add grain to your pictures, to emulate film grain. I thought this a rather odd function to add as it’s normally the realm of Photoshop or third party plug-ins to provide these type of features. May be this is a sign that Adobe are eventually going to add some of the functionality oh Photoshop to LR. I certainly hope so, the less Photoshop the better as far as I’m concerned. There are also many other minor improvements that I’ve not yet had time to investigate.
What other features can we expect?
I guess I’m really hoping that this is not it, as I suspect there are not nearly enough new features to temp the majority of user to upgrade based on this feature set alone. As with the release of LR2 I’m pretty sure Adobe will have kept one or two barnstorming features for the final release that will tempt even anti-upgrade stalwarts to relent. As Tom Hogarty stated in his Lightroom Journal blog “We’re not even close to finished in terms of features” and this is reiterated in Michaal Reichmann’s review on the Luminous Landscape. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Lightroom 3 Beta Resources
Download Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta from Adobe Labs
Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta Release notes
Lightroom 3 Beta Learning Centre
Lightroom 3 Beta First Look – Luminous Lightroom
Lightroom 3 Beta Tutorials – Juleanne Kost
Lightroom Tip – Panel End Mark Star Ratings
- At August 10, 2009
- By John
- In Lightroom, Lightroom Tips, Software
- 0
Make Use of Your Own Panel End Marks in Lightroom
I can’t remember where I saw this simple, and very effective tip, but it’s one I’ve found particularly useful so I like to present my particular take here.
I’ve must admit I’ve always found the Panel End Mark displayed at the bottom of each panel rather odd. They seem rather superfluous and in total contrast to the sleek streamlined interface displayed elsewhere throughout Lightroom.
Read More»