Adobe Lightroom - anyone trying it?

ggw2000

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Did some reading and reviewed videos of "Lightroom" last night on the Adobe site. From what I see it looks like it's going to be a nice program when complete. Beta 3 is out now for download and I may install it this weekend. It has ACR builtin to it and all the normal adjustments plus more. The library function also looks neat in what you can do with it.
Has anyone played with "Beta 3" to date?
Thanks, Gerry

ps: as a previous owner of RSP i'm suppose to get it free (i think) when it's complete. Got no idea how that's going to workout!
 
Did some reading and reviewed videos of "Lightroom" last night on
the Adobe site. From what I see it looks like it's going to be a
nice program when complete. Beta 3 is out now for download and I
may install it this weekend. It has ACR builtin to it and all the
normal adjustments plus more. The library function also looks neat
in what you can do with it.
Has anyone played with "Beta 3" to date?
Thanks, Gerry
ps: as a previous owner of RSP i'm suppose to get it free (i think)
when it's complete. Got no idea how that's going to workout!
I have downloaded it and tried it out some. The inteface is a bit different than the other main RAW converters but the adjustments are mostly the same. I found it to run very slow but I guess it is a "Beta". I did some comparison RAW files from my 30D in the various converters and found the output of Lightroom to be kind of in the middle of them all quality-wise and the slowest of them all. I may play around with it some more though.

Maybe others have had different experieneces though.

-Darryl
 
Did some reading and reviewed videos of "Lightroom" last night on
the Adobe site. From what I see it looks like it's going to be a
nice program when complete. Beta 3 is out now for download and I
may install it this weekend. It has ACR builtin to it and all the
normal adjustments plus more. The library function also looks neat
in what you can do with it.
Has anyone played with "Beta 3" to date?
Thanks, Gerry
ps: as a previous owner of RSP i'm suppose to get it free (i think)
when it's complete. Got no idea how that's going to workout!
I have downloaded it and tried it out some. The inteface is a bit
different than the other main RAW converters but the adjustments
are mostly the same. I found it to run very slow but I guess it is
a "Beta". I did some comparison RAW files from my 30D in the
various converters and found the output of Lightroom to be kind of
in the middle of them all quality-wise and the slowest of them all.
I may play around with it some more though.

Maybe others have had different experieneces though.

-Darryl
Darryl, thanks for the response. Maybe a few more people will chime in with their experiences.. Gerry
 
Go check the lightroom forums at the adobe site, you'll find loads of user comments there. Personally I think it has potential, with tweaking you can get output that matches ACR very closely... but I guess LR is more about the workflow

--
Jouko
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/galleries
 
Well, I would use it more if it didn't crash on me after a few minutes. It seems to chew up my memory in quite a short time and then just exits.

I do like the concept and interface, so I'm sure it will be a great tool once it's released. God knows I need a better way to organize my shots, and this seems stronger than Pixmantec RSP in the organization-dept.

Now they "just" need to iron out the major bugs, speed it up and improve the output. :-) I also expeceted to see a beta 4 (or RC1) about now, but there's none to be seen AFAIK.

--
peace,
Tormod in Stockholm
http://www.airwhale.com/
 
Well, I would use it more if it didn't crash on me after a few
minutes. It seems to chew up my memory in quite a short time and
then just exits.

I do like the concept and interface, so I'm sure it will be a great
tool once it's released. God knows I need a better way to organize
my shots, and this seems stronger than Pixmantec RSP in the
organization-dept.

Now they "just" need to iron out the major bugs, speed it up and
improve the output. :-) I also expeceted to see a beta 4 (or RC1)
about now, but there's none to be seen AFAIK.

--
peace,
Tormod in Stockholm
http://www.airwhale.com/
Tormod, thanks for your thoughts. Don't you love betas :). Maybe it's to early to give it a try at this point. I'm going to check the "lightroom" forums and see what's shaking at this point before downloading it. Gerry
 
That it doesn't work directly with DNG files as ACR does, it's of no use to me yet. (I haven't looked at it for 2 months, though).

If the final version is better in this regard, I'll be giving it a thorough trial, as it looked very interesting.

--
...Bob, NYC

http://www.pbase.com/btullis

You'll have to ignore the gallery's collection of bad compositions, improper exposures, and amateurish post processing. ;)

 
I get frustrated with all the misunderstanding.

Yes, I'm yelling. It does raw conversion but its main reason for existing is for adjusting any kind of image. It works well, but painfully slow at this stage and buggy and needs a full dual monitor interface design. (Does anyone still really use only one monitor?) Try it with Jpgs, it can do some amazing things with color temperature for instance, that are very difficult to duplicate in PS.
 
I get frustrated with all the misunderstanding.

Yes, I'm yelling. It does raw conversion but its main reason for
existing is for adjusting any kind of image. It works well, but
painfully slow at this stage and buggy and needs a full dual
monitor interface design. (Does anyone still really use only one
monitor?) Try it with Jpgs, it can do some amazing things with
color temperature for instance, that are very difficult to
duplicate in PS.
Bob, any kind of image! Wouldn't this be a real plus to everyone? Gerry
 
I get frustrated with all the misunderstanding.

Yes, I'm yelling. It does raw conversion but its main reason for
existing is for adjusting any kind of image. It works well, but
painfully slow at this stage and buggy and needs a full dual
monitor interface design. (Does anyone still really use only one
monitor?) Try it with Jpgs, it can do some amazing things with
color temperature for instance, that are very difficult to
duplicate in PS.
LOL - ok..

I just went back in and looked a little more closely. I had previously only used the "Develop" part which I didn't realize would work for non-RAW files.

I can't see myself using the "Print" part as it doesn't seem to have as many features as QImage which I already use happily for printing. I'll have to test it out more though.

The "Library" and "Slideshow" modules seem fine but how are they much different than all the other catalogue and preview programs out there?

It is really slow using Beta 3 though.

Thanks for the heads up.

-Darryl
 
I downloaded it based on an email from the creators of RSP after they sold out to Adobe. It look liked some sort of "appeasement" to those who had purchased RSP and genuinely liked it.

IMHO Lightroom, at least in the Windows Beta 3 version, has the most cumbersome file/photo management arrangement I've ever seen in a program. If a photographer employs only contiguous, self-contained "shoots", the application might make sense. For a photographer who doesn't arrange his picture taking in such a mode, the lack of a direct, automatic connection to the computer's file system negates the potential advantages of Lightroom's innovative image conditioning features. I've watched the Lightroom forums for some time, but don't really see an indication that this unfortunate weakness of the application is going to materially change.

Dale m.
 
I purchased RSP and tried LR only to uninstall it. Even though we get a free version of LR, I'm really not too excited about it at this point. In fact, I have gone back to DPP which I am starting to prefer. As far as the post who said LR isn't a RAW converter, try telling that to the RSP owners who will get LR as a substitute product.
 
Yes, I'm yelling. It does raw conversion but its main reason for
existing is for adjusting any kind of image.
Right. And RAW is one kind. Therefore it is a RAW converter.

What you said is like saying Photoshop isn't a photo editor since it's primary purpose is graphics design. But it is a photo editor too, and a RAW converter and a bunch of other things too.

Lightroom is a RAW converter. It's also a JPEG editor, a (very poor) digital asset manager, a slide-show application and a print application. Web too, eventually.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
Tried an earlier beta, thought it was lame, threw it away. I also tried Aperture at work, thought it was lame, threw it away.

I can see how it would be useful for a professional photographer that had to keep up with thousands of images, but as a fine art photographer it just doesn't have enough on the manipulation side of things. Seems very shallow, you know?

I think I'll stick to Photoshop CS2.
--
http://usedtoit03.deviantart.com/gallery/photography/?view=1&order=9&limit=24
 
Adobe has said it will be more than Photoshop Elements but less than Photoshop. People are guessing in the $200-$300 US area is where it will be.

Seems pretty high to me but others are claiming it is a bargain at that price.

-Darryl
 
...what BETA means...sheesh, all this moaning about an unfinished product. It even states in the release notes: Due to code written in...IT WILL BE SLOW!
--
Member PPA, NAPP, WPPI
 
...what BETA means...sheesh,
Yeah...it's a major-features-frozen nearly-finished released for debugging purposes and final polish.

That's the problem. The Windows Beta 3 is really a "preview" or a "pre-alpha" or, at most, an "alpha". It's nowhere near a true beta.

Hopefully, B4 will be a true alpha, and B5 will be a true beta. By then we'll have a better idea if LR will grow into being useful or not.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
The main reason for Lightroom is to oppose Aperture and be a RAW converter.

It does not need a dual head setup. I tested and run it on a single 24 Inch monitor. Plus I didn't have any crashes or problems with the Software itself. It ran very fast an reasonable.

For comparison, I created a library with 5000 shots, all 8MB raw files. Run it on a 2.3ghz dual core PowerMac with 2.5GB memory. Nice software, a lot of tweaking possibilites, very nice results. But for now I stick with Capture One.

--
Gullevek
my pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gullevek/
 

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