Adobe Lightroom is Released

[boBQuincy]

Lightroom, Adobe's new image editing product, is released.

Lightroom is designed for photographers, as a standalone product for all our image editing needs. Although it works with Photoshop, most users are not expected to need Photoshop unless they have some special editing needs.

The introductory price is $199, falling somewhere between Photoshop and Elements, as expected.

 

[ukcatfan]

DPReview says that it will go to $299 after Apr. 30. I think it is too much at $199. This is why I did not start using it when it was free. It was nice, but not that nice.

Kevin

 

[Lachesis00]

Wow! How do they honestly expect people to pay these prices? Crikey!

DPReview says that it will go to $299 after Apr. 30. I think it is too much at $199. This is why I did not start using it when it was free. It was nice, but not that nice.

Kevin

 

[jann1033]

so will the freebie version still work or are you now forced to pay up? i've had it downloaded for a while and i think used it once or twice but really love the canon raw converter and the pse5 if fine for me to do what else i want to do ( like cropping and playing with filters)

 

[ukcatfan]

so will the freebie version still work or are you now forced to pay up? i've had it downloaded for a while and i think used it once or twice but really love the canon raw converter and the pse5 if fine for me to do what else i want to do ( like cropping and playing with filters)

If I remember correctly it expires sometime in Feb. and will no longer work.

Kevin

 

[jann1033]

well then guess i should have used it while i had the chance

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

I'm really torn on this product. On one hand I see it as very valuable but I am so ingrained in PhotoShop that I am not sure I want to make the commitment to learn yet another user interface and feature set. What I would love to see is a suite for photographers similar to what Adobe offers for video production. This suite should have functionality to manage RAW workflow, add metadata to the photos (similar to the concept they started with Adobe Album but with extended capabilities), make the necessary adjustments to photos complete with actions and filters, finally the suite should include storage and image safeguarding capabilities to help us manage the thousands of pictures we now have on our hard drive with automated back-up. I'm really starting to think seriously about getting rid of my PC and getting a Mac just so that I can use Aperture and the flow that Apple is coming out with. It seems much more intuitive. The only issue I have is that making this change puts me in the same boat as with Lightroom, I would be learning yet another tool set instead of taking pictures.

Jeff

 

[boBQuincy]

As I find out more about Lightroom, I find that it really needs Photoshop for many of us.
Lightroom has no layers, selections, or filters (not even Unsharp Mask) so obviously those of us who often tweak our images will need more than just Lightroom.

It sounds like Lightroom does RAW and Bridge much better than PS does, but is that worth another program and $200? I'm not sure what Adobe's plan is but if it is to get me to buy Lightroom *and* Photoshop... well, I don't care much for that plan.

 

[RitchG]

I've been playing with LR for a few months now. The image manipulation is good, but I still use PS for really touching things up.

For me the main attraction is the database; like many I have 1000's of images on my hard drive and 1000's more stored on disc (and tape!) over there in the closet. I have used Picassa (on one end of the spectrum) and Portfolio (at the other end) but neither really does what I need for a price I can pay (picassa is free, of course, but limited in the database/tagging/EXIF parts; Portfolio could probably index Disney's media collection but is close to $600). So LR looks like a "good deal", just for image collection management, to me. Has anyone else explored the image management parts?

What I'd really like is for CS3 to come out with LR instead/alongside of Bridge.
---Ritch

 

[extreme8]

Has anyone else explored the image management parts?

I had played around with the tagging & image management some, but I didn't commit too much effort to it.
I figured that, with my luck, the final version would handle metadata in some completely different manner than the beta and I'd have to re-tag and re-index everything.
Now that the final version is out I'll get into it more deeply.
As a registered owner of RSP Adobe tells me I'm eligible for a free copy of Lightroom. I guess we'll see how that works out....