So it finally arrives (sort of), Adobes Lightroom is now released. V1 on the face doesn’t look too much different from the 4.1 beta. The first thing that is noticeable is the speed. The old 4.1 beta was a little sluggish in it’s operation. Ask it to do a relatively moderate task and it would give you the spinning beachball of death. Though this could be due to me using a MacMini 1.66 ghz Core Duo.
Is it a Photoshop replacement? No, more of a compliment to Photoshop. The main use for Lightroom is as a library. Images can be stored and referenced through metadata and keywords. This I guess is valuable for the pro tog. For me it’ll save me from having to remember dates and locations. But LR is more than just a library. The final release has expanded on the develop side of the application. The options for changing the image are very familiar to anyone that has used Adobe Camera Raw. Colour, sharpness, lens etc are all included within the package. Also the final release has included a spot removal tool. Though i’ve yet to fully test this.
Whilst using the product I’ve been learning more about how it works. The library is just that, when you edit/change an image you do not actually modify the image directly. You just change the Metadata for the image. All this can be reset if you do make a mistake.
One thing I find a little frustrating is the edit with external editor option. Unless you have copied the image to the library (rather than referencing the image in the original location), Lightroom creates a copy to edit. This does take a little too long in my opinion. Personally I’d rather just select the image and view in finder. Once finder is open, right click and select open with CS3 from the context menu.
Currently Lightroom is available with a discount applied as a thank you to the Beta testers (all of us!), however the price from Adobe isn’t too great when you compare with Amazon (£133). That said, the release currently seems to be a little short supply. Amazon seem not to be shipping at the moment. Though this is really a rant for another thread.
Conclusion:
Difficult one to pin down, It’s not for everyone. Some would find Adobe Bridge/Photoshop as an ideal solution. I guess it depends on how quick you need to find the images. I do not know how bloated the library will become once you get into the 10000s for images. It seems to cope fine with my current 1500 or so. Personally I’d be happy with a purchase, though i’m just holding off to see if a combined Lightroom/CS3 packages is around the corner.