Adobe Lightroom 1.0

[hitkaiser]

Ok, so who already has the new Lightroom? Any good? Worth it?

How well does it run and on what are the specs of your machine?

Please feel free to throw in any knowledge you may have on the matter! This could well be a big move for a large number of DPS users!

[blinking81]

I'm using it on my maxed out MacBook and it's super smooth. I had been using Aperture, and to my dismay it took 10min to load a few photos, it was pathetically slow. I was thinking - wow, these RAW files must be HUGE.

I had downloaded the beta a while ago and didn't agree with it, but just before it hit 1.0 i gave it another go, and wow it had changed. I find the workflow superb for how i work. One thing that revolutionsed how i used it was finding out the hotkeys.

L - changes how dark the background is
F - changes how much wasted space on screen there is
B - adds to the quick collection
1-5 - rates your photos
tab - side panels hide/disappear
x - reject then..
cmd+backspace - delete all rejected photos
g - grid view in library
d - develop photo
c - compare

My usual workflow is this, import photos deleting all the really ugly ones using the preview when importing, use auto metadata to add copyright etc. Then add basic tags, and batch name files.

Once imported, i work through rating, deleting and tagging. This is in the library with M view, and tabs collapsed. Using L to cycle through now dark background is to allow me to focus only on that one picture.

I then filter so i can only see the ones i rated 4stars and above and then amend so ones i want to develop are rated 5star. Then i pick a photo and press D to develop it. Once finished, just press G to go back to grid library, pick next photo and D again.

It imported all my photos from beta 0.? to 1.0 with ease and the transition was seamless.

for those who use Flickr Uploader, add it as an external editor. Then File->Export and at the bottom select 'open in Flickr Uploader'. Please note tags are still used but you have to re-add the commas between words again.

There is much more to cover, and i will go more into it at another point. I must now dash. I hope this helps some people and anyone who has more questions or whats to know more about a specific bit i haven't covered just ask.

PS. Four developing features i find invaluable.
1 - the sider button next to hue/saturation/lightness allows you to click on a section of the photo and drag up or down the hue/saturation/lightness on the fly without having to figure out what colour it is.
2 - Vignetting - this tool very simply allows you to get rid of vignetting or in my case add it by just sticking the silders to negative values. EASY!
3 - IT HAS CURVES WITH GRAPH. (well, a dumbed down version, but i expect this to be changed)
4 - Simple presets can be accessed on the left sidebar. So if you have a common B&W action - you can now apply it to all your photos in one click.

(also integrates perfectly with Photoshop)

Eric

[Triglav]

Thansk Eric!

Anyone else with some user experience in Adobe Lightroom?

[RainPacket]

Inside Aperture (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/aperture/) has been running a side-by-side comparison of Aperture and Lightroom with a photojournalist out in the field. Though I'm afraid that, as with most things, it seems like each has some things they do better. Aperture's more intuitive, Lightroom's got a more powerful web-export model, Aperture's got far better batch operations, Lightroom's got more powerful greyscale and color-curve features, etc.

For me, I found Aperture works better for my flow, partly because I didn't like the difference between 'Develop' and 'Library' modules. I know that it's the fact that Aperture lets you tweak a photo from ANY part of the flow that does give it a slight speed hit, but dang it, sometimes I really /want/ to tweak the picture from right in assembling a book or a web sheet or whatever. That said, Lightroom is pretty fast, and though it's not quite as intuitive, it's got the Adobe Power behind it, as it were. And being able to use NoiseNinja instead of Apple's (unquestionably) more mediocre noise reduction... well, that shouldn't be underestimated.

I think it comes down in the end to what you need or want out of a program, and so what works/feels best for your personal taste and work-style.

[blinking81]

Quick thing to note.

Aperture uses your graphics card to render all the previews, edits etc.
Lightroom uses your CPU.

This is why on my macbook, lightroom works like a charm and aperture is deathly slow. On a macbook pro or any other intel mac, aperture works beautifully - I've used it, and i loved it. Possibly more than lightroom.

There was not much choice involved for me, as i just cannot work with Aperture on my macbook.

[omega]

I used the beta and loved it. The white balance fix is extremely effective and it has a very nice interface and work flow. It will eat your ram alive and it's not too nice on your cpu.

[trelaflip]

I picked up a copy of Lightroom. So far, Im really liking it.

I could of saved the money and kept using my CS2 but I find Lightroom keeps me much more organized and with it I don't miss steps on my workflow.

After Lightroom if I want to take the PP a bit further I load into CS2 afterwards.

Im also running in on Vista and runs perfect!

[EricF]

I haven't bought Lightroom 1.0, but I will. I really liked the Beta, and it worked respectably well on my older PowerMac Dual 1Ghz G4. I didn't (and won't) use Aperture because the graphics card isn't supported by Aperture.

Whenever I upgrade my system I could run Aperture, but by that time I think Lightroom will be entrenched.

Just my $.02

-Eric

[magnus9]

You can download a 30 day trial from Adobe.com and see what it's like for yourself. =) I've got about 15 days left on my trial and it's such a positive influence on my workflow that I will definately be picking up the full version next paycheck.

[msmack]

Have heard the real version is ten times better than the beta. Have seen a demo, very impressive. Hearing raves about the progam. Time to download the free trial. Price will go up in about a month. Also, check out this site.

http://pictureflow.fileburst.com/_Tutorials/Photoshop_LR/04/index.html

Merrill

[deathbyevilspoon]

Thanks for the link msmack...Just got this program and I am looking forward to learning it.

[trelaflip]

I posted a couple days ago about the sharpening in Lightroom. I'm not satisfied with the result it gives so I found my self still going into photoshop and sharpneing. How ever. The Tone Curve tool is deadly!

[RDH]

A question about what Eric wrote:

"4 - Simple presets can be accessed on the left sidebar. So if you have a common B&W action - you can now apply it to all your photos in one click."

How do you import or write your B&W action? Can you include features from PS2 in the action or just Lightroom? I've searched through the presets, actions from PS2, droplets from PS2 and it seems like it's way to confusing...so I think I'm missing something. I used to just use the "Batch" command in Bridge in combination with Actions I'd written in PS2...pretty straightforward.

Help!

R