Does a RAW file *have* to be processed?

[fletch]

Originally Posted by listenthenspeak

I second the lightroom comment. It's amazing...you can download a free trial on Adobe's website to check it out for 30 days. Or you can get it for cheaper than the normal price by buying lightroom 1.0 on Amazon for $100, then buying the upgrade to 2.0 for $90....saves you $100.

No fair. Adobe lightroom 1.0 is £200 ($320 US) on Amazon UK and Adobe Lightroom 2.0 is £210 ($336 US). Therefore we can't do the upgrade switch meaning Lightrrom is nearly double the price in UK vs US. Adobe - what a bunch of rip off merchants.

Does anybody know if Lightroom is region specific of if I'm able to get a copy front the US will it work OK if I register it here?

[DannyF1966]

Originally Posted by fletch

No fair. Adobe lightroom 1.0 is £200 ($320 US) on Amazon UK and Adobe Lightroom 2.0 is £210 ($336 US). Therefore we can't do the upgrade switch meaning Lightrrom is nearly double the price in UK vs US. Adobe - what a bunch of rip off merchants.

And then they wonder why p2p is so popular.....

[fletch]

I think they know why its so popular. They just spend more time working out how to stop it than working out how to avaoid people wanting to do it in the first place.

[Ginger Pixie]

Even if you are just sharpening the image or getting rid of noise, it is worth tweaking in RAW. Try it and compare the difference. Seriously.

[sk66]

One consideration that I don't think was clearly noted is that looking at a RAW file without any settings applied to it is VERY disapointing. It will look worse than it did on the camera LCD and worse than an in camera JPEG conversion of the same image.

In lightroom you assigned a default camera profile to veiw the images "thru"...This will cause the images to look like they did on the camera LCD and like the equivilent JPEG without any processing required.

You are probably looking at your files thru a (bland) program default... I was really disapointed with my RAW pictures in lightroom initially when the program was using it's default "adobe camera" setting....

[Kn1nJa]

Apparently I can get lightroom 2.0 for 94.98 US through a site that offers student discounts. The only downside is that it is usually an "educational" version.

Would anyone recommend that I skip the "edu" version and get the full retail?

EDIT: I already have educational version of CS3 .... so I might as well get the edu version of lightroom.

[dakwegmo]

I was concerned about whether an educational version of Adobe Software could be used for professional projects. It wasn't clear from the EULA, so I emailed them and asked, I have an email response from Adobe that says, there are no limitations on the educational versions of any of their software, with the exception of not offering an upgrade to the full versions. Other than that there's no difference between the regular and EDU versions. If you can get it go for it.