Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 | Industrial Strength Power Tool for Photographers

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 | A powerhouse for organization and editing

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Adobe Photoshop Li...

	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS X Intel, Windows \| Adobe, 2008 average customer review:based on 49 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Industrial Strength Power Tool for Photographers

Photo technology has advanced more in the last five years than it probably has in over a century. For me, the unfortunate side effect of all of this digital wizardry are the hundreds of gigabytes that are crying out for easy organization and efficient editing. Thankfully both Adobe and Apple have stepped up with heavy duty apps that largely solve the many challenges the digital revolution has thrust upon advanced amateur and professional photographers.

Mac users find themselves with a difficult decision between Apple Aperture 2.1.1 and Lightroom 2. Both products are focused on efficient workflows for organization and editing but take dramatically different approaches to getting that work done. As an Aperture user I was excited to be sent a copy of Lightroom to review and compare how the two apps work. After several hours of poking, prodding, and a whole lot of photo editing, I came to the conclusion that both are superb for what they do. While there are a few things that I like better on Lightroom and vice-versa (I much prefer Lightroom's file management for instance), nothing stood out for me as a deal maker or breaker for either product.

And while this wishy-washy conclusion may sound like a cop-out, it really comes down to how you, the photographer, edit photos and which workflow will best fit into how you approach that work. The problem is that once you're committed to Lightroom or Aperture it is difficult, if not impossible, to switch and maintain all of the editing and organizational data. Neither Adobe or Apple provide a pathway to import a library created on their competitor's product.

So here's my suggestion: try before you buy. While Apple and Adobe are locked in the grips of deadly competition we the consumers benefit not only from two great products to choose from but also 30 day fully featured free trials of each. Download both and begin experimenting to see which of the two will best fit your needs.

The decision is easier for Windows users. That's because there's nothing better for Windows than Lightroom. Users in a mixed Mac and PC environment will also find that Lightroom's libraries are also completely cross-compatible, so work can be started on a Mac and finished on a Windows PC. Users upgrading from Adobe Photoshop Elements as well as the older Photoshop album can import their existing album structures into Lightroom with relative ease.

Adobe continues their proud tradition of redefining photography with this product. It's clear that everything they've learned from two decades of Photoshop, combined with feedback from their customers, has gone into this version of Lightroom.

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A powerhouse for organization and editing

I am a Photoshop CS3/Bridge/Adobe Camera Raw user, and when Lightroom 1.0 came out in beta for user testing, I downloaded it and tried it out. At the time, I didn't see much use for the application, and my other Adobe applications seemed to offer me the same and better, so I opted not to add Lightroom to my photo processing arsenal. I took this most recent opportunity to tryout Lightroom 2.0 however, because of all that I've been hearing about its improved functionality from fellow photographers - I wanted to see for myself what it could do.

I've hardly scratched the surface on this feature-rich application, but there is much to admire here. With Lightroom, Adobe offers a photo-centric application (as opposed to Bridge, which attempts to be everything for any user from any of Adobe's applications, including audio, graphic design and video applications) that is sleek and professional and very, very useful.

One of its main strengths, and I believe its main purpose, is as an organization database for the ever-growing amount of digital images today's modern photographer typically accumulates. I've found Bridge to be a sluggish image viewer - point it to a folder of several hundred RAW files, then go have a 20-minute tea break until it's done setting up the previews. With Lightroom, you can import your images into the database in one go and forever after they can be viewed immediately whenever you open the application. I've been amazed so far at how quickly I'm able to access images in Lightroom and get started on the selection and editing process with very little lag time.

RAW file editing functions are immediately available in Lightroom (in Bridge you have to open a separate Adobe Camera Raw application to begin edits, another 60 seconds at least), and much of what you can do in Adobe Camera Raw is available in Lightroom as well - exposure adjustment, curves, clarity, etc. There appear to be some differences, however - for instance, unless I've missed spotting it, Lightroom appears to lack the one-click convert-to-B&W feature that ACR provides (I would expect to see this in the hue/saturation/luminance tab, where it exists in ACR). Lightroom now allows spot editing (although no selections), which my current version of ACR can't do, in some cases saving me a trip into Photoshop altogether.

Overall, I've been very pleased with how much editing functionality Lightroom immediately makes available to me and thus how far along I can get in my editing before I need to open Photoshop to finish things up - not having to bop around among two or three applications at once throughout most of the workflow saves a lot of time.

I have yet to have a need for or tryout the Slideshow, Print, and Web tabs of the application, so I can't provide any critique on those in this review.

So five stars to Adobe Lightroom 2 for its sleek, intuitive interface and PS CS3-worthy suite of editing tools. All this functionality in one single application provides a welcome improvement to speeding up the photographer's workflow.

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My new photo companion

I had no expectations for this product so i had to go through it slowly. I tried the previous version and didn't see much use of it.
I have been using Photoshop for too long to go for a shortcut application.

I have been using Lightroom 2 for 1 week now and I have had no reason to do anything in Photoshop except the healing effect which is helpful to clean the dust and lens spots.

LR2 can do almost anything and might be a good reason not to spend those $$$ to get CS4 which is getting too complicated even for someone who has used it for 13 years.

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Complex, amazingly complete.

(14DEC08)
So, got this on a whim. Started to use it and thought I'd better get more help. My friend who uses it recommended I get "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)" by Scott Kelby, which I did (from Amazon, of course!). I'm on Chapter 2 and really like the way it is taking me through the capabilities of Lightroom (for Mac, BTW). I cannot say yet whether Lightroom is going to be more to my liking than Apple's iPhoto which I've used for all (>4000 pics) my digital photos up to now - to do that will take many more weeks of use, and then maybe it'll still be questionable. I can say that if you're just starting out with digital photography (no matter how amateur or professional) and own a Mac, this software will make a great anchor for your work. I recommend the book, also, BTW. You'll be starting fresh and getting your pics safely and logically stored and arranged. Loads of options for adjustment, sizing, arrangement.

More to come:

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Good softwware but pricey...

I'm a Mac user. I use iPhoto for the majority of my photo related needs. I don't take a whole lot of pictures so my editing needs are simple and basic. Lightroom is pretty much the Cadillac of iPhoto level type editing and organizing software. While I enjoyed the look and options available, I couldn't help but feel like this was a bit too much for my occasional use. Those who take a lot of pics, and who use Photoshop a lot probably would feel more at home with it than I did.

I could get used to it, and probably wind up using it more than I intended if I only took more pictures to begin with. For the pros, this is a great piece of software, for the casual photo taker, this might be a bit of overkill. It does what it does well, I just really don't need it for my level of picture taking. 4 out of 5 for most people...give or take one star depending on if you work with a lot of pics or not.

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