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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Upgrade Review (continued)
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Manufacturer: Adobe
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Platform(s): Windows Vista, Mac OS X Intel, Mac OS X Leopard, Windows XP
Release Date: August 15, 2008
Average Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
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More User Submitted Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Upgrade Reviews
Date: 2008-09-24
Lightroom for Photographers
If you are a photographer, Lightroom is an essential tools for the trade. Going back to the old days, our darkrooms were the essential tool for control over our end results. With digital, it is Lightroom. 2.0 has added a lot of things that pro photgraphers needed added. Get it, try it, and fall in love all over again. :-)
Date: 2008-09-24
A very different kind of program
I am a web designer who owns & uses Adobe Suites on both Mac and PC daily, and am skilled in Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw. Lightroom has added an additional 'photographer's dimension' to my work. I am not a professional photographer, but I now shoot differently because I can anticipate what the developing work will be to make the shot a great shot. Additionally, I have finally started to get all my raw data organized.
So the real difference to me is Lightroom has the tools to make my pictures "pop" - and has a small enough toolset that I can use them all and get predictable results. Photoshop is still used for flyaway hair, spotting, making people thinner, changing/cleaning backgrounds, and in general 'changing the picture'. Lightroom has become my personal success story for pictures I shoot.
Date: 2008-09-14
Lightroom 2 is a winner
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 has an awkward name (Adobe should just drop the Photoshop out of it and leave it as Lightroom) but that's about the only thing that is awkward. This image editing, image adjusting, image cataloguing application is ideal for serious photographers, professional or amateur, who want to do more with their digital photos than simply fill up space.
While aimed specifically at photographers who shoot in RAW format (i.e., uncompressed, unedited raw information, available as an option on some high-end cameras), Lightroom 2 can also handle JPEGs, TIFFs and other graphic formats. I've used it to keep track of images scanned in with a scanner, of comics created with Plasq's Comic Life and Comic Life Magiq, and similar bits of graphic whimsy. The cataloging and meta tagging functions are easy to use, so you use them; finding and sorting photos is a breeze.
Unlike Apple's Aperture, Lightroom 2 can work on Windows, which could be a plus, depending on your needs. While Aperture always supported multiple monitors, this feature didn't appear in Lightroom until version 2, and it is a welcome addition (you can never have too much monitor space when working with images).
Much like Microsoft's Expression Media (the former iView Media Pro), Lightroom leaves images in ordinary directories, and uses document paths to keep track of everything. This differs from Aperture, which sucks everything into a database. It is easy to back up Aperture's entire database on separate media (a separate file server or separate volume); Lightroom will back up its own database but, since the database doesn't contain the actual images, you are essentially backing up only the metadata.
As for ease of use, Lightroom 2 is easier to do more basic things, and Aperture easier to do more subtle things. Aperture has an edge in organizing photos, but not by much.
If you are running Windows, get Lightroom 2. If you have a Mac, well, it's tough: Lightroom 2 and Aperture are both outstanding.
Date: 2008-09-14
Well-designed versatile productivity tool for digital photographers
Version 2 of 'Adobe Photoshop Lightroom' (LR2) is a worthwhile expansion of last year's successful introduction -- in particular, the welcome capability of enhancing selected regional portions of an image (as against the prior more restrictive global tweaks); a Finder bar that consolidates previously separate searches for dates, keywords and metadata (eg: capture date, camera make, location, etc) into one accessible central location; capacity for huge files (up to 512 MB); as well as dual-monitor support. The option for 64-bit execution in both Mac and Vista will further speed processing (but nowhere near the doubling you'd anticipate) for users having more than 4MB RAM memory.
LR2 is a combination photo cataloging and processing application geared to high-quality high-volume workflow in the wide-gamut photoRGB color space -- the platform-neutral CD installs either the Win or Mac version with minimal hassle; whether Win or Mac, the LR2 screen has a virtually identical look and feel.
If you just want to spruce up family and travel snapshots, LR2 isn't for you; PSE6 autofix would be all you'd need and want -- saving time, space and yet another steep learning curve. If, on the other hand, you want the very best you can squeeze out of your digital camera, and don't mind investing a bit more time and effort, then LR2 comes as close as you can to high-volume production.
At one C-note in the US (shamefully higher elsewhere) the upgrade is well worth the fare in enhancing productivity -- were it not for a little known bug that prevents proper importing of keywords when converting ver 1 catalogs to version 2. [see LR 'User Forum' for Adobe's fix]; one would have expected Adobe Update to have that ironed out some 2 months later or, at the very least, have placed a warning sticker on the outside of upgrade boxes. Even so, that issue does not affect purchasers of the full version 2 release. Otherwise, bug reports seem remarkably mild for such a major overhaul.
If you use the RAW ('digital negative') capability of a DSLR, nothing else beats LR2 which 'develops' the RAW file as it imports the file into the catalog, and retains its 12- or 14-bit per color channel precision throughout ... without ever altering the original 'negative'. This is a far faster process than either Photoshop or PSE6 can deliver. In fact, LR2 has pretty much become the standard for those professional photographers who favor RAW capture. This feature will become all the more meaningful as camera development relentlessly moves towards 16-bit pixels on a full-frame sensor (recall LR2's 512 MP capacity!).
While the great majority of your photos will be print-ready after LR2 'development' a few images might still need some targeted touchups from a dedicated application. Adobe would dearly love for you to use their flagship Photoshop cash cow. But, for most of us using photo inkjet printers, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (either Win or Mac) should prove more than adequate, a heck of a lot cheaper, and far easier to use. Conversely, if your photography demands heavy-duty professional CMYK press printing, then Photoshop (or similar) still is the big gorilla. Otherwise: healing, cloning, retouching and even adjustment layering are much the same in PSE6 as in Photoshop; because LR2 has already squeezed out most of the benefits of 16-bit color processing, the PSE6 8-bit/channel RGB limitation is no great handicap.
Date: 2008-09-12
A Worth While Upgrade
When Adobe first released the public beta of the original Lightroom, it seemed like a desperate attempt to compete with Apple's Aperture which Apple seemed to be using to target Adobe's flagship creative tool, Photoshop.
Upon using the beta, however, it became apparent that this was a tool that Adobe had been putting a lot of thought into and while the decision to offer the free public beta may have been an attempt to stave off possible Aperture defectees, the development of the software itself clearly was more than that.
Adobe's new tool would come to herald in a nondestructive editing and organizational workflow that simply would never be possible in the full version of Photoshop without seriously jeopardizing functionality and workflows for existing users.
Today, Lightroom 2 takes that original concept to the next level. Boasting even more powerful non-destructive editing, tighter integration with the full version of Photoshop and a revised and even more streamlined interface (Adobe listened), it is well worth the upgrade price.
If you don't have Lightroom yet and are wondering why you would buy it when you already have Photoshop, ask yourself this: Do you have a digital camera and do you take a lot of pictures with it? If so, does taking them all into Photoshop for adjustments seem time consuming? Does the added storage for saving originals and adjusted copies seem excessive? Do you wish that Bridge acted more like a database than a browser and maybe had the ability to keep track of files even when they weren't available (external or networked hard drive that aren't always available for instance)?
If so, Lightroom may be the tool for you. Will it replace Photoshop? No, but an easy way to think of it is as a tool for dealing with many images that need global adjustments with a few touch-ups where as Photoshop is the tool you'll turn to for composite images and major touch-up/cleanup.
Can you do what you need to in Photoshop without Lightroom? Of course - Photoshop is the top of the line Swiss Army Knife of image editing. Will you be able to work as quickly and efficiently in it as you would Lightroom? Seriously doubtful.
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