Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Beta

[+Tantawi Subscriber²]

Adobe Photoshop? Lightroom? answers the digital photographer?s call for a workflow application that allows photographers to quickly work with raw format images. With Lightroom you can manage all of your photographs; showcase them in print, dynamic slideshows, and interactive Web galleries that are a simple to produce. Lightroom?s cross platform support allows photographers to effortlessly work on projects from any Windows or Macintosh computer on-location or in the office. Lightroom?spend less time at the computer, and more time behind the lens, doing what you love.

Lightroom 2.0 beta builds on the success of the first Lightroom beta program and provides photographers with early access to our next release so that you can kick the tires and ensure that this release meets your needs. Don?t delay. Download now and send us your feedback. Lightroom 2.0 beta expires at the end of August 2008.

Enhancements that can be found in the Lightroom 2.0 beta include the followin Localized correctionsctions ? Enhance specific areas of an image for unsurpassed nondestructive flexibility and control reminiscent of the traditional darkroom dodge and burn experiImproved organizational toolsal tools ? Find the images you need quickly and Multiple monitor supportor support ? Add an additional monitor to efficiently manage photographic workflow and presFlexible print package functionalityunctionality ? Create custom layouts containing multiple sizes of a photograph on a s64-bit support64-bit support ? Lightroom 2.0 now takes advantage of the latest hardware architectures with improved memory handling and performance.

Read the release notes for details on all of the new functionality in Lightroom 2.0 beta.

More info: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroWindowsload: Windows 32-bit | 64-bit or for Mac[/b]0208.dmg"]Mac

[DrBroccoli]

Exciting! I'm downloading it now. Yay for x64 support BTW.

Edit:

Just installed it, only problem so far is the lack of support for imported 1.x Lightroom catalogs. Although the error does say "Lightroom 2.0 Beta does not support importing from 1.X Lightroom Catalogs (Yet)."

The hope is still there!

[Prince Charming]

Oh nice! X64 support is pretty cool, and the other changes seem great too.

EDIT - Just test-drove the x64 build, and it does seem snappier and more responsive than 1.3. Especially when navigating around large raw files. It's ram usage seems higher. Like 2-3x higher (1.3 seems to use about 250MB of ram, 2.0 is going between 500-690MB). I can't say I object, as I've got the ram, and I'd rather it used available ram and ran faster instead of used no ram and ran slow. Guess most people working with large photo collections probably have beasts of PCs.

Edited April 2, 2008 by Pandya

[Keito]

Cool - will check this out :D thanks - love 1.3 ^^

[giga Veteran]

It's definitely snappier.

Big changes I like:

Local Corrections

Huge amounts will be written about the new local corrections, no doubt, so I won't go into detail here. A quick summary:

You can paint masks on to the image, which are fully editable.

You can use these masks to adjust exposure, brightness, clarity, saturation and tint.

You can have multiple masks on the same image, all doing different adjustments.

The Auto Mask function intelligently masks off areas of different colour to protect these areas without taking hours to build a perfect mask.

It's not possible to do these tools justice in writing - you have to download and play! They're incredible!

The Vignettes panel is a much requested addition. In addition to the lens correction vignette which has been rehomed, there is now a post-crop vignette, which allows artistic vignettes locked to the crop edge.

The Detail panel now has a small 1:1 preview window to show the corrections live. Use the TAT tool to adjust the area of image that you're viewing. If you hide that preview, a small popup preview appears while you adjust sliders, giving a 1:1 view.

Files may now be opened directly into Photoshop CS3 10.0.1 without creating an interim Tiff or PSD file. Other external editors may still require an interim file.

http://victoriabampton.com/lightroom20beta1whatsnew.htm

[ana04]

According to their site this is still basically alpha code and not quite beta..

So that they can add stuff if people give feedback..

Hopefully they'll add plugin support at some point..

So far 64bit version is working quite well in vista.. :)