[Irma]

Yesterday we received a mail from adobe photoshop telling that as we have bought RawShooter Premium we could download lightroom 1.0 for free.

Unfortunately, there were too many things today at home, so I didn't play with it... I have it installed in my computer and from the little of what I saw, it looks really great.

Anyone has already played with the program?

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Yup!

Been using it since the first beta, the final version is very promising.

/Paul L.

[matthew]

I have 1.0 on order, but haven't received it yet. I tried downloading the 1.0 trial, but they wanted more information from me (my address? Am I getting a card for my birthday?) so I didn't bother. Hopefully I'll have the full version in a few days.

I just used Beta 4 to process a shoot I did today. Lightroom was used for copying the files off of the CF card, duplicating the original file on my external drive, convert to DNG and copy the image to my laptop, applying my creator data, and tagging the images with metadata keywords. (That's a one-click step.) It then took only a few minutes to sort the 60+ images down to a few candidates. Processing the raw files was straightforward, applying essentially the same WB and fill light settings to each. I then exported them as web-ready size to PSE3.0, which I'm still using for the final web-ready state. The total time was less than 30 minutes, which includes time to watch TV and browse the forums.

Elements is the vestigial flipper of my workflow -- I just haven't gotten out of the habit of using it.

[Russt]

hi Irma, I have been using lightroom beta for a couple of months after the computer upgrade.......very impressed I find that it cuts down on the time spent in PS. The processing is slick and quick and after using Rawshooter you can see they have been a big part of lightroom. I took a couple of the video tutorials on lightroom and this really fast tracked learning the program. I think you will like it!

['S']

I just looked in to the forums here to see what was happening and noticed this thread. I'm currently evaluating the trial version of LR. I did use one of the betas, but decided to wait till the final release. I'm mightily impressed so far and I can see myself buying it. I've been using it on a new state of the art HP laptop and when comparing it with CS2 and Adobe Camera Raw I've found it to be approx 25% faster at batch processing a 100 Raw files to JPEG. The whole job was done in 3 mins 40 secs.

There are a few of us over at DPNow that are also trialling it, maybe they can offer some further insight. Has anyone here a link to these video tutorials, it may help me to check I'm doing things right :)

[Wedding Shooter]

I got mine about two days ago. It is a great programme. I still like the simplicity of DPP though.

[Irma]

Matt, you are right it is an excellent tool to organize your pictures. This is something I liked a lot.

Stehpen
Just google lightroom tutorial video and you'll have there lots of offers. I did some that Adobe has in its site and they were quite easy to follow.

I played with the program yesterday, and I use it as part of my workflow in a series I was working on yesterday.

It is indeed a great program, for photographers that don't do much post processing in their pictures is excellent. They don't even need photoshop at all. I like of this program that you have more control over color, and the easy way to work with curves and correct exposure.

I doubt I could post/print a picture straight-out from Lightroom, since I post process a lot my pictures, work too much with masks and blending layers, but it certainly will give me a better image to start.

I don't know what you all think but as some of us have already the program, and probably some more will have it, it would be great to have at lightroom Q&A, or is it just me that has questions :| ?

[alastair_hm]

I've used the beta version, can't say it added much to my current workflow.

[shuttertalk]

Interesting stuff guys, tell us more!

I think they've got a $100 off offer at the moment (33% off) - and a 30 day free trial.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

[Wedding Shooter]

It works for me with my Wedding work because so much of it is presenting well exposed, colour corrected proofs to the client. This is something that Lightroom does very well. I can punch out 500 proofs in a few hours. This is what makes RAW actually faster than JPEG in my workflow.

The good thing about Lightroom is that it also works with JPEGS - so best of both worlds.

[matthew]

Well, I just bit the bullet, and downloaded the 1.0 demo. The B4 version that I've been perfectly happy with expires in 24.5 hours, so it was time. I'm still waiting on my boxed (educational pricing) version to come in. There's no difference or restriction to the trial version, except that it expires after 30 days. You can even buy it by purchasing a serial number without needing the retail box.

There are some differences between the commercial and B3 / B4 interface that I had gotten used to, so I've had to deal with some annoyances that won't affect late adopters. It migrated my library files without a hitch, but lost my camera and metadata presets. I suppose these things happen.

One thing that I like about lightroom is the ability to apply development settings when the photos are imported, and the ability to create custom settings profiles. I'm planning on creating some that mimic my cameras' characteristics from its jpeg engine on the different colour settings. (Finally a real use for jpeg+raw recording!) I'll build other profiles for when I'm shooting various other styles, such as one for Interior photography that adds more fill light and gives gentler blacks, moderate contrast, accurate colour, higher smoothing, and a daylight white balance.

I've also stopped using the vestigial Elements -- I'm now using Lightroom's Export options more intelligently, and created an Export preset to generate web-ready images. It automatically converts them to sRGB, appends "-web" to the original filename, constrains it to a maximum of 750x600 pixels, adds my copyright info (read from the metadata), and saves it as a jpeg at 60% quality to my "Upfull Grapevine" folder instead of the usual "Photograpes" that my full-sized images go to.

It is stunningly easy to get exactly the photo I want from my camera to the web. I can't wait until I learn what this program can really do.

This image took about 2 minutes to get right. The colour is as I remember it, there's texture in the shadows, and the snow's not blown out. I even used the spot removal tool to get rid of a couple of annoying snowflakes, which wasn't possible in B4, and would have required PS/PSE. I have to agree with WS -- raw is now faster than jpegs.

[peter]

Yeah . Ive been playing with it for a while now ..
It speeds up my work flow quite significantly .. especially when im not working with raws.. (since when importing raws into PS u get the nice window with all the main adjustments u normally need to do to a photo)