Those familiar with Photoshop might wonder why an additional product should be needed to manage digital images. I would offer this difference: Photoshop is a program for image manipulation; it's for folks who want to change their photographs or create new substance in an image. Lightroom is a program that, primarily, expedites photography workflow. [By using the term "workflow," I don't mean to imply that it's geared only to those who are in the profession of photography; amateurs and hobbyists alike (like I am), who also wish to prepare quickly and print images, can benefit from this highly-practical and time-efficient program.] You can "tweak" pics very nicely with Lightroom, but Photoshop's the paragon for substantial alteration.
Lightroom 3 simplifies enormously the process of preparing photo captures for use, whether as web or print applications. It facilitates quick organization & preview, raw enhancement, printing, and web uploading of photos.
The "library" module permits quick organization of picture groups. The amazing, work-saving catalog system allows rapid naming, labeling & flagging, copying, metadata editing & review, and filtering of files, then presents a robust preview for easy access to the rest of the photographic workflow. A stellar feature of the file handling is the (relatively) low memory burden placed on computer RAM -- most all of these activities originate from small files that make good use of the .dng formatting.
The "develop" module contains all of the necessary controls to adjust exposure, correct lens aberrations, establish a good white point to remove color casts, manipulate color and grayscale attributes, crop, retouch discreet areas of a photo, and, generally, to perform all the actions of an after-the-fact camera, insofar as these are possible, to improve the raw (proprietary or .dng) images that come from a digital source. White point color correction is particulary easy - and requires only a few skillful mouse motions (as opposed to Photoshop, in which color correction is either mindlessly automated or involves multi-step curve adjustments). One very fine feature in Lightroom is the ability to create instantly a "virtual copy" of your photo, which you can edit, change, enhance, etc. -- all without altering your original file.
The "slideshow" module lets you combine photos into a presentation for automatically viewing a sequence of photos as slides. Text can be added, as well as an intro slide and a conclusion slide. You can even add a music file to the background of your presentation, and the program will automatically time your slideshow to the length of your music clip. Slideshows can then be downloaded into a variety of different video formats (including mp4, which I use most frequently).
Finally, the "print" or "web" modules expedite the last-step output to the desired final product. There's a marvelous preview of your photo presented prior to the actual printing. Multiple photos or copies of the same photo can be easily grouped and previewed on a single sheet for cost-effective printing. Downloading to the web is a cinch. There's even a feature to upload your photos automatically to a Flickr account and (in the updated version) to Facebook.
Though a learning curve is associated with attaining mastery of Lightroom, I think the controls are quite intuitive. As a virtual neophyte who has had the product for only a short time, I've been able to output some very satisfying images to my printer.
I've been an Adobe fan since the dark ages of computer imagery in the 1980's [Pagemaker license number was issued by Aldus], and this product once again confirms their hegemony in the realm of computer graphics.
Conclusion: Lightroom 3 is a highly recommended program for those who like to snap and publish digital photos. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
I'll start off by saying I thought $300 for a photo program was more than I wanted to spend. I had tried the 30 day trial when LR2 came out, but couldn't get in enough keyboard time during the 30 day trial period. I decided to try the Beta when LR3 B1 came out and actually got about 70 days under my belt before B2 expired.
I had bought and used Elements 3 and 7, and while pretty good enhancers, there organizational abilities were weak. By weak, I mean, once they were catalogued and or key worded, they were fine, but the key wording was tedious.
Enter LR3. It doesn't have the capability of Elements (or photoshop either, I assume) but it does have enough capability to handle 90+% of what I do. What I usually do is correct color and exposure, saturate or desatureate some colors to enhance the image or de-emphasize the back ground, sharpen things up a bit and or decrease noise, mostly luminous, and apply the lens correction feature. I have also used the curves feature and the section I think they call shade, saturation and Lumination to make local adjustment to brightness and color. All in all, I can make almost all reasonably exposed photos, (+-2.5 stops) look pretty good. The program doesnot have the capability to distort shape, color or texture for artistic purposes, which I do not do at this time. The program does have a perspective correction section which I have had reasonable success with on the small number of uses I have had with it.
I have dabbled in the other features, such as healingand red eye reduction (easy and effecetive), paint brushing, tinting etc. My experience here is limited, but the features seem to be effective.
Its real standout is organization. I had about 11,000 photos in my file which I reduced to about 8000 by using the easy to use "compare mode". I also keyworded these images in about 2 weeks of daily effort averaging 2 to 4 hours per day. ( a concentrated effort for sure). The keywords are easy to set up and the program's auto-type and table of recent keywords is very helpful and a great time saver.
In general, I say if your main goal is organization of your file, perhaps coupled with a desire for slide show, this program has a lot of features to consider, (I did not use the print or post to facebook sections at all). If you're into MAJOR image correction or enhancement, for artistic purposes, this program will fall short. I hope this helps.'
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