I've downloaded the latest/greatest beta version of Lightroom
and have been fiddling around with it attempting to learn it as
quickly as possible for a project I'm working on.
First of all, it's slow! In reality, not that slow, but
compared to my beloved RawShooter Essentials, it's slow.
'Course, RSE is in-your-face fast, so maybe it's not that fair
of a comparison. On my computer, Lightroom is about the same
operational speed as Olympus Studio.
There are a lot of truely innovative features and capabilities,
but what I'm seeing at this point where the usability almost
dictates my usage of it is the filing system. It's intuitive and
a huge step up from my Windows Directory Tree structure.
Lightroom functions as the "glue" between all of your imaging
apps and workflow. It also works with all image
types--including JPEGs. This aspect alone is almost worth the
price of admission.
One thing where this program is really shining is in
manipulation of people pictures. It's very easy to adjust
skintones without skewing the background. This truely is a
program that allows you to "get it right" during the conversion
and nearly eliminates post-production editing except for
localized editing.
So far, I think it's a real winner. If they can get the speed up
where it functions like RawShooter and if they can keep the
price reasonable (I refuse to pay $500+ for a program like
this)then it should be ok.
I did encounter two issues, though, which require keeping an eye
on. The sharpening algorithm isn't quite "there" and the
De-Noise function tends to be fooled when dealing with
large-pattern shapes. If, for example, you have a picture of a
split-rail fence, the scenery between the rails will lighten up
lose detail. Very unusual, and something I've never seen before
with any other noise-removeal algorithm.
Anyway, it's a start, for me. I'll be giving this beta version a
workout and maybe I'll end up utilizing it for most, if not all,
of my projects. This, of course, is exactly what Adobe wants us
to do by getting us all hooked on it.
AG
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