Richard,
I guess whether it's redundant is dependent on the user's
perspective. Lightroom was specifically designed to
dramatically speed up the workflow for professional
photographers who must manage, cull selects, edit, and output
(as either slideshows, prints or web images)
potentially thousands of images/day. That is it's
mission statement, so to speak. Adobe Bridge
cannot (and was not designed to) handle serious
numbers of RAW images/day, and although
I have not used Olympus Viewer, I doubt it can, either.
Lightroom is not, and was never intended to be,
a replacement for Photoshop. As such, it will not
have advanced image manipulation capabilities,
such as layers, layer masks, or other selective
editing tools. Photoshop is for that, and Lightroom
is not intended to replace PS.
A lot of the modules you describe, e.g. RAW conversion, printing
are already built in to Lightroom, but it is not intended
to be the analogue of a Hassy 503C, where you can
add the modules you want to a core "body", so to speak.
It will be extensible in the sense that plug-ins will be available
for it, however. As far as RAW conversion is concerned,
to my mind, ACR was as good as anything out there,
and now that Adobe has purchased Pixmantec,
and incorporated key features of RawShooter,
it's RAW conversion I would wager is second to none.
Having used Lightroom pretty extensively for my shoots,
including thousands of images/day for pro motorsports,
I can say that it has dramatically speeded up my
efficiency and workflow.
Cheers,
Stephen.
On Nov 21, 2006, at 6:21 PM, Listar wrote:
> Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 08:10:17 -0500
> From: Richard Lovison <rlovison@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [OM] Re: olympus Digest V3 #315
>
>
> Stephen,
>
> The problem I have with Lightroom is that in my case, I see it as a
> redundant piece of software. Unless it can replace Olympus Viewer
> that
> I use for RAW conversion, CS2 that I use for editing and Qimage that I
> use for printing, I see it as an unnecessary expense and I have a
> feeling Lightroom will cost upwards of $250. I don't like Lightroom's
> curve tool at the present time as I feel it is too restrictive with
> its
> presets compared to the curves in CS2. Having a healing brush will
> help
> though I doubt Lightroom will ever offer enough tools so CS2 won't be
> needed. As an example, there are times when the CS2 transform tools
> come in handy to remove unwanted flare.
>
> I wish software companies would break the many components of their
> software down into modules instead of trying to create the "whole"
> package. I like the idea of having selections from different companies
> of just RAW converters so one could pick their "developer" of choice.
> Then image processing software so one could pick their "enlarger and
> associated tools". Printing software along with resizing tools
> would be
> another module. Another thought... maybe design image editing
> software
> as the core base that would allow one to plug in RAW converter modules
> from other companies as well as printing modules offered by other
> companies.
>
> Richard L
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