Adobe Releases Beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4

[MacRumors]

Adobe today announced the release of a free public beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4, the company's digital photo management and post-production software. The software is the primary competitor to Apple's Aperture and a popular option for photographers.

New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta

- Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
- Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
- Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
- White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
- Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
- Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
- Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr®.
- Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
- Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

The free public beta expires on March 31, with the final release of the software planned for "early 2012". Pricing is yet to be announced. The current Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 carries a recommended retail price of $299 and an upgrade price of $99, although many retailers offer the software at substantially lower prices.

With Aperture's move to the Mac App Store upon the marketplace's debut one year ago, pricing for Apple's software has now dropped to $79.99.

Article Link: Adobe Releases Beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4

 

[Memo86]

Good News!

 

[mscriv]

I've never used a Beta program like this. Are there any real drawbacks? Does the March 31st deadline mean the program will no longer be available for download in this Beta version or does that mean the Beta version you installed on your computer will no longer work.

I might be interested in trying this if it's fairly safe, but I don't want to learn the program just to have it disabled in a few months as I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the retail price.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Still no .png support, still no support for multiple users, no way to use it on a network, no worthwhile dual monitor workspace layout.

...but good thing they built an email and Facebook client into it, for all those who can grasp color work and advanced editing & printing workflows, but can't figure out how to send an email. & all this video crap & YouTube uploader, really helpful for all those times you want to just adjust the levels on some raw footage and upload it for everyone to see.

Adobe and their priorities. CaptureOne it is...

 

[kirky29]

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

 

[morespce54]

I've never used a Beta program like this. Are there any real drawbacks? Does the March 31st deadline mean the program will no longer be available for download in this Beta version or does that mean the Beta version you installed on your computer will no longer work.

I might be interested in trying this if it's fairly safe, but I don't want to learn the program just to have it disabled in a few months as I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the retail price.

It usually means the program will stop working on after March 31st. Plus, it's a beta, which means it might gets few quirks here and there (but I guess it must be pretty solid).

 

[Snowcat001]

It seems to have a few nice improvements! Would like to see what Apple comes up with in Aperture 4 since I do like the lay-out and workflow in Aperture more than that in Lightroom.

Would love automatic chromatic aberration correction!!
For me noise and dynamic range utilities are essential in a new version, so Lightroom seems to be doing a good job now.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Does it bring back tethered support for the Canon 5d? I now have Aperture on my laptop for this purpose only.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me

Yup. Makes me wonder IF Apple plans on ever updating Aperture or is going to just let it wither. I jumped from Lightroom 1.0 to Aperture 3 when it came out and don't want to switch back right now but if there is not a major update this year I might have no choice. If Apple is going to stop competing w/ Adobe's pro/prosumer apps I wish it would just say so.

 

[smalltimewine]

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

I've been wondering the same. Lion was a noticeable performance boost for almost every app I use on my mid-2010 i7 MBP, with the biggest exception being Aperture. I even just completed a fresh OS install and replaced the optical drive with an SSD, and Aperture is still my most sloth-like application.

I also share your thoughts on the LR interface compared to Aperture. It's probably years of familiarity with Aperture, but LR just felt so foreign and somehow not right. Perhaps it deserves more time invested from me...learning curve.

Then there's Adobe's arguably better and more frequent RAW support, actually effective NR, more feature rich curves tools, lens correction, etc. Looks like LR4 is getting some of the local adjustment tools that Aperture has enjoyed.

Sadly, I'm just not sure Apple is looking to drive its Pro apps as strongly any more. I can understand the business decision behind it. Their core is to make great devices that appeal to many consumers (little C). Adobe's mission is to make great tools for creative professionals. Not why Apple and Adobe appear to be playing well again, I think we see Adobe really begin to lead in their tools.

 

[pdjudd]

If Apple updates Aperture, we should know within the next month or so - they seem to settle on a 2 year release cycle during February. Not much to base this off of, but the program is so young you never know.

 

[baryon]

Yeah yeah, Lightroom and Aperture are good for organizing pictures, but the best is still Bridge

 

[SalsaShark]

LR 2 to 3 was an absolute no-brainer if for no other reason than the new RAW processing engine. Absolutely love it. But from what I'm reading here, I can't say I'm too excited about LR4's prospects. Spot white balance adjustment is nice, especially when dealing with quirky phasing indoor lights, but how about the workflow? Not sure who they're going after with some of these features, but it's certainly not pros. Keywording/captioning needs improvement. Switching between modules is still a bit clunky. I have to rely on too many third party plugins to make LR do what I want. I guess when they're already head-and-shoulders above Aperture, Adobe doesn't feel the need to innovate much.

 

[scottsjack]

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

Having moved PS CS5 back to W7 from Lion I too would like to retire Aperture. There are many things I like about A3 but really it's "iPhoto Pro" or maybe "iPhoto Deluxe". If LR 4 can do many of those things it will keep things tidier on my NTFS drives.

For me Mac is becoming more of a video/music system rather than my primary system.

 

[kirky29]

I've been wondering the same. Lion was a noticeable performance boost for almost every app I use on my mid-2010 i7 MBP, with the biggest exception being Aperture. I even just completed a fresh OS install and replaced the optical drive with an SSD, and Aperture is still my most sloth-like application.

I also share your thoughts on the LR interface compared to Aperture. It's like years of familiarity, but LR just felt so foreign and somehow not right. Perhaps it deserves more time invested from me.

Then there's Adobe's arguably better and more frequent RAW support, actually effective NR, more feature rich curves tools, lens correction, etc. Looks like LR4 is getting some of the local adjustment tools that Aperture has enjoyed.

Sadly, I'm just not sure Apple is looking to drive its Pro apps as strongly any more. I can understand the business decision behind it. Their core is to make great devices that appeal to many consumers (little C). Adobe's mission is to make great tools for creative professionals. Not why Apple and Adobe appear to be playing well again, I think we see Adobe really begin to lead in their tools.

That's pretty much the same for me! Lion was great for performance boosts everywhere, but Aperture... You'd think an i7 2.2, 8GB RAM, 1GB Video MBP would be able to handle it!

Couldn't agree more, it looks like Apple is purposely neglecting their pro ranges.

I did read above that Lightroom doesn't handle PNGs very good (at all?) this could be a problem for me, cause I import all my iPhone pictures in there with A LOT of screenshots!

 

[nwcs]

I think we'll see a lot of things come out during beta but I can tell you one of the big possibilities here is the print books. Wedding photogs who are DIY (which is most) will use that feature. Geo tags has been a glaring absence. I am curious to see if they make improvements to ACR. Whatever we see there is a foreshadow of what they'll do with CS6. If their shadows/highlights are done within the Develop module then that might be worth it there. That has the potential to be really helpful rather than post raw conversion adjustment.

 

[HiRez]

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

I've tried both, found Lightroom a lot more comfortable to work in. Also, maybe a minor thing, but I much prefer the dark UI in Lightroom over the light UI in Aperture.

As for V4, I like the white balance brush, that'll be really useful, but I would like to see Nik-style radial adjustment zones for everything, and they really need to fix Stacks to work in all views and catalogs. Also, relative adjustments which can be saved in presets would be really useful.

 

[smalltimewine]

While I've only been a casual observer of the LR beta pattern as a continual Aperture user, I seem to recall that Adobe would add features through the beta period. So, if underwhelmed today, the feature list could grow some before release.

 

[george-brooks]

Been meaning to switch from Aperture 3 to lightroom for a while. Its what all of my professors use (I am a photography student). That white balance brush sounds great! That alone might make me want to switch, aside from all of its other awesome features that aperture doesnt have. Maybe now I'll finally take the plunge.

 

[AppleDroid]

Still no .png support, still no support for multiple users, no way to use it on a network, no worthwhile dual monitor workspace layout.

...but good thing they built an email and Facebook client into it, for all those who can grasp color work and advanced editing & printing workflows, but can't figure out how to send an email. & all this video crap & YouTube uploader, really helpful for all those times you want to just adjust the levels on some raw footage and upload it for everyone to see.

Adobe and their priorities. CaptureOne it is...

As in making adjustments to .PNG? If so that makes no sense as this app is geared towards professional photographers who shoot RAW, process in bulk, make modifications then export for print/web. And it has great dual monitor support I use it all the time for comparative study or a loupe. Also multiple users = log in to a different account like any other application on OSX.

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

I love Lightroom since v3 and 3.5 is really something. I tried to use Aperture about a year ago and found myself just going back to LR. I'm still not a huge fan of having "Develop" and "Library" separated but you get used to it.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

The only reason why I started using Aperture was to be able to have multiple albums. It can be done in iPhoto, but it's more complicated.
I just hate how slow Aperture is, reason why I miss the simplicity and fast speed of iPhoto. Aperture doesn't flow very well when browsing through photos either.

I have tried Lightroom in the past, but it didn't really get my attention. I do like the editing tools of Aperture for quick touch ups, but nothing compares to Photoshop's power. Of course, not comparing to Photoshop, as it is at a completely different level.

I just wish for an Aperture update that would fix the horrible lag and terrible browsing.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

As in making adjustments to .PNG? If so that makes no sense... And it has great dual monitor support I use it all the time for comparative study or a loupe. Also multiple users = log in to a different account like any other application on OSX.

No, no, and also no.

1. .png support: have a read through some of these if you don't know why you'd want to store your images in png. When you have millions of files, the filesize savings of .png makes a huge difference. Having to use a separate program to manage a certain filetype is asinine.

2. Dual monitor support: A joke. The ONLY thing you can use it for is a dummy display, for comparative study & loupe. Useful would be, library on one monitor and develop on another, or for those of us working on quad displays, a module on each.

3. Multiple users: Imagine, and I know it's a leap since Adobe never considered it either, that unlike a student or sport shooter, you have more than one person working with your images in your office at a time. For instance, even a small marketing dept that has two photogs, a dev, three ad guys and a webmaster. Lightrooms complete lack of multiuser & network support is an organizational & operational cluster#$%^ and results in a gigantic waste of energy, time, and space.

All primary issues we've been bugging Adobe about since day 1, and all ignored, in favor of... uploading video clips to youtube??? Pretty clear where Adobe is taking Lightroom.

 

[AppleDroid]

Apparently there's this http://www.johnrellis.com/lightroom/anyfile.htm

And your other concerns are warranted but honestly you are the first person to put up such a fuss about PNG support. Lightroom is a RAW processing niche program first and foremost. If you really need to convert export everything as Tiff then use another program to batch them into PNG files.

No, no, and also no.

1. .png support: have a read through some of these if you don't know why you'd want to store your images in png. When you have millions of files, the filesize savings of .png makes a huge difference. Having to use a separate program to manage a certain filetype is asinine.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Apparently there's this http://www.johnrellis.com/lightroom/anyfile.htm

And your other concerns are warranted but honestly you are the first person to put up such a fuss about PNG support... If you really need to convert export everything as Tiff then use another program to batch them into PNG files.

Honestly I am?

...honestly you didn't see any of the other forums with threads of other pros going back & forth with Adobe devs about their yet-inexplicable indifference over .png. Their claim is merely that it would take development hours away from more important features. ...like social media integration, apparently.

If Anyfile didn't make LR so unstable & slow, it'd be some kind of workaround, but intermediary exports that can't be effectively managed with LR are what we all do now. ...and every time you do it, and then use Bridge to manage them, you're reminded that Adobe simply does not care enough to offer a complete solution.

 

[murrayE]

Photoshop + iPhoto vs Lightroom

I recently moved to a Mac, and so far I'm using iPhoto to manage photos but Photoshop for editing. Any comments as to:

• what added value Lightroom would bring; and
• does managing photos with Lightroom essentially preclude managing them with iPhoto?