Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
by Adobe
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Software Reviews of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
Customer Review: digital darkrooms terrible twos
Summary: 4 Stars
Lightroom is an incredibly useful and comprehensive tool for the digital photographer, and is to all extents and purposes a 5 star application, i found the move from version 1 to 2 though was not as well thought-out as is the norm in a photoshop upgrade. Several of the changes in this version, i found irritating and it has taken me sometime to migrate fully from version 1, there is not really a pressing reason to move to version 2. Loss of the middle mouse buttons functionality to move sliders when developing is still enough to make me return to Lightroom 1.
The new features are far from breathtaking, and some of the changes are outright annoying and ill thought-out, but this is still a super powerful and very impressive piece of software which will bring new life to any photographers collection.
The Graduated filter is really the only new feature of note, and personally i find the other new targeted adjustment tools of little worth, but it does potentially free up the lightroom user from having to use photoshop at all, which is no bad thing for many digital photographers.
Lightroom is at heart a super powerful tool for organizing and managing big or small collections of digital images, and allowing the photographer to creatively edit images in a completely non-destructive fashion, and although the true power can be unleashed when working with camera RAW files, its also a great tool for anyone working with libraries of jpegs.
Lightrooms printing and web capabilities are extensive, and for any photographer wanting a quick and easy way to create amazing professional web portfolios using flash or html, it could not be easier, likewise the slideshow option is a quick and easy solution for professional looking results.
Lightroom 2 although a slightly shaky upgrade from version 1, offers professional photographers a complete workflow tool, and for all other digital photographers an amazingly powerful and relatively easy to use digital darkroom.
Customer Review: It's all about organization
Summary: 5 Stars
How many serious digital photographers are there who don't use some form of Photoshop? Even if it's the Elements version, Photoshop is so infused in the DNA of digital photography that it's almost synonymous with it. That said, Lightroom is a valuable adjunct to Photoshop, and in fact, there are times when you won't need Photoshop at all.
The bottom line is this--though it has many other features, Lightroom is primarily an organizational tool. With people's digital photo collections often numbering into the thousands or tens of thousands of images, you'll eventually want software that will help you catalog all that. There are other similar organizational tools out there, but Lightroom's flexibility, editing features, and tight integration with Photoshop for when you need more editing horsepower, makes it a winner.
I would strongly recommend buying one of the excellent books on LR 2 here on Amazon, or checking out the many videos and podcasts of LR 2 instruction available online. Read at least the introductory material in those sources BEFORE you import your first photos. This may save you some time if you change your mind about overall organization and have to start over and re-import everything.
Customer Review: Update to review
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought LR 2.3 and noticed that it produced a stretched picture in the vertical axis. I tried everything I could for a week, read online docs, read the manual, made sure the driver color handling was turned off, etc, etc. It definitely is not WYSIWIG: I can get a reasonable picture on the screen, but the print out on my Epson 3800 bears no relation to it: It has one dimension stretched enough to make a face look like a fun house mirror.
I am running vista 64 bit, because Adobe brags that the program is 64 bit native. I determined that LR is at fault here, because my windows media picture printer produces ok results, much better than LR.
So I called Adobe support. I got an Indian man whose accent was so bad it was near impossible to understand him. I don't have a prejudice against Indians, I've had many as friends when I was in India, but I wonder why Adobe is so contemtuous of the american worker, that it goes half way around the world to seek out a low quality solution. Anyway, the kicker was that the man told me I need tech support and oh yes, I have to pay for it. (I think $100) This is for a faulty product that does not work. Obviously Adobe is so smug it doesn't think it has to support its products.
At this point, I am going to convert my machine back to 32-bit, on the theory that Adobe's driver is faulty for 64 bit. If that doesn't work, Maybe I can use my photoshop to print out. Another idea is to ditch the program and buy some alternative from Nikon or elsewhere. How do I get my money back? I'm not sure. I don't feel right about selling someone this crippled program. Maybe I can dispute it on the credit card.
That's all for now. Thanks for listening.
-progress report several weeks later
I deduced that LR2 does not run under 64 bit vista correctly. (deduced by noticing that windows media player prints out to my printer OK in 64 bit, but LR no)
So I changed my computer back to 32 bit, and the stretch image problem went away. Color so so. But another problem croppd up. When I cropped image, result showed up on printer OK. BUT when I adjust temperature, exposure, etc., the printer just prints the original image qualities. I could not puzzle out how to save the changes I was making. Nowhere in the help sites or books does it say that you have to save your changes in order to print them. I suspect you don't, and that this is another bug in this program.
Let me relate an experience I just had. I downloaded free Picasa, Google's version of lightroom. It is wonderful! I was reviewing, printing, and editing my photos within 5 minutes of installing it. I still hope I can use Lightroom because of its compatibility with photoshop, but I have my limits. A telling aspect of lightroom is the raft of books, websites, workshops, classes in a book, seminars, forums, blogs, magazines, training DVDs, internet tv shows, all focused on a trivial piece of software. It's amazing the 5 star reviews here: I can only conclude that these people are getting influenced by the hype and Adobe-funded celebrity endorsements. Picasa rocks! It's no photoshop, but archives and prints beautfully! I was using its full features within 5 minutes of install! (I have tens of thousands of pictures, shoot with a Nikon D300 plus extras, so I am at the high end of amateur photographers. If picasa is good enough for me, it will be for the majority, IMO)
-for now
Note added 7/25/09
Today I imported a photo into LR 2. When I went to print it, the option to "print one" was greyed out. So I went to the File menu on the top menu bar and hit "print." It would only save to a file when I hit the print button. It just does not print. Why? Who knows? I am stopped, because there is not a thing I can think to do to fix this. LR seems to leave you hanging with its user interface. So I imported same photo into picasa - no problem, prints like it should.
At this point, I still have a program that fundamentally, basically does not work. I am interested in LR because it integrates into photoshop, is lauded by photo gurus like Kelby, and has a bit more editing features than Picasa. Now, I have a twenty year career doing computer software, so I am not a computer newbie.
I am frankly puzzled by the good reviews here about LR. Is this mass delusion? Weird!
This is useful, since I can get a chance to think about debugging this mess. The main thing I can think of at this point is that I changed my OS to Microsoft 7. The change was supposed to transfer programs. Maybe it affected LR?
At this stage I have put maybe 30 hours into trying to get LR to work. It remains a terribly flawed product in my hands. The next thing I can think to do is to read the book about lightroom by scott kelby (I have several) and see if I can duplicate the workflow. If LR does not function, I can try to download the latest update again. (I have 2.3)
I suspect Adobe did not do the minimum quality control on this product. I wonder who is doing their software engineering and whether they have a QC process involving non-programmers and bug databases...
See you in photo-land.
John
Update 7/27:
I have been puzzled over the disparity in reviews here, and I must reluctantly voice my suspicions that the reviews are being "loaded" by Adobe employees. They are too unreal and uncritically positive. Not a pretty picture.
JB
Update 11/29/2009
Un fortunately the LR 2 I paid for remains unusable. It will not print out. I think it will save files after I "develop" them, but then I save them and go to Picasa for printing. A session with LR turns into a frustrating head-scratching, rather than anything productive.
update 11/30
I fnally got on phone with Adobe about LR issues. I was on phone about 21/2 hours. I did talk with an agent, but we were cut off. He had me create a new user account, and LR does seem to be able to print in that account, but LR has no access to the picture library. We got cut off, and I called back and spent about 11/2 hours on hold, listening to Adobe's elevator music. At this point I may try to csll back sometime. Currently, my picture library has limited access. I can see the library in one account, but can't print it there. I wonder if there is a way to create a backup on a usb drive from LR. I think there is. However, when I tried to import into the LR in the new account, LR would not let me, saying something like "Can't import from another active library." So I will try to backup from the account that sees the library (but can't print) to a usb drive, which can hopefully be imported by the LR in the account that can print. Of course, I can just abandon ability to print from LR by exporting the files after developing and pulling them into Photoshop for printing. This will also depend on ability to save the image file as is, rather than "exporting" it as a compressed jpeg. Hope springs eternal. Onward through the fog.
Customer Review: Works as advertised but integrates poorly with Adobe workflow
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased the initial version of Lightroom hoping for a faster way to correct and view lots of images than Adobe Bridge/Camera RAW provided. Unfortunately the huge hardware requirements, long processing times, and dubious value of the Lightroom layout turned me off integrating it into my workflow.
I figured I'd take a look at Lightroom 2 to see if improvements warranted a rethink. The short answer is, "Not for me." The trouble is much the same---Lightroom doesn't play all that nice with Photoshop or Bridge and learning a new interface and maintaining separate catalogues of the same images simply isn't worth it to me for a slight benefit in metadata management.
Perhaps photographers with more robust catolog requirements and far larger volumes of images will think differently, but I'd have to recommend amateurs such as myself simply not bother with this product at the present time.
Customer Review: Great Editing tool
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased Lightroom 2 after purchasing the Canon 50D and discovered that RAW images were not being read by LR 1. Although most photos can be edited in the basic section, the capability of editing small details of your photograph make this version worth the purchase. Lightroom 2 still has the great "bookkeeping" feature that allows you to view, select, edit, tag and then file your photos for easy access. I used to do Elements but for anyone that takes thousands of shots in a year, this is the program for you.