Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
by Adobe
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Software Reviews of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
Customer Review: Easy to learn and use.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using Adobe Photoshop Elements from version 4 then upgraded to 6. Then had a friend tell me about Lightroom and how much easier and better it was. I was hesitant due to the large increase in price, but downloaded the 30 day trial from Adobe and was hooked.
It is much better, easier, simpler, and just over all much better than Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. It's interface is much better, the catalog, the auto correction functions...and the ability to download presets to apply to your photos in one click is just amazing. It allows you to very quickly and non-destructively play with your photos.
Download the demo from Adobe and check it out for a week or two, and you will find yourself ordering it from Amazon like I did.
Customer Review: check and lear tutorial first
Summary: 5 Stars
You need to read and learn tutorial before you start developing pictures using Adobe Photoshop ligthtroom 2,from nikon (NEf) and converting it to JPEG or other formats.It can create so many things so your pictures will look professionaly done.Very recommendable to all aspiring to learn how to develope pictures.Straight to the point instead of using photoshop.Customer Review: Just what I needed!
Summary: 5 Stars
While I'm still learning Lightroom, I'm amazed at the power of the program. Be sure to also buy Scott Kelby's "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers" along with the software to get the most out of it.Customer Review: Lightroom Changed Everything
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been an avid amateur photographer for over 30 years, digital for the last 9 years. Every year I lost more ground on processing and organizing photos. I was ready to give up. Lightroom changed all that. I've been studying and using it in all my free time for the past 6 weeks and I am finally processing and organizing more photos than I take--at least 10 times more! Maybe I'll finish my whole collection before I die.
I also highly recommend the Photoshop Lightroom 2 book by Nathaniel Coalson. I'm reading it cover to cover.
Customer Review: Got photos? Get Lightroom.
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been trying to figure out what to say about Lightroom 2 for a while. I like it, I use it, but can't really tell you what the majority of differences are between version 2 and version 1. The one main difference, and what I wanted when I was using Lightroom 1, is dual monitor support.
Dual monitor support is not like I expected. I was thinking Photoshop type support where the various panels would be free-floating and could be moved to the secondary monitor. Nope. Dual monitor is mainly to let you see the specific image you are looking at / working on in the full screen. One side can have the grid / library, the other can have the full size image. Controls are tied to the primary monitor with the main application window.
If you have Lightroom 1, installing Lightroom 2 will not mess with your Lightroom 1 database. When you first start Lightroom 2 it will ask if you want to import your Lightroom 1 database and convert it to Lightroom 2 format. It does not change the Lightroom 1 database at all, it's left alone so you can switch back to Lightroom 1 if you wish. Handy when you are evaluating them. Just be aware that what you do in one version (picture imports, edits, etc) is only in that version; the other one is independent and won't know about your changes.
If you aren't familiar with Lightroom then you are probably wondering why it is useful. After all, there is Photoshop, iPhoto, Aperture, Bibble, and many others for working with digital photos. I've tried all of them, at least briefly. Lightroom is the easiest of them to use and is an absolutely fantastic way to organize your photo collection. It is also available for both Mac and Windows and are functionally the same. The only real difference between the version is some of the keyboard shortcuts. Handy when you have operate on one platform but work with people who use the other one. I use the Mac version and have friends who use the Windows version; they look and behave exactly the same.
Seriously, photo organization is the main reason I bought Lightroom to begin with. I have a couple thousand photos in my library that I have little clue what is in there. Trying to find something in the past took hours to track down. The tagging & searching capabilities in Lightroom drop that down to a few minutes. It would be even faster if I would go through and tag all of my pre-Lightroom images as well. That's just from an amateur that only occasionally shoots. Serious amateurs, semi-pros, or pros will have thousands of images in their collections. Having some way to organize and search through those collections is critical to being able to actually use the images.
It has a very comprehensive keyword system as well as a rating and flagging system. Once you get in the habit of using keywords it helps when trying to find specific types of photos from your entire library. For example, I use the keyword cat on any photo that has a cat in it. Reading through some of the forums and how others have used keywords to organize their collection I have only barely scratched the surface. You can also search and organize using metadata on the images. Things like the date, time, camera model, lens, camera settings... If it is available you can use it.
Minor touchups are very simple to do. Until recently I only worked with basic color & exposure adjustments. Recently I tried out some of the touchup tools like red-eye reduction and spot healing tools. Wow. Very easy to use and works quite well. I found it much easier to use than trying to do the same thing in Photoshop.
You can have Lightroom import from the flash card and as part of the import you can go ahead and tag images with keywords. If you have multiple days and/or subjects to import you can choose to import a subset of images instead of all of them at once to properly tag the photos with appropriate keywords during the import. Until Lightroom I always manually copied the images off to store them in specific date organized folders; Lightroom does that for me automatically. Great timesaver.
My only pet peeve is tied to printing. The perceptual vs relativistic printing modes still cause me problems. I have to print using both modes to determine which one is better for each image. Supposedly a subsequent version will address the issue making it possible to preview what each mode will look like based on your printer's capabilities. In the interim I've reverted to using the color management in the printer driver most of the time.
If you are even remotely interested then it is well worth going to Adobe's site and downloading the Lightroom trial. It is fully functional just time-limited to run for only 30 days without a valid license code. If you like it, great, you just enter the license code to unlock it. If you don't, your images are untouched and still available to use in whatever other software you wish.