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EDITOR NOTES
Note: Lightroom 3 is currently in beta. Feedback is welcome in Adobe's Forums. For version 2.5 download, see 'Related Links' below.
Buy Lightroom 2.5 for $264.49 from Amazon, or buy the upgrade for $89.99. Your purchase from these links supports MacUpdate!
DESCRIPTION
Adobe Lightroom is the efficient new way for professional photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images. So you can spend less time sorting and refining photographs, and more time actually shooting them. Its clean, elegant interface literally steps out of the way and lets you quickly view and work with the images you shot today, as well as the thousands of images that you will shoot over the course of your career. Because no two photographers work alike, Adobe Lightroom adapts to your workflow, not the other way around.
Lightroom lets you view, zoom in, and compare photographs quickly and easily. Precise, photography-specific adjustments allow you to fine tune your images while maintaining the highest level of image quality from capture through output. And best of all, it runs on most commonly used computers, even notebook computers used on location.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 3.0:
Full release notes are available in this PDF. Some of the new features included for you to play with in the Lightroom 3 beta are:
- Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
- State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
- Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
- Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
- Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
- Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
- New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
- More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)*
For more details on the new functionality in the Lightroom 3 beta:
REQUIREMENTS
- Intel-based Mac
- Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
- 2GB of RAM
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| Adobe Lightroom User Reviews (32 posts) | Write A Review |
 | Oct 31 2009 |
DR. GIRLFRIEND Did anyone else notice that they've changed the name from Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® to Adobe Lightroom? Funny. I guess they've milked that cross-branding for all it was worth and are now giving it the name it should have had in the first place.
(Version 3.0 Beta) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Nov 4 2009 |
BUMBLEB First it was called "Adobe Lightroom". Then around release they branded it "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom" and now they're back to just "Adobe Lightroom"... Funny fellas...
(Version 3.0Beta) | |
| Oct 29 2009 |
HAL0THANE Lightroom or Aperture: There's really very little difference technically. What it comes down to is your own preferences. Download both trials, give 'em a spin, and see which you prefer. That's the only way to decide which to use. As for me, I'm a Lightroom guy -- but I do wish that I had access to all of Aperture's plugins. :)
(Version 3.0 Beta) | |
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 | Oct 22 2009 |
MACZENTRUM I like LR. But it's head-to-head with Apple's Aperture in my opinion. I will wait until LR3 goes final and decide whether to stay with Aperture or switch to LR.
(Version 3.0 Beta) | |
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| Jun 25 2009 |
D9 While it appears Apple has abandoned or at least slowed development of Aperture, it at least lit a fire under Adobe. That and Final Cut are the 2 products that seem to have made Adobe return to developing for the Mac with equivalent products, Lightroom and Premiere. But don't think for one minute I'm holding my breath on seeing a 64-bit Photoshop from these bums until at least mid-2011! Besides that, I've got nothing good to say about Adobe these days. | |
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| Dec 19 2008 |
MANNYAM playing around with the new 2.2 update, i enabled 64-bit mode and found that it does load and import quicker.
(Version 2.2) | |
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| Dec 16 2008 |
DAWGDRUMMER Hooray!! The brushes finally work on my G5 Dual 2 tower. Thanks Adobe.
(Version 2.2) | |
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| Nov 10 2008 |
DGOMBAU Have been comparing Lightroom 2 with Aperture 2. I do a lot of panos, and Lightroom has a simple integration with that Photo Merge feature in Photoshop. Aperture is a cumbersome, multi-step export operation. Aperture has a much more usable touchup and healing capability, whereas Lightoom is pretty basic. And Aperture has integration with Apple Photo Books. Still have not decided whether I like the gray palette of Aperture, or the black one of Lightroom. Currently I shoot with a Nikon D200. But I used to own a Nikon CoolPix 5700, and Aperture will not recognize the 5700 file format, for the thousands of images I took with the 5700. Lightroom will. Anyone have any comments to add to the above?
(Version 2.1) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Dec 17 2008 |
VGOKLANI For what's worth, I love Aperture with my D200. It is the most amazing piece of software, I love doing frame by frame comparisons, and I love the stacking feature. However, I just got a Panasonic LX3, and it doesn't work with Aperture. This makes a huge mess of everything, and I email steve jobs on a daily basis complaining. Yes I knew the LX3 RAW format wasn't supported, I just *assumed* that they would eventually adapt the format. Stupid me! The real problem is that the RAW format isn't standardized, which it should be.
(Version 2.2) | |
| Jul 30 2008 |
MACVAULT I own both Lightroom (2.0) and Aperture. While each has their advantages and disadvantages, I'm finding that Aperture just works better with my workflow. This is completely subjective and a personal decision. I think they're both great programs. That being said, the main reason I've continued to keep Lightroom around is for the better touch up tools, although now with Aperture plug ins, this is becoming less of an advantage. Some Aperture plug ins are VERY powerful and a joy to work with. I don't think Lightroom really has the plug in architecture support for such things which is a shame. Also, the latest Aperture simply screams on my MacPro. It used to be the other way around. Now Lightroom feels like a dog in comparison ;) At some point, I could see myself moving completely away from Lightroom for many of the above reasons, but since I'm on a Mac I realize this isn't an option for everybody. So Lightroom is still a great choice for the Windows side.
(Version 2.0) | |
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| Jun 25 2008 |
BUMBLEB After spending some time with the beta and reading the release notes, I must say that I feel quite underwhelmed by the prospective features of Lightroom 2.0... The added additions are welcome, however, there is stuff that is more important to fix before adding new fluff and stuff. Such as: A proper library module. Adobe seems to do one major mistake. They focus on TEXT metadata for organization purposes. Adobe, let me tell you: I AM A PHOTOGRAPHER - A VISUAL PERSON. So Apple does it right with Aperture (and even iPhoto). In those, a user can see all albums, visually, and skim through them easily. A much much more flexible print module. Aperture can layout full books! Better branding tools. The current Identity Plate just doesn't cut it. I need to be able to load an eps or PDF file of my logo, as well as input all my contact details, and use it flexible throughout the app. The healing / spot tool still sucks and is slow to use for anything else than the occasional dust spot. The interface in itself is, in my honest opinion, quite... unfancy... and... square... Not The pace of released betas (uno until now) makes be seriously believe Adobe released beta1 just to fend off the Apple Aperture 2.0 release, which does indeed boast a serious leap forward. Why am I using Lightroom then? Because Apple is slow at adopting the various camera models I use.
(Version 2.0b1) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Jul 30 2008 |
JAN13 Thank you for your reply. You help me with decision and save me a 100.00 dollars. I agree with your comment.
(Version 2.0) | |
| Mar 29 2008 |
BUMBLEB Lightroom is cool, apart from one glaring annoyance, at least to me: No proper retouching tool. Aperture has a wonderful one in version 2. The "spot" tool in Lightroom is slow to use. I don't wanna define a source point for every spot in an image. I know Lightroom initially tried to guess a source point for me, but often it is totally wrong. The problem is this approach is based on clone stamping. I want something similar to the spot healing brush in Photoshop. Thats what Aperture has now. Why can't Adobe, the great inventors of mighty Photoshop include such stuff in Lightroom? Yeah yeah, I know, this is a rant. It's just that it is the only thing that is really slowing down my workflow.
(Version 1.4) | |
| [ 5 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Apr 3 2008 |
STEFANOG Aperture 2 creates a Tiff file that you can retouch. it does not retouch the original file. Works a bit like iPhoto! the new LR 2.0 beta has localized retouching tools that work with the original file and write the changes to the metadata. the retouching tools of Aperture are a bit like editing a copy of the file with an external application and stacking the 2 files together.
(Version 2.0b1) | |
| Apr 10 2008 |
BUMBLEB Thanks for telling me. Did not know Aperture did it that way. Shame on Apple for making it so transparent;-) My disk space would suffer. Yes indeed the stuff coming in Lightroom 2.0 seems promising. I think it is seems very intuitive. Even after only 10 mins use. Good usability. That said, I still wish Adobe would implement the proper spot healing brush of Photoshop, that works without defining a source-point. The one in Lightroom often guesses wrong and I then have to move the source point manually, which is cumbersome.
(Version 2.0b1) | |
| May 5 2008 |
CHIPOTLE Aperture 2 only creates TIFF files of images when you're using plugins, like the burn/dodge plugin. If you're using retouching tools that function entirely within Aperture, it only makes changes to metadata as well.
(Version 2.0b1) | |
| May 6 2008 |
BUMBLEB Thanks for clarifying. Nice of you.
(Version 2.0b1) | |
| Jun 4 2008 |
RIC VIEIRA Although Lightroom IS NOT suppose to replace any retouching software like Photoshop etc. – there's a very nice retouch tool called "Remove Spots". | |
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