lightroom
Latest
Lightroom vs. Aperture - What's Best?
Now that Adobe has officially shipped Lightroom (as we recently mentioned), the natural question is: which one is better, Lightroom or Aperture? Of course folks have been playing with the Lightroom beta for quite some time, so this is not new question, but Derrick Story over at MacDevCenter posts on two new series by professional photographers writing for O'Reilly comparing the two software packages. He links to the first post Micah Walter's series for the Inside Aperture blog, and to the start of Michael Clark's initial comparison between the two on the corresponding Inside Lightroom blog. Neither has yet revealed their final conclusions, but it should be interesting to see where they both go. On a related note, Macworld podcast 74 features a discussion of the relative merits of the two packages by Rick LePage (as does this earlier post on TUAW). From what I can tell so far in many of these discussion, the answer to the question is not going to be entirely straightforward, with one package clearly better than the other. It is more likely that the answer will be something like: it depends on what you want your workflow to look like, and how you want to interact with your images. So TUAW readers, what's your take? Which one do you prefer and why?
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 now available
It is mid-February, and you know what that means: Adobe today announced the immediate availability of it's competitor to Apple's Aperture, Photoshop Lightroom. Version 1.0 includes the updated Camera Raw 3.7 framework which adds support for a number of new cameras including the Nikon D40 and Pentax K10D. Lightroom is available at a special discounted introductory price of $200 until the 30th of April, after which the price will increase to $300. Current users of the Lightroom beta can continue using the software until the 28th of this month. I've been using Lightroom since I picked up a Pentax K100D back in December, and I absolutely adore it. The interface is beautiful, it runs pretty darn well on my aging PowerBook, and it seamlessly integrates with Photoshop CS2. Now I just have to figure out how to work the automated processing features and I'll be golden... once I find the cash to pay for the full version. [via MacNN]
Adobe says Lightroom ships mid-February, thanks beta testers
Adobe has announced a shipping date of February 19th for Lightroom, their new toolbox for professional photographers that's been in beta for the last year. Lightroom carries a final retail price of $299, but until April 30th, Adobe is saying thanks to everyone who participated in the beta (and lowering the bar for early customers) with a price of $199. The current beta expires February 28th, so either way it's decision time for those who have found a place in their hearts (and workflows) for this professional managing, adjusting and presenting photography software.For more details on Lightroom, we've been following the betas since Lightroom's introduction, and Macworld also has a nice summary of the latest improvements to the shipping version. Adobe, naturally, also has an official product page with demos, feature tours and interviews with photographers on the beta experience and what it's like to see Lightroom get all growed up, ready to make a difference in the (wide-angled) world of professional photography.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom + Flickr Uploadr
Fraser Speirs already released a Flickr plugin for Aperture, but what about the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom users in the crowd (John Gruber has a nice piece on the ridiculousness of adding the 'Photoshop' prefix to Lightroom's name)? As it turns out, through a little trickery, Lightroom can be tweaked for uploading your images to Flickr.This Mac OS X Hints post describes the simple setup, as well as a couple of drawbacks, to using Lightroom and the official Flickr Uploadr tool in conjunction; one simply needs to change the external editor preference to the Flickr Uploadr, then chose the Uploadr as the option from the Post-processing page during an export. Check out Mac OS X Hints though for more details and possible inspiration for asking Mr. Speirs (nicely) for a true-blue Lightroom Flickr plugin.
Aperture vs Lightroom
I am solidly in the rank amateur category of photographers, which is why I have never had reason to look into either Aperture or Lightroom. My camera doesn't even shoot in RAW.However, James Duncan Davidson earns his way by shooting photographs and as such has used both Aperture and Lightroom (which is in beta). He compares and contrasts the two, though there is no clear 'winner' in this battle. Aperture is able to handle a huge volume of photos fairly well, but Lightroom's printing options are miles ahead of Aperture's.[via Daring Fireball]
Adobe releases Lightroom beta 3
This one slipped past us: Adobe has released a third beta of Lightroom, their Aperture-competitor for professional photographers. The release notes are in PDF (I guess HTML is old news for the company who owns both Flash and Acrobat), but overall, improvements include: enhancements to import/export options, live comparisons of image adjustments in Before and After previews, a new straightening tool and a new heavily-requested Web export module with HTML and Flash options.The new beta can be had here by Mac users, while a beta for Windows (oddly) is yet to be seen. If, for some odd reason, you'd like to be notified when a beta is available for Windows, a sign-up notification form is here.[thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Adobe targets Aperture with Lightroom
Remember when Steve said that Aperture is not a competitor to Adobe's products, but a companion? Perhaps Adobe didn't take Steve's message to heart. Earlier today at Macworld, Adobe released the public beta of Lightrooom, a new, professional digital imaging application that has much of the same functionality as Aperture.Adobe states that their focus with Lightroom is the image itself. As such, Lightroom's UI features a "Lights Out" mode, which allows the tools and pallets to fade into the background at a single click, emphasizing the image itself. Similar to Aperture, Lightroom also sports a zoom feature, allowing you to focus on a specific area of detail.You can download the 111MB beta from the Adobe-Macromedia Labs website. Recommended system requirements are Mac OS X 10.4.3, 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 768MB RAM and a 1024x768 resolution display. Pricing and future release dates have not been made available.
