Adobe Lightroom

[Mike D]

Hi
I would welcome any views or comments on Adobe Lightroom, I have so far seen mixed messages, some say it is absolutely first class and others have some difficulties with it, I am aware that it is now up to version 1.3 so I suppose that is an answer in itself, but I guess most software ships with initial glitches anyway, a classic example of that was the batch processing of Nikon NX version 1.00, however it is that very software that I am having problems with, and the new version 1.3 appears no less user friendly than the original, however it does support the new Nikon D300 and D3 NEF files.

If I chose to jump ship to Adobe Lightroom I would hope that support would be forthcoming for the D3 in the very near future as I have one of those beasts on order.

Thanks Mike

[ALDP]

I think it is an excellent product. Been using it since the beta - has had its fair share of problems but v1.3 is a lot more stable in my experience.

Adobe does a free 30 day trial here:
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshoplightroom/

[Chris Hawkins]

Mike - I don't get on with LR, but that is probably because I haven't taken the time to work it into my workflow.

Don't mis-read the v1.3. They were not down to serious glitches. 1.1 was a major functionality upgrade. 1.2 and 1.3 were essentially upgrades to recognise new RAW formats. I have NX and use it very very rarely - it is slow and cumbersome. In the end I use neither - preferring Bridge 2 and ACR 4.

Cheers

Chris

[JonathanRyan]

Lightroom rocks - it saves me hours and hours and has revolutionised my workflow :) What else do you need to know?

BTW D3 is already supported - that's partly what 1.3 was.

[1mjordan]

Think vs 1.3 was for D3, A700 and a few others bit like acr moving to vs 4.3.

I like it.. lots.:)

[Ade]

Lightroom is awesome, saved me hours... only use photoshop now for the more serious and complex editing stuff...

[Mike D]

Thanks everyone, Lightroom it is.

Mike

[BarryM]

I tried it and hated it, for me i found it just added to a workflow rather than help. I currently use bridge, raw converter in photoshop then any further work in ps, perhaps its cos i have finetuned the way i work and hate changing things.

I did find the first version run like a sack of crud on my pc but i only have 1 gig ram, and athlon 1800 so probably that. I also learned too once you get the cataloguing of images etc done which " seemed" to be mind numbingly slow it did speed up a bit. well for me like going from crawling to a walk lol.

[steveathome]

I could near enough repeat the last post (BarryMoir) word for word.

The final goal for me is to print, and I found Lightroom far too slow converting to Jpeg, and not as flexible enough as PS.

Bridge is pretty quick IMHO, then selected images opened in Raw. Think I'll stick to that.

[pr4photos]

i use it for web page creation but thats about it. far too slow for anything else. i use acdsee for viewing pics, and ps of course for editing the pics

[lostmysnorkel]

TBH, I've never tried it, reason why?

Can't see the point.

Bridge & ACR do everything I need, with CS3 they are soo much faster than before.
The extras in Lightroom, just don't justify the expenditure over Bridge/ACR/PS when I already have them.
I really don't need ANY MORE software on my 'pooter - there's far too much already and I really DO use all of it!

[Eastern_herp]

I definitely vote for LR. 1.3 is much better than previous builds. The interim builds haven't just included new camera support, a lot of speed improvements and changes to processing algorithms on images has taken place. LR comes into its own over bridge when you take images off line, LR still tracks them and you can view the files and LR will ask you to mount the drives if you want to print or export a file. I don't use CS much anymore as I try to get the mage correct in camera and use LR to get rid of the odd spot using its clone and heal tools. Adobe are after peoples wishes for future inclusion, so if you see a way of improving it then let Adobe know here Link (http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc34322/)