High volume editing of photos has always been a challenge for professional photographers. Even with Photoshop and Bridge, it is difficult to quickly make spot corrections, update metadata and catalog many photos at one time. Not any more—enter Photoshop Lightroom.
Lightroom gives the professional photographer a complete workflow environment from initially uploading the files, through the color correction process, categorization, storage and development. When you import photos, Lightroom can read five photographic file types including: JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop (PSD), Digital Negative (DNG), and RAW. Lightroom supports even the newest cameras on the market, ensuring that their specific image file types will be recognized. Work with over 140 raw file formats!
Lightroom contains five modules which have specific functions:
Library – This module enables you to import, organize, sort, locate and rename your photos. You can also adjust individual or multiple images.
Develop – With this module, you can perform sophisticated image adjustments including tonal changes, adjusting light exposure, white balance and other instructions to your image when you import them. This information is also used to build the Library previews. This module enables you to review before and after images as well.
Another great feature with the Develop module is that you can develop presets that can be applied to multiple images when you import them. This is definitely a time saver.
When you are done in Develop, you can export your images to a variety of formats. One of the export features is to send a photo directly to Photoshop for even more specific image adjustments and to employ features unique to Photoshop.
Slideshow – To share your images, use the Slideshow module. Lightroom enables you to create an impressive slideshow that you can easily customize.
You can change the layout, overlays, backdrop and other settings from the control panels on the screen. This eliminates fumbling through menus to adjust or generate an effect. When you are done, simply export the slideshow to PDF format. This ensures that anyone can view the slideshow with ease.
In the future, I hope that Adobe will develop the slideshow feature more to enable you to do things like exporting to SWF, or other formats so you can keep any music you add to the slideshow. More transitions between slides would also be good.
Print – What would be the use of all of the great features of Lightroom if you couldn’t print? Nothing, right? Never fear, the Print module enables you to print directly from Lightroom without having to export or open the files in another program (like Photoshop).
This module enables you to make adjustments to how the photo will appear on the page. You can zoom, rotate, auto-rotate and make other changes in the Image Settings, Overlay, Layout and other panels.
Draft mode enables you to quickly print the contact sheets and proofs. Another time-saving feature when printing a large volume of photos is that in Draft mode, Lightroom prints the photos directly from cache, so you don’t have to wait for the photos to first load, and then print.
Keep in mind that Draft mode should be used for just that, a “draft”. It is not meant for the more high resolution prints you would want for your final composition. However, it is great for small to medium resolution photo output.
Web – Just like in Photoshop, Lightroom enables you to export your photos to a web gallery. Pick the photos you want, adjust them, then prepare to output to a gallery. Choose from over 15 gallery template formats, which include standard HTML galleries, and even Flash! Talk about versatility.
You have full control of the gallery through the use of the panel. Areas you can control from the panel include: labels, colors used, appearance of the gallery and both output and image settings.
Easily create your gallery, preview in your browser, make any adjustments and then upload to the web.
Other features and advantages of Lightroom:
Fast and easy installation.
Easily move photos from one computer to another with the new catalog-based system.
1.1 has a new image management system that enables you to have flexible multiple computer workflows.
Lightroom is adaptable and compatible with both Mac and Windows-based OS.
Easily design a customized workspace to suit your tastes and to make your workflow even more efficient.
Summary – I feel that Adobe did their homework and listed to photographers when creating this product. There are many features that make the workflow easier from start to finish. As with all products, there are areas that can be improved, but I definitely think Adobe is on the right track