Last week I purchased Adobe Lightroom 2, the new version of the software I use to manage and edit my photos. Ever since trying out version 1.0 of the product, I have been thrilled. It’s easy to use, lets me get great results from my photos, and helps manage the ever-growing stack of images (20,000+ right now).
I’ve been testing out several of the new features and must say that I’m quite impressed, it’s a great upgrade to one of the most fun pieces of software I use.
To get up to speed on using the new stuff (and some things I didn’t know about 1.x), I’ve been watching lots of videos from Lightroom Killer Tips. A couple days ago I downloaded beta camera profiles which can be used from inside Lightroom 2 to assist in the processing of RAW images, and there’s a nice video posted today about them. I’ve always just shot JPEGs because I found RAW to be a bit too much work to deal with (did it look like this? or this? or this? or this?…). But with these camera profiles and the power of Lightroom, I may reconsider and give RAW another shot. Is it worth it? Anyone?
There’s one feature I was hoping Adobe would have added to Lightroom, and that’s the ability to fix barrel distortion. I know some cheap 3rd party apps do it well, but I’m too addicted to the non-destructive edits that Lightroom provides. Oh well, maybe in another version 🙂
The Johnson Blog 
6 responses to “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2”
I am using Photoshop CS3 but I only shoot RAW simply because many a shot of mine has been salvaged in the RAW editor. Admittedly I also fall into the do I like it this way, this way or this way camp. Downside is the larger file size and processing needs but I haven’t looked back since switching.
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I keep hearing that argument and would love to see some concrete examples. Like – “here’s an image in RAW and JPEG and here are the edits of both of them.”
I have the camera, I guess I should just take some time and do that test myself, eh?
Now that I’ve been using Lightroom for a year or so, I think I can handle the overwhelming choice that come with RAW. Time to bite the bullet.
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My camera phone doesn’t have RAW options.
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Time to get a new phone then.
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Crud. I forgot a commented here. I remembered when I saw your new lightroom/nvidia post. I betcha I could salvage a jpeg image to the same degree I have RAW images but for me it is a question of time. The RAW editor has, iirc, more tools when editing the raw compared to editing jpegs. Could I accomplish the same thing in CS3 itself, maybe, but I am lazy so convenience won out for me.
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Yeah in the week+ since this post, I have been shooting in RAW only. And it’s working out well, with no plans of going back to JPEG.
I’m planning on, in the coming days, to go into some of the specifics.
Thanks for commenting, Gish.
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