Lightroom 3 official release.

[Lost Canadian]

It's out of beta!:wings:

Lightroom 3

June 8, 2010 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe(r) Photoshop(r) Lightroom(r) 3 software for Windows(r) and Macintosh, the essential digital photography workflow solution that allows photographers to quickly organize, enhance and showcase their images from one application. First released as a public beta in October 2009, the final version of Lightroom 3 introduces a completely redesigned performance architecture that better handles growing image libraries and provides an unrivaled raw processing engine with noise reduction and sharpening tools to achieve the highest image quality. The 64-bit capable Lightroom 3 includes new features that optimize workflows and allow images to be shared in creative ways, including support for DSLR video files and tethered shooting on select cameras.

"There have been over 600,000 downloads of the Lightroom 3 public beta, which has supplied us with a huge amount of valuable feedback from a passionate community of professional and advanced amateur photographers," said Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for Digital Imaging at Adobe. "The open dialog we have with our customers allows us to further improve Lightroom and provide the best tools they need to produce high-quality images. We're happy to see that so many people are anxiously anticipating the final release, so they can start taking advantage of all the new features they had a hand in developing."

Public Beta Process Perfects Lightroom 3 New Features
Re-built from its core to be lightening fast and responsive, Lightroom 3 adds power throughout the application to provide a fluid experience for photographers. Images load almost instantaneously, and the import experience has been redesigned to be more intuitive, with added previews and default selections that give users quick access to sort through and find images. Helping streamline and adapt to photographers' changing workflows, Lightroom 3 now allows users to import and manage DSLR video files, as well as take advantage of tethered shooting for select Nikon and Canon cameras.

New state-of-the-art photographic tools help photographers bring out the best in their images. Unrivaled Luminance and Color Noise Reduction tools help produce a clearer picture from high ISO or underexposed images while still preserving details. The highly-requested Automatic Lens Correction feature can dramatically improve the results possible with any lens by allowing users to apply profiles that correct for undesirable geometric distortions, chromatic aberrations, and lens vignette effects that most lenses introduce to the image. Users now also have a straighten tool to perfect vertical and horizontal perspective, additional presets for applying more photographic adjustment styles, and three new contemporary vignette styles and a Grain effect to add a more natural look with images.

Lightroom 3 Expands Image Showcasing
Output options have also been enhanced in this release, with new capabilities to publish collections on online sharing sites. Flickr(r) users have the ability to synch their accounts to Lightroom with one click, and integration with additional online photo sharing sites can be added via third-party plug-ins. Customizable print layouts provide more refined control over how photographers present final images, and new watermarking features with options to modify text, size, location and style, help give professionals and amateurs flexibility for branding images. Lightroom 3 now also includes the ability to export polished slideshows as video files with the option to add audio and title screens.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 for Windows and Macintosh is available now at www.adobe.com/store, for pre-order via Amazon.com and NewEgg.com and will be available soon at retail and online outlets such as Frys, BestBuy.com, Costco.com, Walmart.com, Staples.com, OfficeMax.com, OfficeDepot.com and select camera stores.

The estimated street price is USD $299 for new users with an upgrade price of USD$99 for qualified registered Lightroom users. Recommended system requirements are Macintosh OS X v 10.5, 10.6 with Intel(r) based processor, or Microsoft(r) Windows(r) 7, Windows Vista(r) Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise or Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 processor, 2 GB RAM and a 1,024x768 resolution screen.

Additional information on product features, upgrade policies, pricing, and language versions is available on www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom. Join the Lightroom community on Facebook (www.facebook.com/lightroom) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/lightroom).

 

[DiploStrat]

It's out of beta!:wings:

Lightroom 3

Hopefully, the massive public beta will allow them to avoid some of Aperture 3's trainwrecks.

Be interesting to see if they added full screen editing, soft proofing, and ditched the modular workflow.

The new noise reduction and lens correction look REALLY nice. Aperture's noise reduction is poor.

Enjoy!

 

[Lost Canadian]

Well, there's still no soft proofing so test sheets are still required. I know test sheets are the more accurate way to go but I really wish Adobe would give LR users the option. As for full screen editing, nope, you can get close but it's still not on par with Aperture, and yes the modular design is still there. Thankfully Adobe did listen to all those beta testers and ironed out a lot of what most people grumbled about in 1 and 2. What was right in LR1 is still right in LR3, and what was troublesome seems for the most part to have been corrected. On the performance front, it's the same as always, actually better in some respects, it's fast and there are no hangups, you can't really ask for much more in this respect.

Scott Kelby has put together a nice little introduction series so I won't bore you all with a play by play rundown as he has done it far better than I ever could.


Things I like:

Aside from the much improved rendering there a a number of things I really like. The lens correction feature is quite nice. There are a bunch of Canon and Nikon lenses already preloaded into the correction panel, and almost every lens Sigma has ever made is there as well. Tamron has only one lens, and Sony has two represented. No other lens manufacturers are included yet. I'm sure they will jump on board however. Even if they don't, Adobe gives you the option to profile lenses yourself, or you can simply eyeball it and make lens corrections manually. It works quite well. A couple photos I knew had some hard distortions; CA's, bent horizons, heavy lens vignette, leaning buildings, that sort of thing, were easily corrected.

Before and After

The print and web modules have a lot of little improvements that I really like. Scott gets into it in his little breakdown linked above. Putting together HD photo videos with music is ridiculously easy. It took me all of a two minutes to patch this video together.

Click image to view.


All in all I'm quite pleased with the update so far. It's not perfect, but it's certainly very good.

 

[Honu]

so far its working well ? still a bit of lag in develop mode wish they would get out !!!!

but so far a decent update

by next week I will have put about 10,000 images through it so will have a better feel later for it

noise control seems good the new 2010 process is a touch nicer I think
if you work with images much then I think its a worthy update over 2.7 or whatever the latest was

 

[DiploStrat]

I am always amazed that Apple, which is supposed to be such a hype driven company, has let Adobe run rings around them selling Lightroom. I'm not talking about the actual programs; I still prefer Aperture, but just the total failure of Apple to mobilize a cadre of Scott Kelbys, etc. to push Apeture.

Even on the Apple forum, when they could pull in the gripes and "wow" people with how quickly they can be fixed - silence.

Steve Jobs makes a bit more than me, but Adobe is doing it right. Now, if they would fix their data base, ditch the modules, and give me soft proof - I'd even give up full screen. And the new tools look yummy. :drool: