Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

Lightroom Changed Everything
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have been an avid amateur photographer for over 30 years, digital for the last 9 years. Every year I lost more ground on processing and organizing photos. I was ready to give up. Lightroom changed all that. I’ve been studying and using it in all my free time for the past 6 weeks and I am finally processing and organizing more photos than I take–at least 10 times more! Maybe I’ll finish my whole collection before I die.

I also highly recommend the Photoshop Lightroom 2 book by Nathaniel Coalson. I’m reading it cover to cover.

Lightroom 2
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Lightroom 2 is everything it is advertised to be. Adobe has made this a very powerful and useful program and have also made it easier to interact with Photoshop too.

Well worth the price.

Revolutionized my workflow
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Though the learning curve felt a little steep at first, it turned out that it wasn’t so bad, and now Lightroom 2 has totally changed our workflow for the better. Previously, my wife and I would keep all our photos in dated folders, and simply keep groups of edits in “finished” folders, but this always felt kind of clunky, and keeping up with and finding particular SOOC or finished images could be confusing, especially when creating multiple versions of photos. It didn’t take long to learn how to take advantage of Lightroom’s organizational tools to better keep track of everything, and I particularly love the virtual copy feature that allows you to create and easily manage multiple versions, all while taking significantly less space than creating real copies of the files.

We’re still learning all the editing capabilities. We haven’t taken the plunge into Photoshop CS yet, but we’re Photoshop Elements users. Most of what we used to do in Elements is now easier in Lightroom. It used to take so long to open every photo in Elements and make necessary improvements, but now we can easily apply certain changes to large groups quickly, or even go through one at a time far more quickly than before. And for any of the few changes that must be done in Elements, which so far has just been healing-brush-type work, it’s just a couple of clicks away to create a virtual copy and open it in Elements.

I think what is both the most daunting and impressive about Lightroom is the flexibility. There’s a huge number of organizational tools provided, and there’s no one way to organize your photos and your workflow with them, especially when you integrate it with other tools. This felt a bit overwhelming at first, but as you learn about what’s available, you can really start to develop and tailor your own workflow to fit your preferences and needs.

There are a few small drawbacks. I’ve had the application crash a few times, and some operations are pretty slow, particularly exporting a large number of edited photos, which is the main downside to the nondestructive editing scheme. However, it’s getting about time for a new computer, so hopefully a newer, faster machine will improve the stability and speed.

Just what I needed!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
While I’m still learning Lightroom, I’m amazed at the power of the program. Be sure to also buy Scott Kelby’s “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers” along with the software to get the most out of it.

Great Editing tool
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I purchased Lightroom 2 after purchasing the Canon 50D and discovered that RAW images were not being read by LR 1. Although most photos can be edited in the basic section, the capability of editing small details of your photograph make this version worth the purchase. Lightroom 2 still has the great “bookkeeping” feature that allows you to view, select, edit, tag and then file your photos for easy access. I used to do Elements but for anyone that takes thousands of shots in a year, this is the program for you.

Love it!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I find Lightroom to be better than Aperture in several ways. Light, color adjustments are more natural looking. I wish it was as compatable with iphoto the way aperture is, but other than that I find it far superior.

Lightroom 2 – Great even on Mac
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Lightroom is one of Adobe’s finest products. In truth, it’s the one Adobe product that consistently I want and need to use on a regular basis. The Lightroom interface is unlike anything else from Adobe. It screams user friendly and entices the user to quickly develop his or her photographs. The interface is surprisingly more Mac-like than Apple’s own product, Aperture. The UI is simply gorgeous and makes working with your beautiful photographs that much more enjoyable.

The power of Lightroom is also impressive. The work that can be done to your photographs is not only in depth, but easy to find. Even a new Lightroom user, will likely be quickly up to speed and developing superb images.

Now, digital developing can still be a chore. Working with RAW images, to get just perfect, can become mundane, when you have hundreds or thousands of images to work through. However, Lightroom makes things that little bit easier with a user interface that is unrivaled in this product category. Furthermore, Lightroom can be the perfect application to organize your photo libraries, to easily find what you are seeking.

digital darkrooms terrible twos
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Lightroom is an incredibly useful and comprehensive tool for the digital photographer, and is to all extents and purposes a 5 star application, i found the move from version 1 to 2 though was not as well thought-out as is the norm in a photoshop upgrade. Several of the changes in this version, i found irritating and it has taken me sometime to migrate fully from version 1, there is not really a pressing reason to move to version 2. Loss of the middle mouse buttons functionality to move sliders when developing is still enough to make me return to Lightroom 1.

The new features are far from breathtaking, and some of the changes are outright annoying and ill thought-out, but this is still a super powerful and very impressive piece of software which will bring new life to any photographers collection.

The Graduated filter is really the only new feature of note, and personally i find the other new targeted adjustment tools of little worth, but it does potentially free up the lightroom user from having to use photoshop at all, which is no bad thing for many digital photographers.

Lightroom is at heart a super powerful tool for organizing and managing big or small collections of digital images, and allowing the photographer to creatively edit images in a completely non-destructive fashion, and although the true power can be unleashed when working with camera RAW files, its also a great tool for anyone working with libraries of jpegs.

Lightrooms printing and web capabilities are extensive, and for any photographer wanting a quick and easy way to create amazing professional web portfolios using flash or html, it could not be easier, likewise the slideshow option is a quick and easy solution for professional looking results.

Lightroom 2 although a slightly shaky upgrade from version 1, offers professional photographers a complete workflow tool, and for all other digital photographers an amazingly powerful and relatively easy to use digital darkroom.

Update to review
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I bought LR 2.3 and noticed that it produced a stretched picture in the vertical axis. I tried everything I could for a week, read online docs, read the manual, made sure the driver color handling was turned off, etc, etc. It definitely is not WYSIWIG: I can get a reasonable picture on the screen, but the print out on my Epson 3800 bears no relation to it: It has one dimension stretched enough to make a face look like a fun house mirror.

I am running vista 64 bit, because Adobe brags that the program is 64 bit native. I determined that LR is at fault here, because my windows media picture printer produces ok results, much better than LR.

So I called Adobe support. I got an Indian man whose accent was so bad it was near impossible to understand him. I don’t have a prejudice against Indians, I’ve had many as friends when I was in India, but I wonder why Adobe is so contemtuous of the american worker, that it goes half way around the world to seek out a low quality solution. Anyway, the kicker was that the man told me I need tech support and oh yes, I have to pay for it. (I think $100) This is for a faulty product that does not work. Obviously Adobe is so smug it doesn’t think it has to support its products.

At this point, I am going to convert my machine back to 32-bit, on the theory that Adobe’s driver is faulty for 64 bit. If that doesn’t work, Maybe I can use my photoshop to print out. Another idea is to ditch the program and buy some alternative from Nikon or elsewhere. How do I get my money back? I’m not sure. I don’t feel right about selling someone this crippled program. Maybe I can dispute it on the credit card.

That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.

-progress report several weeks later

I deduced that LR2 does not run under 64 bit vista correctly. (deduced by noticing that windows media player prints out to my printer OK in 64 bit, but LR no)

So I changed my computer back to 32 bit, and the stretch image problem went away. Color so so. But another problem croppd up. When I cropped image, result showed up on printer OK. BUT when I adjust temperature, exposure, etc., the printer just prints the original image qualities. I could not puzzle out how to save the changes I was making. Nowhere in the help sites or books does it say that you have to save your changes in order to print them. I suspect you don’t, and that this is another bug in this program.

Let me relate an experience I just had. I downloaded free Picasa, Google’s version of lightroom. It is wonderful! I was reviewing, printing, and editing my photos within 5 minutes of installing it. I still hope I can use Lightroom because of its compatibility with photoshop, but I have my limits. A telling aspect of lightroom is the raft of books, websites, workshops, classes in a book, seminars, forums, blogs, magazines, training DVDs, internet tv shows, all focused on a trivial piece of software. It’s amazing the 5 star reviews here: I can only conclude that these people are getting influenced by the hype and Adobe-funded celebrity endorsements. Picasa rocks! It’s no photoshop, but archives and prints beautfully! I was using its full features within 5 minutes of install! (I have tens of thousands of pictures, shoot with a Nikon D300 plus extras, so I am at the high end of amateur photographers. If picasa is good enough for me, it will be for the majority, IMO)

-for now

Note added 7/25/09

Today I imported a photo into LR 2. When I went to print it, the option to “print one” was greyed out. So I went to the File menu on the top menu bar and hit “print.” It would only save to a file when I hit the print button. It just does not print. Why? Who knows? I am stopped, because there is not a thing I can think to do to fix this. LR seems to leave you hanging with its user interface. So I imported same photo into picasa – no problem, prints like it should.

At this point, I still have a program that fundamentally, basically does not work. I am interested in LR because it integrates into photoshop, is lauded by photo gurus like Kelby, and has a bit more editing features than Picasa. Now, I have a twenty year career doing computer software, so I am not a computer newbie.

I am frankly puzzled by the good reviews here about LR. Is this mass delusion? Weird!

This is useful, since I can get a chance to think about debugging this mess. The main thing I can think of at this point is that I changed my OS to Microsoft 7. The change was supposed to transfer programs. Maybe it affected LR?

At this stage I have put maybe 30 hours into trying to get LR to work. It remains a terribly flawed product in my hands. The next thing I can think to do is to read the book about lightroom by scott kelby (I have several) and see if I can duplicate the workflow. If LR does not function, I can try to download the latest update again. (I have 2.3)

I suspect Adobe did not do the minimum quality control on this product. I wonder who is doing their software engineering and whether they have a QC process involving non-programmers and bug databases…

See you in photo-land.

John

Update 7/27:

I have been puzzled over the disparity in reviews here, and I must reluctantly voice my suspicions that the reviews are being “loaded” by Adobe employees. They are too unreal and uncritically positive. Not a pretty picture.

JB

Update 11/29/2009

Un fortunately the LR 2 I paid for remains unusable. It will not print out. I think it will save files after I “develop” them, but then I save them and go to Picasa for printing. A session with LR turns into a frustrating head-scratching, rather than anything productive.

update 11/30

I fnally got on phone with Adobe about LR issues. I was on phone about 21/2 hours. I did talk with an agent, but we were cut off. He had me create a new user account, and LR does seem to be able to print in that account, but LR has no access to the picture library. We got cut off, and I called back and spent about 11/2 hours on hold, listening to Adobe’s elevator music. At this point I may try to csll back sometime. Currently, my picture library has limited access. I can see the library in one account, but can’t print it there. I wonder if there is a way to create a backup on a usb drive from LR. I think there is. However, when I tried to import into the LR in the new account, LR would not let me, saying something like “Can’t import from another active library.” So I will try to backup from the account that sees the library (but can’t print) to a usb drive, which can hopefully be imported by the LR in the account that can print. Of course, I can just abandon ability to print from LR by exporting the files after developing and pulling them into Photoshop for printing. This will also depend on ability to save the image file as is, rather than “exporting” it as a compressed jpeg. Hope springs eternal. Onward through the fog.

Got photos? Get Lightroom.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about Lightroom 2 for a while. I like it, I use it, but can’t really tell you what the majority of differences are between version 2 and version 1. The one main difference, and what I wanted when I was using Lightroom 1, is dual monitor support.

Dual monitor support is not like I expected. I was thinking Photoshop type support where the various panels would be free-floating and could be moved to the secondary monitor. Nope. Dual monitor is mainly to let you see the specific image you are looking at / working on in the full screen. One side can have the grid / library, the other can have the full size image. Controls are tied to the primary monitor with the main application window.

If you have Lightroom 1, installing Lightroom 2 will not mess with your Lightroom 1 database. When you first start Lightroom 2 it will ask if you want to import your Lightroom 1 database and convert it to Lightroom 2 format. It does not change the Lightroom 1 database at all, it’s left alone so you can switch back to Lightroom 1 if you wish. Handy when you are evaluating them. Just be aware that what you do in one version (picture imports, edits, etc) is only in that version; the other one is independent and won’t know about your changes.

If you aren’t familiar with Lightroom then you are probably wondering why it is useful. After all, there is Photoshop, iPhoto, Aperture, Bibble, and many others for working with digital photos. I’ve tried all of them, at least briefly. Lightroom is the easiest of them to use and is an absolutely fantastic way to organize your photo collection. It is also available for both Mac and Windows and are functionally the same. The only real difference between the version is some of the keyboard shortcuts. Handy when you have operate on one platform but work with people who use the other one. I use the Mac version and have friends who use the Windows version; they look and behave exactly the same.

Seriously, photo organization is the main reason I bought Lightroom to begin with. I have a couple thousand photos in my library that I have little clue what is in there. Trying to find something in the past took hours to track down. The tagging & searching capabilities in Lightroom drop that down to a few minutes. It would be even faster if I would go through and tag all of my pre-Lightroom images as well. That’s just from an amateur that only occasionally shoots. Serious amateurs, semi-pros, or pros will have thousands of images in their collections. Having some way to organize and search through those collections is critical to being able to actually use the images.

It has a very comprehensive keyword system as well as a rating and flagging system. Once you get in the habit of using keywords it helps when trying to find specific types of photos from your entire library. For example, I use the keyword cat on any photo that has a cat in it. Reading through some of the forums and how others have used keywords to organize their collection I have only barely scratched the surface. You can also search and organize using metadata on the images. Things like the date, time, camera model, lens, camera settings… If it is available you can use it.

Minor touchups are very simple to do. Until recently I only worked with basic color & exposure adjustments. Recently I tried out some of the touchup tools like red-eye reduction and spot healing tools. Wow. Very easy to use and works quite well. I found it much easier to use than trying to do the same thing in Photoshop.

You can have Lightroom import from the flash card and as part of the import you can go ahead and tag images with keywords. If you have multiple days and/or subjects to import you can choose to import a subset of images instead of all of them at once to properly tag the photos with appropriate keywords during the import. Until Lightroom I always manually copied the images off to store them in specific date organized folders; Lightroom does that for me automatically. Great timesaver.

My only pet peeve is tied to printing. The perceptual vs relativistic printing modes still cause me problems. I have to print using both modes to determine which one is better for each image. Supposedly a subsequent version will address the issue making it possible to preview what each mode will look like based on your printer’s capabilities. In the interim I’ve reverted to using the color management in the printer driver most of the time.

If you are even remotely interested then it is well worth going to Adobe’s site and downloading the Lightroom trial. It is fully functional just time-limited to run for only 30 days without a valid license code. If you like it, great, you just enter the license code to unlock it. If you don’t, your images are untouched and still available to use in whatever other software you wish.

Great Software
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve used ACDsee for ages and finaly moved to a more robust, professional solution. Lightroom is the way to go for organizing and sorting images. Best of all, it’s develop module allows you to do most of the editing right on the spot with undestructive editing. For me this is the best feature, I keep only one copy of the original unchanged file and as many edited virtual copies as I need. I’ve changed to only shooting RAW after lighroom. It will change your perspective on digital photography.

Integrates seemlesly with smugmug and many other online photo sites with the excelent plugins form jfiendl. His GPS integrating plugin is also great.

Recommed this to any pro or serious amateur photographer.

Lightroom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Excellent fun. Dark photo recovery is wonderful. The cloning tool is slower than in photoshop.

check and lear tutorial first
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
You need to read and learn tutorial before you start developing pictures using Adobe Photoshop ligthtroom 2,from nikon (NEf) and converting it to JPEG or other formats.It can create so many things so your pictures will look professionaly done.Very recommendable to all aspiring to learn how to develope pictures.Straight to the point instead of using photoshop.