March 8, 2007
Backstage at the Lightroom Launch Party
Last week, Adobe hosted a “virtual” launch party for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I was invited to attend in person at Adobe’s Minnesota offices in Shoreview, MN. As you can see, the weather was very, uh, Minnesotan. Listed in the story are Lightroom Resource URLs as well as links to movies of the Lightroom “Virtual” Launch Party.
George and I arrive at about 8:00 am to go through the script for the party.
We go into the main conference room, Frostbite Falls.
George gets ready to go live at noon, Central time.
Melissa had decorated the room with bunting and a box of Lightroom.
This is the “small box” of Lightroom intended for sales at non-computer stores such as Walmart.
Engineer & bunting shot.
George starts the event by explaining the agenda for the party . Then we switched to the San Jose office for introductions from the West Coast team.
Lightroom “founder” Mark Hamburg
Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty
Lightroom Marketing Manager Jennifer Stern
Adobe Evangelist Julieanne Kost
Back in MN we intro the “Minnesota Phats” including Pro Photo Evangelist George Jardine.
Antarctic Photographer Jeff Schewe.
Lightroom Engineering Manager Bob Pappas.
Lightroom Q&E Manager Melissa Gaul
The rest of the MN team line up for their intros.
Cool “Shadowland” team t-shirts (I want one).
Troy Gaul the #2 engineer on Lightroom.
Melissa was in charge of tech in the MN office including sound & video. Everything ran from her laptop and the conference room controls.
I ran through the History of Lightroom with Mark Hamburg–trying to get a word in edgewise.
George ran through “Engineer Features” with engineers talking about features they worked on.
First up on the VIP Customer presentations was our Lightroom in Antarctica video and a slideshow with Seth Resnick and myself talking about our photo shoot in Antarctica with Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape.
George has a funny look on his face when I talked about “getting a shot” (literally) because of a seal bite.
We ran a video that was shot on the day Lightroom was released, Feb 19th, 2007. If you’d like to see the video and a Lightroom Slideshow of images shot that day, check out my web site at: http://schewephoto.com/Icebergs/. Seth Resnick also has a page up at: http://sethresnick.com/antarctic2007/index.html
Mikkel Aaland introduced the story about the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop Adventure in Iceland.
Mikkel and Derrick Story showed slides from the shoot including several by George Jardine. Mikkel has selected one of George’s to be on the cover.
Next up was a video from Scott Kelby who was teaching a workshop about Lightroom during a Digital Landscape photo workshop in Yosemite.
Next, Julieanne Kost talked about Project: Photoshop Lightroom a new initiative started in the Fall 2006 bringing world-class photographer Colin Finlay and Photoshop Lightroom to 25 schools across the US.
At the end of the event, a list of Lightroom Resource URLs was put up.
Both teams wished Jennifer Stern a happy birthday (as well as congratulating each other for shipping).
George signs off.
I run up and hold up a Lightroom box for the camera.
Then, it was celebration time. I brought a bottle of 2001 Seghesio VENOM.
Well, the MN office didn’t have any wine glasses so George and I used plastic tumblers. Anybody who knows George knows he HATED that (but the wine was good anyway).
Nothing but the best for us…local pizza for lunch.
A pirate pinata (we didn’t break it) made in honor of Lightroom’s “Pirate Mode”. Oh, you don’t know about Pirate Mode? Well, that’s for another story.
At the end of the day, George and I head out for the hotel and dinner in the middle of Minnesota’s worst snow storm in a couple of years.
But, it was kinda pretty…
Here’s a list of the Lightroom Resource URLS posted at the end of the party:
NEWS & INFO & TIPS
Lightroom Team Blog
The Shadowland/Lightroom Development Story
A Visit to the Adobe Lightroom Engineers
Lightroom-News.com
Inside Lightroom Community Site
Lightroom Adventure Site
NAPP’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Learning Center
PHOTOSHOPSUPPORT.com’s Lightroom Resource Center
Sean McCormick’s Lightroom Blog
Inside Lightroom by Richard Earney
George Jardine’s Podcasts
TUTORIALS:
The Luminous Landscape Adobe Lightroom V1.0 Tutorial
With Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips with Matt Kloskowski
Photoshop Lightroom V1.0 Video Tutorials by Michael Tapes
BOOKS:
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book by Martin Evening
Photoshop Lightroom Adventure by Mikkel Aaland
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby
WORKSHOPS
Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer’s D-65 Workshops
Lightroom Virtual Launch Party movies. Note, these are MP4 QuickTime movies that require the most recent version of Apple’s QuickTime to view.
The entire Lightroom Virtual Ship Party Complete
(634.38MB download)
Lightroom Team Intros
(46.14MB download)
The History of Lightroom
(96.34MB download)
Engineers talk about Lightroom Features
(91.03MB download)
The Antarctica Story with Jeff Schewe & Seth Resnick
(123.24MB download)
The Lightroom Iceland Adventure with Mikkel Aaland and Derrick Story
(57.96MB download)
The Scott Kelby Video from Yosemite
(51.54MB download)
Project Photoshop/Lightroom with Julieanne Kost
(71.23MB download)
It was truly a great and fun event. I especially found the Project Lightroom information to be interesting! Of course, the Antartica story was a lot of fun as well. :p
Jeff, that must have been some snow storm! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that much snow.