October 23, 2008
Posted by Sean McCormack
Lightroom 2.1 is now available by automatic update or from directly from Adobe: Mac or PC. Version 2.1 provides support for 15 new cameras: Canon EOS 1000D, Canon EOS 50D, Fuji FinePix IS Pro, Kodak EasyShare Z1015 IS, Leaf AFi II 6, Leaf AFi II 7, Leaf Aptus II 6, Leaf Aptus II 7, Nikon D700, Nikon D90, Nikon Coolpix P6000, Olympus SP-565 UZ, Pentax K2000, Sigma DP1, and Sony A900. The release also parallels code changes in Camera Raw 5.1, also available for download: Mac or PC.
Lightroom users, please note, you do not need to download Camera Raw to update Lightroom. Camera Raw is a Photoshop/Elements plugin.
As well as additional profiles for the new cameras, DNG profiles and the DNG profile editor have been updated to beta 2. More details can be had from http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles.
October 19, 2008
Posted by Sean McCormack
A few people have expressed an interest in how Lightroom will handle the installation of Photoshop CS4. When CS4 is installed, Lightroom automatically detects it and updates the Edit in Photoshop menu to reflect this. No user intervention should be necessary. There are quite a few changes in Photoshop CS4, so users may feel the need to leave CS3 installed. You can still use CS3 as an External Editor, in which case the old ‘Edit with Lightroom Adjustments’ dialog will appear, and an intermediate file will be created.
September 17, 2008
Posted by Sean McCormack
Adobe Labs is the domain of public program testing for Adobe, allowing us glimpses at programs prior to release. Both Lightroom 1 and 2 were available there, and now Camera Raw 4.6 and the associated DNG converter are available from there to download. This is a release candidate version, meaning that it has been internally tested, but needs more testing in the public domain before being released as an automatic update.
New cameras fully supported by this version include Fuji Finepix IS Pro, Nikon D700, Nikon D90 and the Nikon Coolpix 6000. Preliminary (i.e. uncertified) support is provided for Canon Rebel XS, 50D, Olympus SP-565 UZ, Sony A900 and Sigma DP1 (the DP1 support is not finalised).
You can read more from Product Manager Tom Hogarty over at Lightroom Journal, where he made the announcement.
September 2, 2008
Posted by Sean McCormack
It seems that nVidia users seem to draw the short straw with Lightroom. When Version 1 was released, it took a while to find out that certain performance issues were due to the use of nView. Now with Version 2 it seems there are different performance issues with nVidia.
However Flickr user MarkW Photo has found settings that greatly aid in the speed of the brush tool for Lightroom 2 nVidia users.
“I have finally fixed my slow performance issues with LR2! Today I did a bit of playing around with different performance settings. I’m using LR2 on a HP Pavillion 6258se Laptop. It has an 80GB Hard Drive, 2GB of Ram and the processor is a 1.8 GHz AMD Turion ™ 64 X2 Dual-Core. I had Windows Vista installed months ago but I downgraded back to XP due to Vista issues. First I opened the windows task manager so I could monitor the performance of Windows while using LR2. I noticed when using the develop tasks the performance stayed around 50%. When I used the retouch brush tools the performance still stayed around 50% but the brush tools were still slow. The more I brushed on the image the slower the brush refresh became. This told me that there must be a video performance issue and not necessarily a processor problem.
August 6, 2008
Posted by Martin Evening
Just as you can use the Lens Correction sliders to remove a vignette, you can use them to apply a vignette too. I often like to deliberately darken or lighten the edges of a photograph and use the Lens Correction sliders as basic dodge or burn tools for the corners of a photograph. Here are some suggestions as to how you can extend the vignetting options when working with Lightroom 2
July 28, 2008
Posted by LRN Editorial Staff
Adobe has released new beta camera profiles for Camera Raw 4.5 and Lightroom 2.0 as well as a beta of the new application called DNG Profile Editor for editing DNG profiles. The betas of the profiles and the editor app are on Adobe Labs.
July 28, 2008
Posted by LRN Editorial Staff
Adobe has released the final version of Camera Raw 4.5 as well as the DNG Converter 4.5. The updates are available for download from the Camera Raw Product Page.
In addition to new camera support (now at over 180 cameras), Camera Raw 4.5 and DNG Converter 4.5 also adds support for rendering the newly released Lightroom 2.0 functionality.
The direct download pages are here; Macintosh, Windows
July 28, 2008
Posted by LRN Editorial Staff
Major Software Upgrade Further Simplifies Photography Workflows
Press Release: SAN JOSE, Calif. — July 29, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 2 software, the photographer’s essential toolbox for managing, adjusting and presenting large volumes of digital photographs. With new enhancements such as dual-monitor support, radical advances in non-destructive localized image correction, and streamlined search capabilities, Lightroom 2 is a compelling upgrade that simplifies photography from shoot to finish. As Adobe’
s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel® processors and Microsoft® Windows® Vista® 64bit operating systems, Lightroom 2 also provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images.
June 26, 2008
Posted by Sean McCormack
A recent ISO accident led to the creation of this little video tutorial on noise reduction in Lightroom. While it doesn’t offer as much control as dedicated software like Neat Image or Noiseware, it’s still quite usable. The one great thing about it, is that once you’re happy with the results on one image, you can batch it to the rest of the shoot, far quicker than with the dedicated packages. Click here to watch the MP4 video.
June 25, 2008
Posted by Sean McCormack
Tom Hogarty has announced that Camera Raw 4.5 and DNG Converter are available on Adobe Labs.
He says:
The Camera Raw 4.5 and DNG Converter Release Candidates (RC) are now available on Adobe Labs. The ‘release candidate’ label indicates that the plug-in is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers. The Camera Raw team would like the community to help verify the quality of the plug-in through normal usage as this will ensure that the plug-in is tested on a diversity of hardware and software configurations not available internally at Adobe.
This release includes new camera support for the Olympus E 420 and E 520 camera models.
Please provide feedback on your experience with the Camera Raw 4.5 plug-in and the DNG Converter on the Camera Raw User to User forum
For Lightroom customers who would like to use the new support provided for the Olympus cameras, download the DNG Converter release candidate and convert your raw files to DNG before importing them into Lightroom 1.4.1.
(Via Lightroom Journal.)
