Adobe ships Photoshop Lightroom 1.0

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 20 February 2007 05:34

Business IT - Technology

Digital photography is big. Really big. Like the universe, it's getting bigger: more cameras, higher resolutions and ever-expanding collections of images. And that's where Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - which shipped this week for Windows and Mac OS X - comes in.


Described by Adobe as "the professional photographers' essential toolbox, providing one easy application for managing, developing, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs,"  the program is now available at an introductory price of $345 until April 30 ($315 if downloaded rather than purchased as a boxed product). Adobe cautiously refers to this as a saving of $150 on "the expected retail price", but is the company allowing for discounting by resellers or keeping its pricing options open?

Either way, Lightroom seems to have been well received by photographers who trialled it during the beta period. Adobe praised their feedback: "Everything, from image viewing and evaluation tools to timesaving editing features, was developed with the help of photographers," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Adobe's Creative Solutions Business Unit. "This was truly a collaborative effort and we extend our thanks to everyone who provided invaluable feedback to help us deliver a powerhouse professional photography tool."

Changes from the beta include improved keywording to help deal with large collections, more flexible file handling when importing files, and improved metadata filtering to help locate specific images more quickly.

The Develop module has new features allowing comparisons of multiple versions of one image without requiring that each variation is saved.

Over 150 native raw file formats are supported, including the Nikon D40 and D80, and the Pentax K10D. Imported images can be converted to the Digital Negative (DNG) format allowing them to be used with current and future software without being tied to the camera manufacturer's format. DNG is patented by Adobe, but licensed at no charge.

The Lightroom beta will expire on February 28.