Lightroom Beta 4

I’ve been curious about this program since Ghostrock first pointed it out to me. My first thought was, “I have enough to learn right now!” But, I’ve been finding that Photoshop with a camera that doesn’t take raw images isn’t an efficient work-flow for me. Granted I’m an amateur at photography, but I still want to get the most out of my time. (I’d rather take photos than edit them, unless doing something crazy and creative to them. I’m trying to take at least 1 good picture a day (<- idea from photojojo.com) for a record of the year in photos. We’ll see how long I can keep this up…)

When using Photoshop (and Bridge) I would pick one or two images and edit them and put them in my daily photos. I tried tinkering with Lightroom with the 30 photos I took at a local park that had Christmas lights. I learned basically how to use Lightroom and edit all those, then upload them to my flickr account. (No major changes like masking areas out, granted. That’s not what Lightroom is about.) That all took me less than 2 hours. (Not a speed record, but infinitely faster than I was doing in Photoshop. AND I was learning it at the same time! I think I wanted to tinker too much in Photoshop.)

Besides the increased speed in “work-flow”, I like the Lightroom for:

• Straightforward and easy to pick up, especially if you’ve done image editing from Photoshop for photos. Intuitively designed.
• Keeps note of the changes you make, but does not edit them destructively (i.e. you still have the original in tact).
• You can save sets of settings in presets. (I love this in Lightroom AND Photoshop.)
• You can apply the same preset to multiple images at a time. SPIFFY!
• Side by side comparisons for multiple photos and for change and pre-change on a photo.

Concerns:

• The current beta release of Lightroom has an expiration. (To get us all hooked on using it…) But a pricing scheme for the program hasn’t been announced. I hope to be able to afford it when it comes out. (I JUST got myself out of hock after purchasing the CS2 upgrade. Am I willing to do that again in the near future? No.) I’ll happily use the beta until the time runs out and watch for the pricing to be released…
• No red-eye removal. (Though they say here that it will be in the version 1. YAY!)

If you’re interested in Lightroom, Using Lightroom is a nice 3 part overview of using the program. I’d recommend reading this first, then going to the Lightroom Killer Tips page for more in depth info in small bits. (Granted I learned what I did with the first batch of photos from watching the import clip on Killer Tips then tinkering. But I’m went back and read the article. It would have helped!)