Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) 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. According to Adobe Lightroom 2 should come with new enhancements such as dual-monitor support, radical advances in non-destructive localized image correction, and streamlined search capabilities. As Adobe’s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel® processors and Microsoft® Windows® Vista® 64-bit operating systems, Lightroom 2 also provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images.
Photoshop Lightroom 2: Smarter, Faster and More Accurate
The enhanced Library module in Lightroom 2 helps streamline and accelerate photographers’ workflows. With the ability to visually organize images across multiple hard drives, Lightroom 2 and its powerful Library Filter Bar makes it easy for users to quickly find the images they need. The Suggested Keywords feature helps photographers keyword their images by making intelligent suggestions based on their own previous efforts. New dual-monitor support allows users to expand their workspace, giving them flexibility to edit and organize images in a way that maximizes an additional display.
In the Develop module, the new Local Adjustment Brush lets photographers fine-tune specific areas of an image to precisely adjust color, exposure and tonal range without affecting other areas of the image. The new Graduated Filter expands the toolbox in Lightroom, allowing for edits to larger areas by applying gradually diminishing or increasing adjustment effects such as exposure, clarity, and saturation, alone, or in any combination. Lightroom 2 also helps photographers print more efficiently by quickly arranging photos of multiple sizes on one or many pages with flexible and customizable templates to maximize paper and ink. Intelligent algorithms automatically determine optimal sharpening for screen or print, producing crisper images faster. Developers can further extend the Lightroom workflow with Web, Export and Metadata Software Development Kits available at the Adobe Developer Connection, http://www.adobe.com/devnet/ .
Ground-Breaking Innovation in Raw Technology
New raw technology gives photographers access to flexible camera profiles. Camera profiles are the visual starting point for the raw processing workflow, but image preferences vary for every photographer. To minimize surprises, Adobe is supplying default camera profiles that closely emulate the visual looks that photographers are used to seeing from their favorite camera, while also providing the ability to create highly customized profiles to suit different tastes. Camera profiles are available for immediate download on Adobe Labs (http://labs.adobe.com ) for use with Lightroom 2 and Camera Raw 4.5, along with the DNG Profile Editor for the community to test and create their own profiles.
The Adobe Camera Raw 4.5 plug-in and DNG Converter 4.5 are also now available on Adobe.com and support over 190 camera models including the Olympus E 420 and E 520 models.
The NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) has launched their Lightroom 2 Learning Center.
New in Lightroom 2.0
(Source: Lightroom Journal)
Library
Streamlined Organization and Worfklow
Layout: The entire Library layout has been revisited to provide a more intuitive image organization experience. The left hand panel of the Library has been streamlined to include only the most relevant image sources: the folders the images are physically stored in and collections of images that the photographer creates.
Folders: Photographers working across multiple hard drives will find that the enhanced volume and folder layout will make it a much more intuitive experience to manage images on one or many hard drives. The volume indicators clearly indicate the hard drive that you’re working with and provide the option to show the online/offline status, the amount of space available, the number of photos you’re working with and there’s an indicator light that migrates from green to red as your hard drive fills up. Now it’s visually much easier to move your images from hard drive to hard drive and understand where your images are stored when a external hard drive is no longer connected.
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