The first impulse most lensman will have is to compare Adobe ’s just announced Lightroom to Aperture , Apple ’s pro level photograph app . And well they should . We may have a veridical clash of the titans on our hands here .
Adobe promote Lightroom as “ the efficient new way for professional lensman to import , select , develop , and showcase large volumes of digital images . ” Unlike Photoshop — Adobe ’s range - redaction applications programme that must serve many masters , including vivid creative person and internet design — Lightroom is aimed forthrightly at lensman . That said , Photoshop complement Lightroom when there ’s a heavy paradigm - editing task to wield . And Lightroom pee it sluttish to open a delineation in Photoshop . Generally speak , though , the instrument in Photoshop that photographers demand most of the time exist right within Lightroom .
Even at this other public beta stage , it ’s clear that Adobe has done its preparation . Lightroom is powerful , intuitive , and tailored specifically for the serious gun .
make a motion motion picture through the program
Lightroom ’s work flow — what Adobe calls its “ garden path of tasks”—is organized into four modules : Library , Develop , Slideshow , and Print . Each module provides a oeuvre area with a set of shaft .
The first mental faculty , Library , is design for browsing your collections of images . At the same time , you’re able to sort , pace , and organise images . The Library module includes powerful viewing and liken tools to help you pluck characterisation quickly .
Lightroom ’s Library module
At this degree of development , Lightroom ’s sort tools are n’t as sexy as what you ’ll find in Aperture ( see “ Aperture and Lightroom ” below ) . On the other script , Lightroom runs marvellously on a 1.5GHz PowerBook G4 while Aperture bogs down significantly on the same machine . This give Lightroom an edge for field lensman who depend on portable information processing system to handle their study .
Once you ’ve selected your dear shots in the Library module , clack on Develop to process the images . The Develop faculty provides an telling curing of image editing tools , such as blanched balance , vulnerability , light , demarcation , curve ball , grayscale sociable , HSL color tuning , sharpen , electron lens chastening , and camera standardization , among others . The tool panels are positioned to the right of your picture with a histogram for citation . All of your edits are nondestructive .
Lightroom ’s Develop faculty
To the left of your figure , Lightroom provides a Presets internet browser . This handy board allow you speedily apply presets that you ’ve saved , or you may choose from a menu of detail that Adobe includes with the applications programme . So if , for good example , you need to apply sepia toning to your delineation , just click the predetermined — very handy .
Once you have your effigy adjusted , you’re able to view them in the Slideshow faculty . Here ’s where you’re able to create tradition backgrounds , add drop trace , and hold a potpourri of effects to your picture . you could roleplay the slideshow in this module too , so it ’s ready to hand for intro .
Lightroom ’s Slideshow module
What is n’t obvious at first , is that the Slideshow faculty is also where you create your connection galleries . You only export your completed slideshow as HTML , and Lightroom build all of the assets for you to copy over to your Web server . There are also pick to export to PDF and Flash , but I could n’t get those functions to work in this first beta release .
I did notice that there was n’t the power to add euphony to the slideshows or to export them to QuickTime . But I suspect that those capabilities will be added in the near future .
The 4th module , Print , provides you with all of the page layout tools that you ’d expect to manage your output to newspaper . But there are a few niceties too . For example , you have access to all of your photographic print job options in the right side panels . So , for example , you do n’t have to navigate perplexing dialogue boxes just to set your color management profile for a specific dead reckoning .
The Template web browser on the remaining side of the oeuvre area allow you save specifically - formated tangency canvas and other types of output . This is a genuine clip saver when you require to output your double in a variety of data formatting .
Under the hood
Adobe engineers have written a new codebase for Lightroom . It is n’t just an adaptation of one-time Photoshop parts . This is a Cocoa coating compose from scratch . Lightroom , however , is n’t as bond to the underpinnings of Mac OS X Tiger as Aperture is . For example , it does n’t tap Core Image for processing .
In use of goods and services , Lightroom feel like a well - written Cocoa computer program . It ’s nimble and antiphonal . The menus and preference panelling have that silklike Cocoa face to them . This initial public genus Beta is not a Universal Binary , however . Adobe has promised that Lightroom will run natively on the coming Intel - base Macs , but the company desire to optimise performance for those information processing system before releasing the Universal Binaries .
Aperture and Lightroom
When you compare Lightroom to Aperture , Lightroom experience more streamlined , less ambitious . Its jeweler’s loupe , for lesson , is an actual puppet that you could employ to inspect any persona on the screen , even in thumbnail mode . Both loupes in Lightroom and Aperture are efficient , but Aperture sure has a more sophisticated advance .
The same thing pass away for comparing persona . Lightroom has a Compare way that lease you Command - select thumbnail in the filmstrip to add them to the take in panel for comparison . It works quite well , but you wo n’t see matter like Aperture ’s Stacks or freeform Light Table .
What Adobe has done , however , that Aperture ca n’t do , is lend Camera Raw redaction function right there in the program . So if you ’re already comfortable with Camera Raw , you ’ll get up to speed promptly here too .
Aperture has generated much discourse about how it stores images in a contained library . Lightroom present this approach path also , but gives you the option of storing your images outside the app in the file cabinet arrangement . When you spell , you select either the managed depository library or unmanaged . If you choose unmanaged , Lightroom establishes pointer to the locations of your photos on the hard thrust . On the other mitt , the reward of opting for get by is that , much like Aperture , you have the option to rename your images or bring metadata upon import .
Adobe makes a big affair about this option , so distinctly this will be a point of distinction between the two titian apps .
Cool affair to check out
Even in this early beta , there are some keen tools in Lightroom to search . Take a look at Lights Dim and Lights Out . you’re able to find them under the Window menu . Those controls darken everything on your silver screen except for the elementary range . It ’s a corking essence .
The Lights Dim cock
Also render faulting : Tab to blot out all the distract panes and filmstrip leave you with just your thumbnail or elementary simulacrum on the cover . And under the Photo card , you ’ll ascertain a control to edit the capture time of your pictures . So if you forgot to reset your photographic camera for daytime savings , you could still have the right timestamp on your images .
you could discover these thing for yourself when the Lightroom beta becomes uncommitted for download on January 10 throughAdobe ’s Web site . Anyone require to taste out the beta should have Mac OS X 10.4.3 , a 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor or good , 768 MiB of tup , and a 1,024 - by-768 - declaration cover , allot to the genus Beta ’s tech specs .
Adobe plans on post regular updates to Lightroom until a final variant is liberate latterly this year . In fact , the company advance Lightroom users to participate in the assembly after you ’ve downloaded the app and quiz it .
Adobe has n’t announced pricing yet for Lightroom . If the company keeps the program affordable , I think it will have a existent success on its hands .
[ Derrick Story is the author ofDigital Photography Pocket guide , third edition(O’Reilly , 2005 ) . ]
