Lightroom ships!
Yes! Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is finally announced! Just like i predicted, its priced at $299US.
However, Adobe, in not so usual style – has offered a $100 discount until April 2007. Order it now here.
I already ordered and am waiting for my download link…maybe around mid Februrary.
The feature set in the V1.0 is very exciting – much more than what i imagined. Read all about it here.
Here is a quick feature list that i am excited about:
- The DAM features have been improved as well – and possibly as good as iVew Media Pro…no need to buy an another tool anymore! It now has inverse ratings as well (just like Peter Krough describes it in his DAM book).
- Dust removal – including dust bunnies (spot dust removal) with just one click.
- Check out the intro video of the histogram – its alive! you can tweak histogram by just clicking on it and push/pull to move the bar where ever you feel like!
- TAT – Targeted Adjustment Tool – Lets you click on a specific part of the image, and adjust that spot using curves.
- Built-in Backup system!
- Has a built-in Image Injester as well – No need to use a separate script to injest images…because the Injester dialog features auto backup copy, rename files and the most important – Automatically copies to backup location, renames and converts to DNG – and lets you use DNG as your main source!
- Has Spot cloning and healing brush – The only 2 things i used PSE for!
Do i sound like a adobe fan boy? If you hate that all extra exclamations – yes, i am really excited.
Suckered into lightroom…
Ya…like everyone else, i joined in the lightroom revolution since their Beta 2. As the d-day gets nearer, we still dont have a pricing or availability on the product. Worst thing is that the beta4 is all set to expire end of February!
The irony is that i am all hooked on this thing – and i may end up buying this. Based on its competitor the Apple Aperture (priced at $299), this may be around $300-$400 bucks.
Knowing the Adobe’s product pricing history – i am sure this will initially be around $399 – with just one reason -
All those who have suckered into using the beta 4 – just didnt export their files to formats that can be read and opened with other RAW converters. They were just either plain old lazy or kept saying that they will buy this when it ships.
The things they did not consider is that Adobe has not offered to sell the product licenses over the Internet or have indicated anywhere that they will offer downloads of this product. They have not even acknowledged that they might offer a 30 day version.
Now this presents 2 issues:
- All those people getting a sticker price shock – may never buy the product – this means either beg/borrow/steal to get their files edited by the beta versions to open up and exported correctly to TIFFs or JPEGs.
- The time to order the product, and for it to arrive on your doorstep – and the need to use the product to process your images. I recently learned that when a customer wants an image – he wants it now! Lightroom or not!
The price may eventually decrease (after the initial suckered customers buy them) to match that of Aperture. Chances are Apple may discount their Aperture when Ligthroom releases…making this a better option for me. Better export those images from Lightroom to TIFFs now!
Note: At this time, exporting to DNGs is not an option – The standalone converter does not capture Lightroom’s metadata (it does capture IPTC though) and the built-in converter does not export correctly. The only means to export is to either retain XMP files (Dont forget to flush out the XMP files – or else, they will not be written as well!), which can then be read by Bridge, or to export them to TIFFs or PSDs which can then be read by most image editing programs.
“High” Dynamic Range
A recent post in one of the message boards trigged this post.
Human eyes are capable of capturing incredible variations in light – in the order of 1:10,000 or so. Have you ever observed that even in incredible low lights (say, during a candlelight dinner) you can still see both the accurate colors of the food in front of you and the details (not minute details, but sometimes that too if you look carefully) of the the things that are in the shadows?
Ansel Adams and Fred Archer devised the “Zone System” back in 1939 or so…based on their analysis that a photographic paper (whose dynamic range was about 1:512) can present a similar range as that of human eye, if each a bunch of variations can be “zoned” together, and appropriately scaled. Their extensive analysis concluded that a good way to do this is to divide the entire scene into 10 zones.
Modern DSLRs sensors can however, only capture a dynamic range of about 5-7 stops (+/-3EV). This means that you still haven’t captured the details in zones 0,1 and 9.
Most people today, talk about overcoming this limitation by shooting multiple exposures and combining them via a tool such as Photomatix.
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By N2H
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