29/06/2007 by jim.

Lightroom 1.0 has been updated with more support for multi-computer use. This is a big issue for me as I use 3 computers all linked together with a wireless network and use a 1 TB network drive to store most of my photos on.

Lightroom is not supposed to support network drives and I just use mine as a normal external drive as far as Lightroom is concerned at the moment. It would be very nice to use the drive as designed and get full functionality from it.

RAW image processing has also been improved with better sharpening and a clarity control.

I must say the RAW processing engine is awesome stuff. Almost good enough for me to swap from CS2/Bridge workflow that I use most of the time at the moment.The winning feature of CS2/Bridge for me at the moment is Dr Browns 123 processing script. This free downloadable feature alone saves me so much time I would find life harder without it. The processor converts the RAW files to 3 different defined file types. The RAW file stays intact and I have;

1. Full size Tiffs
2. Newspaper sized/dpi jpegs and
3. websized

images all in one button press - magical stuff and a great time saver.http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3669

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12/06/2007 by jim.

I must confess that I have been having a love/hate relationship with Adobe Lightroom ever since it was released.

To start with I obtained the programme cheap as I was one of those foolish lucky people who had shelled out on Pixmantic’s RawShooter Premium shortly before they sold out to Adobe leaving loads of us punters high and dry as well as bitter and twisted. To their credit, Adobe, honored us by “giving” us Lightroom 1.0 “Free” of charge.

RawShooter was just a raw processor and Lightroom did so much more, I loved it.
My computer is a PC, under a year old and pretty fast with 1 GB RAM - well within the recommended spec for Lightroom. But I do quite a lot of other things on the same machine and Lightroom was so slow it was painful, I hated it.

I then added an extra 2 GB RAM and, like magic, Lightroom came alive, I love it.

The RAW processing engine is awesome, the search facilities amazing and, because I take photos for the press, I am not tempted to do any pixel editing that is so non-correct these days. At last I understand levels and the vibrancy adjustment  gives me digital Velvia.

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