Adobe Releases Beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4

LR 2 to 3 was an absolute no-brainer if for no other reason than the new RAW processing engine. Absolutely love it. But from what I'm reading here, I can't say I'm too excited about LR4's prospects. Spot white balance adjustment is nice, especially when dealing with quirky phasing indoor lights, but how about the workflow? Not sure who they're going after with some of these features, but it's certainly not pros. Keywording/captioning needs improvement. Switching between modules is still a bit clunky. I have to rely on too many third party plugins to make LR do what I want. I guess when they're already head-and-shoulders above Aperture, Adobe doesn't feel the need to innovate much.

As in making adjustments to .PNG? If so that makes no sense... And it has great dual monitor support I use it all the time for comparative study or a loupe. Also multiple users = log in to a different account like any other application on OSX.

No, no, and also no.

1. .png support: have a read through some of these if you don't know why you'd want to store your images in png. When you have millions of files, the filesize savings of .png makes a huge difference. Having to use a separate program to manage a certain filetype is asinine.

2. Dual monitor support: A joke. The ONLY thing you can use it for is a dummy display, for comparative study & loupe. Useful would be, library on one monitor and develop on another, or for those of us working on quad displays, a module on each.

3. Multiple users: Imagine, and I know it's a leap since Adobe never considered it either, that unlike a student or sport shooter, you have more than one person working with your images in your office at a time. For instance, even a small marketing dept that has two photogs, a dev, three ad guys and a webmaster. Lightrooms complete lack of multiuser & network support is an organizational & operational cluster#$%^ and results in a gigantic waste of energy, time, and space.

All primary issues we've been bugging Adobe about since day 1, and all ignored, in favor of... uploading video clips to youtube??? Pretty clear where Adobe is taking Lightroom.

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me....Takes too long to open & instantly uses around 2-3GB RAM - then when I export something it makes even my music playing in the background lag..
Such a shame, cause I love the application.. And it's setup nicely!

I've tried Lightroom 2 and briefly 3, but it looked a lot of work to get everything to how I like it! - might try again though.

:)

Still no .png support, still no support for multiple users, no way to use it on a network, no worthwhile dual monitor workspace layout.

...but good thing they built an email and Facebook client into it, for all those who can grasp color work and advanced editing & printing workflows, but can't figure out how to send an email. & all this video crap & YouTube uploader, really helpful for all those times you want to just adjust the levels on some raw footage and upload it for everyone to see.

Adobe and their priorities. CaptureOne it is...

Good News! :D

I've never used a Beta program like this. Are there any real drawbacks? Does the March 31st deadline mean the program will no longer be available for download in this Beta version or does that mean the Beta version you installed on your computer will no longer work.

I might be interested in trying this if it's fairly safe, but I don't want to learn the program just to have it disabled in a few months as I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the retail price.

I've never used a Beta program like this. Are there any real drawbacks? Does the March 31st deadline mean the program will no longer be available for download in this Beta version or does that mean the Beta version you installed on your computer will no longer work.

I might be interested in trying this if it's fairly safe, but I don't want to learn the program just to have it disabled in a few months as I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the retail price.

It usually means the program will stop working on after March 31st. Plus, it's a beta, which means it might gets few quirks here and there (but I guess it must be pretty solid).

It seems to have a few nice improvements! Would like to see what Apple comes up with in Aperture 4 since I do like the lay-out and workflow in Aperture more than that in Lightroom.

Would love automatic chromatic aberration correction!!
For me noise and dynamic range utilities are essential in a new version, so Lightroom seems to be doing a good job now.

Does it bring back tethered support for the Canon 5d? I now have Aperture on my laptop for this purpose only.

I've been thinking about moving from Aperture to Lightroom for awhile now, Aperture is just becoming too slow for me

Yup. Makes me wonder IF Apple plans on ever updating Aperture or is going to just let it wither. I jumped from Lightroom 1.0 to Aperture 3 when it came out and don't want to switch back right now but if there is not a major update this year I might have no choice. If Apple is going to stop competing w/ Adobe's pro/prosumer apps I wish it would just say so.