Feature: Preview of Adobe LightRoom 1.1 with its Photographer's workflow
Motivation: Lightroom brings a natural entry point to Adobe photo editing

Adobe LightRoom is a copycat - it is in the mold of Apple's Aperture and other programs that duplicate the workflow at a photographer's light table. So do not look for masks, layers, or fancy filters in Lightroom. Rather it concentrates on the preprocessing tasks done at a light table - sorting through all the images taken, deciding which ones are top notch, adding notes and comments to others, deleting the dogs, and categorizing the shots for later use.

But Lightroom takes users well beyond the light table's sorting and organizing capabilities . Lightroom allows users to do total image corrections for exposure, color tone, sharpness, cropping, rotation, lens aberrations, and basic spot removal. Notice I said "total" image. This means the photo corrections are applied right across the image (except of course in the case of spot removal) - remember Lightroom has no masking or selection tools. I think of Lightroom being devoted to initial refinement of the original image.

Lightroom announces itself as the photo editor for photographers designed by photographers - and Adobe really delivers. This program is designed to produce from dozens of Camera RAW (or BMP, JPG, PNG, TIF) images, a corrected and distilled set of images ready for print, slideshow and/or web display. And again, Lightroom can help in these last 3 steps of image preparation and use. Lightroom is devoted to the workflow necessary to get raw images into finished form ready for design, composition, and even painterly work with such tools as Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Extended, Corel Painter X, Right Hemisphere DeepPaint, or Xara Xtreme Pro (some of the best tools for advanced photo-finishing).

For the past 3-4 years, Adobe Photoshop Elements has acted as lower cost starting point and/or training wheels for users considering an alternative to top of the line Photoshop CSx. Photoshop Elements is more swiss army knife than a top notch photo preparation tool lacking a full gamut of color, tonal and other image adjustment tools present in the full Photoshop. Enter Lightroom.

In contrast, Lightroom is designed to fit the photo preparation workflow and particularly image tone and color adjustments. So it does not have Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) layers, masking, and other multiple photo merging and compositional tools. Rather, Lightroom is designed to produce the best possible RAW to fully prepped image in a workflow that mimics classical photographer's processing steps. So think of Lightroom as the tool devoted to going from one raw image to the one best possible photo. So Lightroom is simplified and then focused on the photographers tasks in making one image the best it possibly can be - stand alone.

But Lightroom adds four kickers to this process that are its big value add. First, the Lightroom

UI-User Interface has adopted what is becoming increasingly popular in graphics and other design applications - a tabular workflow interface. Take a look at Adobe Premier Elements and Adobe Photoshop Elements. Each has tabs/icons that change the look and layout of the screens and tools available according to the natural workflow - GetMedia, Edit Movie, Create DVD, Export for Premiere Elements' video processing and Organize, QuickEdit, FullEdit, Design Photo Creations, and 3 Output icons for Photoshop Elements and its consumer photo processing.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Lightroom follows this Workflow UI theme with Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web "tabs" in the upper right of the screenshot. Press on a tab, and and the two panels on the right and left change as new commands for that stage of the workflow are arrayed before the user. Along the bottom is a slide tray of all the images that a user is working on. This natural photography workflow orientation with specially designed workspaces for each step along the way is the first Lightroom kicker. It greatly simplifies working with images - especially when you have dozens of images coming from your digital camera.

Here is the second Lightroom kicker. Lightroom acknowledges that photographers often want to work on several images at the same time - and the tray at the bottom of the screen (see screenshot above)makes that simple and easy to do. For example - most digital cameras provide auto-bracketing functions where 2-5 images are taken with varying f/stop or shutter settings. Or actions shots are taken in burst mode 2-8 frames per second. And finally, as in the screenshot above, a series of photos were taken under the same time and lighting conditions.

With the tray at the bottom of the screen and the preview in the upper left - Lightroom makes

working with several images at once trivial to do. Even better, Lightroom remembers all the color, tonal, brightness, contrast, sharpening and other correction steps used on each photo. Users than can Copy(see lower left panel button in the above screenshot) those correction settings and paste them on any other photo in the tray. Talk about a huge time saver! And users can even select among settings (see screen shot below) for the ones to be applied to the
new/next chosen photo in the sequence. Note the settings on left are for a grayscale image. The settings are slightly different for a color image. By choosing a group of images in the tray, the same fixes can be applied en masse to the whole group. This is very, very useful.

It is sort of like having Photoshop actions but on a natural grouping of settings. Again, this group settings change feature is not only distinctive but a huge time saver that for many amateur and professionals will justify the cost of Lightroom alone.

The third LightRoom kicker is the careful selection of what color, tonal, and camera fixes can be done with Lightroom. Users have two choices. In the panel on the left, there are a list of preset adjustments that the user can apply by just clicking on one. In the panel on the right are the individual controls available under the Develop tab. The choice of color and tonal controls provided by Lightroom is really quite superb. My favorites are the Color Vibrance and Fill Light sliders; but there are more than two dozen in all.

And one does not have to move the sliders far to get a notable change in most images. The side-by-side icon (the YY icon in the lower mid screen) allows one to see the original and corrected image. Combined with the image Histogram at the top of the right panel, with Lightroom I am absolutely confident that just about any problem in color or tonal adjustments can be solved - and quickly.

That is the fourth kicker in Lightroom - it is fast. When converting to black and white for the first time, I often try the Grayscale Conversion preset. Why - because Lightroom is so fast and a simple click on the Reset button clears the conversion in a blink. Lightroom on a 1GB, 1.7GHz Dual Core Windows Media XP machine(with 8 other apps running as well)is so speedy I am willing to try a lot of presets because I know it will take only a second to change the images. They are 2.5 to 6MB in size but even 8-12MB images are reasonably fast (3-8 seconds depending on operations). There is no doubt speed of operation helps creative flow. Lightroom has that in abundance.

Conclusion

We have barely scratched the surface of the full Workflow set of features. In the Library step I am able to import RAW or other images from most cameras and storage devices (there in fact is a problem of over zealousness). I then can deliver those images with new naming plus a full set of IPTC, EXIF, and other image metadata codings including color, star and other tags to one or more directories on a system .

For the Slideshow step, one can quickly create a professional looking slideshow with captions, slide exposure and fade time controls. I particularly appreciated the ability to add color or image background with drop shadowing. This is still not the slideshow creation capabilities of say Adobe Premiere Elements or Ulead Studio but it comes in handy for post camera club outings where everyone repairs to a diner and we go through the days shootings. Perfect fit.

For the Print step, Lightroom has a small utility belt set of 2 abreast, contacts sheet, and fine art templates for printing - but no framing or drop shadow features easily done in Photoshop Elements or CS3. In fact, the Web step has more than double the Print templates offering a wide range of gallery layouts and looks. These can be viewed locally and then once refined updated on a Internet target directory on your machine for later transfer to a website.

There are a quite a number of specific features I simply have not checked on this 30 day trial version. In addition, one alarming note - Lightroom crashed three times in our 8-10 hours of intensive preview testing. We are not certain if this was due to a Windows session problem(we did have 8 other apps running at the same time) or indigenous to Lightroom. This along with detailed review of features will await our full review.

However, I can say unconditionally, that Lightroom fills a big spot in photo editing not just for Adobe (although it is a superb match to Photoshop) but a wide range of photo editors. Lightroom is devoted to making the best photo from raw image data and doing so quickly. It also is a versatile tool to menage the workflow and storage of pictures and images for professional photographers needing to manage tens of thousands of images. Finally, Lightroom is so easy and friendly to use it sells itself merely on its ability to make some of the trick image processing tasks like color corrections and exposure, much more manageable. In that regard Lightroom more than delivers. And so for many photographers caught between the complexities and learning curves associated with top end tools like Photoshop CS3 or Extended or Corel's Painter, Lightroom's features and pricing may be a perfect fit.

However, here are some clear cautions about using Lightroom:
1)Lightroom is not a complete photo-editor like Adobe's Photoshop or Ulead/Corel's Photo Impact. If you need to do any layering, masking, filtering and photo-composition work - Lightroom has no tools but must hand off to other programs like Photoshop, Photo Impact, Painter, etc.

2)Lightroom is Adobe-centric. So it is straightforward to right click on any image in a Lightroom collection, and there is a command (Edit with Photoshop CS3) for passing the image directly into Photoshop. All other photo tools must use the several steps associated with the Export command. Likewise for slideshows, and printing rest assured you are going the Adobe way preferentially.

3)Lightroom's capability of delivering a standalone runnable slideshow is restricted to Adobe PDF files only or playing the view in Lightroom - I am surprised there is no Flash or Quicktime output.

4)Lightroom's storage of metadata and images in its collections plus the interfaces to these facilities may simply not meet the needs of some professional photographers. The Export commands still allow pros to do their own thing but requires extra steps. This is a trade-off that will vary with exactly how you use both Lightroom and your images.

In sum, because Lightroom has a number of natural trade-offs given its orientation towards a light table workflow and its Adobe centricity, users are going to have to be sure why and when they will want to buy into Lightroom. Here is my simple list of Lightroom qualifiers - any one of which means buy Lightroom:

1)if you are taking 30-50 or more pictures per week, Lightroom will accelerate your development process alone - not to mention organizing, playing for local audience or printing capabilities. On the economics of saved time with outstanding results, Lightroom will easily pay for itself in a year or less.

2)If you want photo editor that is easy to understand and use a for whole images (you rarely create collages or layered compositions), Lightroom with its extra slideshow and printing capabilities should be at the top of your list.

3)If you are a photo light table user who is looking for software that mimics your light table, then Lightroom is clearly one of the best tools available.

4)Finally if your photo editor cannot handle the trick problems of exposure control and color toning, then definitely put Lightroom at the top of your list because it handles these tasks with aplomb.
5)Finally, if you are an Adobe user, especially Photoshop, Lightroom is a natural and very effective fit in the Adobe photo-editing workflow.

So Lightroom has a very broad appeal. For novices to the world of photo-finishing, it is an effective and easy to use tool for getting the most out of your digital and especially SLR camera raw images. And for the photo pros the light table interface has been wonderfully implemented with several Before+After views plus quickly hidden/restored panels, image bins and other views. Working in Lightroom is a pleasure - well worth the cost for many photo pros.