Adobe Lightroom
This is a picture of a chap in Camden today. I mention this partly because you might like to see some more pictures of Camden, but also as an excuse to point you towards Adobe Lightroom, which is a photo management tool currently in free, time-limited, beta. It has some terrific strengths:
- it’s easy to use — sensible keyboard shortcuts, easy access to the things you want to access, and so on)
- it’s good a good range of features — from the simple-fix features like “fill light” which appears in Picasa, to the more complicated ones which you might want when the simple-fix ones don’t quite do what you want.
- It’s non-destructive, ensuring your originals remain untouched as you edit copies.
- It works with RAW files.
Unfortunately it also has some disadvantages:
- It doesn’t have a “remove redeye” feature. Oops.
- It’s a bit too non-destructive for my liking. Unlike Picasa, when you edit an image the amended version is stored in Lightbox’s own database in its own format, so you can’t simply fish out the edited photo when you’re done. To get the edited photo you have to explicitly export it. Picasa works by saving the original in a hidden folder so it can be retrieved later, but the edited version is readily available as a JPEG.
- You can’t drag and drop an image from Lightroom into another application.
Still, it’s a good application, and I’m trying it now instead of my usual combination of Picasa, Zoombrowser EX, and Digital Photo Professional, none of which individually combines the feature-set and ease of use I’m happy with. If the price of Lightroom is less than £100 then I’ll think seriously about buying it when it appears in the final form. If it’s more, then I’ll probably put the money towards a new lens instead.
And I have possibly learned a lesson from my afternoon in Camden. You’ll notice a few of the photos aren’t quite in focus. I think that’s because I’ve set the camera to focus using the single centre AF point, so for the next time I’ll try automatic AF select, using the camera’s nine points AF points, which is its default.
