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One of Adobe’s smartest moves was engaging the help of users during Beta trials of Lightroom, starting with Lightroom 2 and continuing with Lightroom 3. With more than 600,000 downloads of the Lightroom 3 Beta and around 2,000 photographers participating in the online forums, the latest version of Adobe’s image editing and organization software has certainly benefited from photographers’ testing and input.
At first glance, Lightroom 3 may not seem like a major upgrade to its predecessor. The application maintains the same look and feel and continues to offer the tools photographers need to quickly view, organize, edit and export their images. There are no real mind-blowing new features like Photoshop CS5’s Content Aware fill, although the new noise reduction tool comes close. As a whole, however, the updates to Adobe Lightroom 3 are impressive and what we consider a “must-have” upgrade for current users. If you’ve wanted to try Lightroom, there’s no better time than the present.
Where to Buy
Photo.net’s partners have Lightroom 3 available. Their prices are fair and you help to support photo.net
To test Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3, I used an older (i.e., a couple of years old) MacBook Pro 3.1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4GHz machine with 2GB of RAM running on Mac OS X version 10.6.3 Snow Leopard. Although it was difficult to do a side-by-side comparison with Lightroom 2, importing and editing images seemed faster. Of course, Lightroom 3’s performance will depend on your individual computer configuration but we think that Lightroom 2 users will notice a difference with the new program, particularly during import and when scrolling from one image to another.
Some of the new features will be more relevant than others, depending on your workflow, of course. But I’ve put together a closer look at improvements that I think may be of interest to most photographers.
Improved Import Workflow
One place where you’ll notice a difference in the user interface is with the new import window. This makes the import process faster, easier and, actually, more intuitive since pretty much everything you need is right in front of you, including the import source and destination, which can quickly be changed with a click or two. You can also choose to make a second copy of your images and select the folder to which these back-ups will be saved.
A couple of new File Renaming options have been added so you can assign the import a Shoot name and import the images with their original file numbers. Alternatively, apply a Shoot name and have Lightroom 3 renumber the files. Of course, you can apply keywords, metadata and develop settings as well. You can designate your import settings as a preset and save it for later.
The one new import feature that I haven’t figured out a good use for is the ability to show a compact view of the window. You still have access to all the tools you need but it doesn’t show the image previews. Although Adobe touts that this is the fastest way to import images, I’ll probably stick with the full window view when importing.
Import and Organize Videos
Video is so popular, regardless of whether your movies are captured with a DSLR or point-and-shoot. Now you can import your videos into Lightroom, tag them with keywords and preview them within the Library module. And that’s a good thing.
Unfortunately, that’s about all you can do with videos in Lightroom. We’d like to be able to open the video file in an editing program of our choice such as Adobe Photoshop Premiere or Premiere Elements but this is a good first step.
New Noise Reduction Algorithm
Probably the hottest and most effective update to Lightroom 3 is its new and powerful noise reduction algorithm. Lightroom 3’s ability to reduce luminance and color noise is pretty amazing. With just a few adjustments to the program’s slider bars, you can effortlessly reduce image noise and, at the same time, tweak sharpness with excellent—and natural looking—results. This feature alone may be worth the upgrade to version 3.
Lens Correction/Perspective Correction
Like Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3 offers automatic lens correction for a small number of lenses including those for Nikon, Canon and Sigma lenses. The automated profiles do a good job of adjusting pincushioning or barrel distortion. Chromatic aberration and vignetting can also be corrected automatically. If your camera/lens combo isn’t listed, check out the Lens Profile Configurator to create your own profiles. These custom profiles can be shared, so you might find a ready-made correction on the Adobe site. Lightroom 3 also allows you to manually correct geometric distortions, chromatic aberration and lens vignetting.
If you need to correct perspective—the kind that comes from shooting up at buildings, for example—it’s almost as easy as applying lens corrections. You’ll have to do it manually, though.
What you may notice is that the corrections leave a grey area outside the image boundaries. You can either crop the image or take the image into Photoshop CS5 and use Content Aware Fill to balance out the photograph.
Print Layouts
Anyone who prints directly from Lightroom will definitely benefit from the new print layouts. You now have the flexibility to drag and drop an assortment of images into any configuration you’d like. Image size can be adjusted by grabbing the corner handles and each layout can be saved as a template so you can use it over and over again.
Picture Package, an option where Lightroom organizes the same image on a page to minimize cuts, is still available for those who want or need to this type of picture layout but the new custom print layout is a great addition.
Tethered Shooting
Like the ability to import, rate and organize videos, Lightroom 3’s Tethered Shooting feature is a good first step. The function works with a limited number of cameras and isn’t really a full-fledged tethering option since you can’t really control the camera settings.
On the other hand, you can easily apply presets so all your shots come into the program pretty much good to go. You’ll have to capture an image to see the effect of the preset adjustments, however, since there’s no live preview but being able to see (and import) your image as it’s captured is a real time saver and will make your clients happy if they happen to be on set.
These are only a handful of features that make Lightroom 3 well worth the upgrade price. Other updates, such as the ability to coordinate with online publishing sites such as Flickr (we’re waiting for other plug-ins to make this feature more useful) and creating a video slideshow with music will probably have less mass appeal than some of the features we’ve covered here but are valuable additions nevertheless.
Noise Reduction Tutorial
Over the years, digital cameras have increased high ISO capabilities with mixed results. There are times when we need to boost the ISO in order to capture an image we might not otherwise be able to get but the photograph often suffers from image noise. In-camera noise reduction algorithms tend to soften image details and, if you’re like me, you tend to turn off this feature to maintain detail and then deal with the image noise in a software application.
With Lightroom 3’s new noise reduction algorithm, you can push your camera’s light sensitivity beyond what you normally would and still be able to produce a good image.
Here’s a quick tutorial that shows how well Lightroom 3’s noise reduction works. This image was shot with the Nikon D3s at ISO 102,400 with the camera’s noise reduction turned off.
Before
After
Step 1. Open the image and go into the Develop module and expand the Details panel on the right.
Step 1
Step 2. Click the side-by-side icon to show Before and After views of the image.
Step 2
Step 3. Adjust the Color Noise Reduction slider. We moved it to the right until the color noise disappeared from the clown’s hair.
Step 3
Step 4. Then adjust the Luminance Noise Reduction slider to further tweak the image.
Step 5. Finally, go up to the Sharpening slide and increase the amount just slightly. We made the adjustment based on the sharpness of the clown’s eye and eyelashes.
Step 5
Step 6. If you need more details, tweak the Detail sliders in the Luminance and/or Color Noise Reduction panel.
Conclusion
With version 3, Adobe has made some impressive updates, most notably the ability to reduce image noise without sacrificing image quality. Like any software application not all features will be as important to one photographer as another but we can safely say that effective noise reduction is a feature that holds universal appeal and relevance.
Improved performance is always a welcome update and although we didn’t measure a speedier workflow in any scientific manner, the program definitely feels faster. Other features are noteworthy as well and those that are not included in this review still retain value and their omission doesn’t reflect on their importance.
Despite a few areas in which the application can be improved (such as tethered shooting), all in all, Lightroom 3 is a much improved program over its predecessor. Adobe deserves props not only for listening to their users in the public Beta program but for developing another version of a great, all-around workflow tool.
Bottom Line: With Lightroom 3, Adobe has taken its popular workflow application to the next level, with more than enough updates to make this a must-have update or first-time purchase. Regardless of skill level, photographers will find that Lightroom 3 will make short work of organizing and editing their images.
CONS: Some limitations to tethered shooting and export to online photosharing sites (other than Flickr); the inability to easily move into a video editing program
Where to Buy
Photo.net’s partners have Lightroom 3 available. Their prices are fair and you help to support photo.net
Theano Nikitas, a full-time freelance writer and photographer, has been writing about photography for the past 15 years. Her digital imaging reviews, features, “how to” articles and images have appeared in a wide variety of publications and on Websites including American Photo, CNET.com, Camcorder and Computer Video, DigitalCameraReview.com, Digital Photographer, FashionLedge.com, First Glimpse, Imaging-Resource.com, macHOME, PCPhoto, PC How to Digital Photography Buyer’s Guide, Photo District News, PopPhoto.com, and Popular Science. Although she loves digital, Theano still has a darkroom and a fridge filled with film thanks to her long-time passion for alternative processes and toy cameras. More »
While I appreciate the great experience you're having with LR3, it doesn't seem to jibe with the problems a large number of us are having, most notably with the dust removal tool (which often freezes and crashes the program), and the speed (which some users have noted as being less than half as fast as LR2). I think it would be good for you to check out some of the LR3 forums (fora) out there and get a daily user's perspective. Many of us consider LR3 to be not ready for prime time.
I've only had one crash with LR3, so I'm not ready to complain about that. But it is definitely slower than LR2 on my PC. Import is about the same, but moving from image to image takes more time, and it often hangs momentarily when switching tools. I like the noise reduction though.
I've bought and paid for LR1 and LR2. After reading the reviews of LR3, and considering that many of the "upgrades" I have no use for (video, for one), I've decided I have better places for $100. Lightroom is or should be a specialty tool for photographers. Now it's for videographers and what's next?... graphics designers... and sculptors... and anime artists... iPhone images? No more BLOAT Adobe... just work on getting the bugs out of what you've got before you start getting big ideas about expansion.
I look forward to see some REAL improvements in LR4 (such as "dumbing down" the search procedures - what a labyrinth of un-intuitive hoops I have to jump through to find stuff and I'm never sure it finds all that I want. The program makes me do all the work!) Sorry, Adobe... if you want another $100 from me I want additional, useful "smarts" FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS not more "cosmetics."
You should also mention that, for most Adobe products, there are significant discounts to fully licensed versions for educators and students. The estimated education retail price for LR3 (full...not upgrade) is $99US. See details here on Adobe's FAQ page under Pricing and Availability:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/faq/
As a Mac user, I am very happy to have largely escaped from iPhotoville--but some things about Lightroom 3 are awkward, such as no Save As command. Need I list others? But what got me excited about the program is having the editing tools from the Camera Raw engine.
Another thing is that I found out as a result of getting LR3, due to its awkardness in some respects, is learning how to use iPhoto's "referenced" catalogue option, which only stores thumbnails instead of duplicate image files and can make life a bit easier for doing simple tasks.
Just want to mention that I got my copy from Adobe.com site for $99 dollars. I went to this year Scott Kelby's photowalk and adobe send me a $200 dollar discount by e-mail for a fully functional registrable copy. Maybe if there is an sponsored event from adobe you can get a discount to. Don't know its worth the try or not but for me it sure did.
, July 20, 2010; 03:54 P.M. 