The premier asset manager
Adobe’s Lightroom has never been an easy
application to explain to the uninitiated, but we’ll give it a shot. Lightroom
4 is, at its core, two things: a DAM (digital asset manager] and a raw-file
developer. Sure, it also comes with new or updated modules for mapping and
creating books, slide shows, and the like, but the key features are its Library
and Develop modules.
Adobe
Photoshop Lightroom 4.0
Unlike a pure photo editor such as Photoshop
CS6, Lightroom will change your photo workflow significantly. Gone are the days
of "open file A, adjust file A. save file A, close file A. open file B...”
ad nauseam. In fact, it doesn’t even make much sense to think of files as
being "open” or "closed" when working in Lightroom. This new
workflow makes it possible to handle huge volumes of images quickly and easily
and in a truly nondestructive manner.
Lifelong nerds may not be comfortable
letting Lightroom 4 do all their image management, but once you learn to trust
it and let go, Lightroom 4 makes it possible to get a ton more work done. In
the end, as you use Lightroom 4, you’ll learn to like the way it organizes
things.
Furthermore, Lightroom 4 makes it possible
to create multiple versions, and still only save a single master file to the
drive. If you love testing different treatments of the same image, then comparing
them to find the best, Lightroom 4 will save you a lot of disk space over time.
Major changes in this version of Lightroom
include an upgraded process version, a new map module for geotagging, a book
module for basic books, and enhanced video support in the Library and on
export.
Perhaps the most important feature to a
photographer is the new-and-improved Process Version 2012. Lightroom 4 comes
with major upgrades to its raw-processing engine and compared to Lightroom 3,
we experienced more latitude when making exposure corrections, even better highlight
recovery, better noise reduction, and a much improved clarity slider. Adobe has
tweaked the layout and naming of the individual controls to be more consistent
and easier to understand than the previous versions, too. For those who don’t
like change, the older controls and process versions are available as well. And
in the way-overdue department we finally have graduated filters, as well as
white balance on brushes.
Lightroom
4.0 allows you to bulk-edit images quickly so you don’t have to sit in one
photo for hours.
One yardstick we’ve long used to measure
Lightroom is whether or not we have to launch Photoshop CS6 for deep edits.
We’ve always felt that if we have to launch another app to finish a job,
Lightroom has failed us. Lightroom 4 has gotten better, but it’s definitely not
a full-tilt photo editor. For instance, we often need to open Photoshop to
liquefy, build layers, swap heads to correct a blink, and make advanced spot
corrections. Don’t get us wrong, though: If the bulk of your editing involves whitepoint,
exposure, contrast, tone curve, cropping, split toning, or lens- correction
adjustments, you can probably do 95 percent of your work without ever leaving
Lightroom. But any serious photographer will still need to have a full-service
image editor on standby.
Another area where we’ve wanted improvement
from Lightroom is in the efficiency of the codebase. We’ve found that it’s
just very difficult to coax more performance out of the program. Adding cores,
increasing clock speeds, and adding RAM hasn’t seemed to move the needle very
much in Lightroom, and nothing changes with LR4. Even more perplexing, we’ve
personally seen Lightroom bog down on Core i7 boxes with 16GB of RAM and an SSD
but fly on a 3-year-old Hewlett Packard laptop.
So should you buy Lightroom 4? We think
it’s indispensable for any serious hobbyist and pro-photographer who is
overwhelmed by the number of photos that he or she takes. For those thinking
of an upgrade from Lightroom 3, the new process-version engine and the new low
price make it a no-brainer. However, we’re dinging Lightroom 4 and Adobe for
the simply whacky performance issues we’ve experienced with the app.
Pros and cons
F/64: Improved visual-quality performance
process; white balance on brushes, finally!
F7U: Can feel sluggish and difficult to
coax performance out of.
Verdict
Ratings: 8
Price: $150 ($80 upgrade)
Website: www.adobe.com
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