DSLR Photography Forum

Just wondering if anyone's tried the new lightroom 3 beta? It's currently a free while in beta and you can download it on Adobe's site, although it doesn't let you import your previous library. Dpreview reports that they've just released a new beta version, which improves RAW conversion and also - get this:

Quote:'We've added support for video - allowing you to categorize, add keywords and tags. It's asset management of video files, not editing - we're conscious of the risks of adding too many features too quickly.'

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1003/100324...update.asp

I'm so happy they've done this - I saw video management as one huge hole that almost every other player (aperture, iphoto, picasa) had already got covered. I think it's become more apparent since most new DSLRs (like the 7D) are able to take video and it's no longer a "nifty little feature" relegated to the realm of compacts and amateurs.

Been using acdsee for years, does all of what Lightroom does on the image management size, it isn't as good for editing though.

new photoshop is on its way too with some nifty features. You may get a kick out of this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI

I use Lightroom 2 to import my RAW images, organize them by date and to do the first pass white balance, exposure and color adjustments - then off to PhotoShop for any serious work that has to be done.

I am surprised Kevin about your high ISO images. My undwerstanding is that Adobe bought the algorithms from NIK. I use NIK Define to control noise when needed and I get excellent results with it. Of course at some point, the noise gets so bad that you have a choice between a high noise photo or a smeared photo (or both). The most serious are situations where you try to open up shadows (increase shadow exposure) in a high ISO photo. For users of NIK, Lightroom would be useful primarily as a cataloging software and not much more and it is too expensive for that.