Steve Weinrebe's Mode Studio

Adobe announced today the availability of the Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Beta release. As with Lightroom 1.0, Adobe is putting the beta, or working yet unreleased, version out in the public domain in order to receive customer feedback, and of course generate tremendous publicity (in view of not losing market share to Apple’s recent release of Aperture 2.1). Owners of Lightroom can install the beta onto their computers without a serial number (if installed on the same computer that Lightroom resides on); the Beta will function until the official release of Lightroom 2.0. Non-owners can download the Beta only as a 30 day trial version.

Lightroom 2.0 Beta contains some tremendously useful features. I’ve been working with it and, while I may update this post as I learn more about the changes, what especially struck me for my own workflow is the addition of 2-monitor support. I have used a multi-monitor setup (I think nearly a necessity for professional Photoshop work) for over a decade, and I’ve never turned back. Lightroom 2.0 Beta allows the user to choose multi-monitor support from the Window menu, and the program automatically senses the second monitor and opens a new window in Grid view, Loupe, Survey, or Compare. And you can switch between all those from a menu at the top of the second display. Much appreciated!

The Other notable feature is the ability to make local corrections (circled in the screenshot above) to Exposure, Brightness, Saturation, or Clarity. Much like the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop, the Lightroom 2.0 Beta includes a brush which you can use to paint selectively in the image using any of the above as the emphasis. Once the brush stroke is completed you can the Edit the stroke using sliders for all the previously mentioned attributes. I’m not a big fan of painting Exposure or Brightness, or even Saturation, and rarely if ever use those similar tools in Photoshop. I prefer, and recommend to my students, to use masks and adjustment layers to accomplish similar image editing tasks. You just have more control doing that. But the benefit of the Lightroom 2.0 Beta approach is that it is non-destructive, and adjustable after the strokes are made. Plus there is a masking feature that will prevent the brush from overlapping a contrasty edge, similar to the way the Color Replacement tool works in Photoshop. This feature in Lightroom 2.0 Beta works well.

OK, I’m still not a huge fan of painting to brighten or darken an area in an image (too much risk of adding noise or clipping), but what does impress me is the ability to paint with Clarity. Clarity controls midtone contrast, and the ability to paint midtone contrast in selective areas of an image is very nice indeed. The effect can be well controlled by the tools in the Lightroom 2.0 Beta, and this affords an easy and non-destructive way to just add a little “punch” to selective areas of an image.

Other improvements over Lightroom 1.0 include better integration with Photoshop (no more duplicate-”edit” files created); a more intuitive Library module for managing the Catalog and collections; picture packages, similar to Photoshop CS3′s picture packages, in the Print module; and more. I’ve never found Lightroom’s cataloging module very useful because so much of my own work is backed up offline, onto DVDs. Lightroom treats offline files more like an error than an actual DAM (digital asset manager). When Lightroom, or Bridge, actually have true imaging database-like support of offline files, then I may declare that indeed uncork the champagne. But if your own work resides entirely on hard disks, internal or external, then Lightroom has most of the digital asset management tools you will ever need, as long as you only need to manage RGB still images. Lightroom 2.0 Beta still does not support CMYK, nor video files. For those (and of course for RGB as well), turn to Bridge and Photoshop .

Do I love the Lightroom 2.0 Beta? I have to say, everything that’s wonderful about Lightroom 1.0 is there, with some excellent additions. I would make the upgrade for the multi-monitor support alone. As a less expensive option to Photoshop CS3 for raw processing and asset management, Lightroom is a wonderful program, and pleasurable to use. I am continually amazed, though, at how many of my students have Lightroom 1.0, and Photoshop CS3, and yet have never used Bridge or Camera Raw. If you have Photoshop CS3 and take the time to learn Bridge and Camera Raw, then Lightroom becomes somewhat superfluous. But it sure looks great. You can learn more, and download the Lightroom 2.0 Beta, here.

Posted by Steve Weinrebe