Adobe Lightroom 2

Adobe Lightroom 2 - Editing and Final Output

You're not likely to take many photos that won't require some degree of processing to make them look their best. Lightroom's Develop Module provides extremely precise control over image adjustments. It doesn't have the elaborate filters and effects you may be used to in Photoshop. Instead, Lightroom concentrates on the basic manipulations required to adjust color temperature, tonal curves, exposure, white balance, and much more. These are the types of image edits that can salvage a poorly exposed image or make a properly exposed image pop.

Lightroom uses non-destructive editing; it never alters a single pixel of the original image. Instead, it creates files that contain sets of instructions on how to process the original image. You can track all of the changes you've ever made to an image, step back through the changes, or return to the original or any snapshot point along the way.

I noticed immediately that the Develop Module's editing tools are very well organized and presented in a logical workflow. The tools include the usual histograms and tonal curves to help in adjusting an image, as well as a Detail tool for sharpening an image. Other tools include cropping, spot remove, red eye, graduation filters, and the adjustment brush I mentioned earlier.

Adobe has done such an outstanding job with Lightroom's Develop Module that you may find yourself saving other image editing applications for specialized tasks, and using Lightroom for all of your basic image adjustments.

Lightroom is intended to be a complete workflow tool for photographers. That means that in addition to functioning as an image editing and cataloging application, it must also provide tools for photographers to use to output photos for clients and potential clients. To that end, Lightroom has three modules for outputting photos: Slideshow, Print, and Web. Each lets you create great presentations to showcase your work.

Slideshow

Slideshow lets you assemble collections of photos for a running display on your monitor, an easy way to showcase your work. Using Slideshow, you can add borders, shadows, or text overlays; set background colors or images; and control the sequence and presentation of the show. You can also create special start and end images, and add a soundtrack to the presentation.

The Slideshow Module doesn't offer some of the fancy fades between slides that dedicated slideshow tools can create, but it's a well-organized and easy-to-use module that can help you create and display a portfolio of work.

I don't have a second monitor hooked up to test this, but I would expect that you can route the slideshow to a second monitor, while using the first monitor to control slide sequence and presentation, which would be particularly useful for a live presentation.

The remaining modules for outputting images are Print and Web.

Print

The Print module uses templates to create printed output. Templates include the most popular ones commonly used by professional photographers: contact sheets, various mattes, x-up printing, and picture packages, such as a single 7x5 and four 2.5x3.5 prints on a sheet. You can also create your own templates as needed and save them for future use.

Templates are only the beginning. To assist you in producing professional quality prints, Lightroom can sharpen photos on the fly, based on the individual size of each image on a sheet. To test the sharpening algorithms, I printed an 8x10 sheet that contained one large image and four smaller ones. To my eyes, the final output looked quite good. I can't say I really noticed a difference between the images, and maybe that's the test, that both the larger image and the smaller images are equally sharp.

In addition to on-the-fly image sharpening you can also specify paper types (matte, glossy), printing resolution, and the type of color management to be used for printing.

Web

You can use the Web Module to create image galleries for a web site using either HTML or Flash. As with printing, you can select templates that define the web page's look or create your own. While there is a slideshow template, Lightroom doesn't let you create a web slideshow based on a slideshow you created with the Slideshow module, a mistake in my mind, and one I hope Adobe corrects in the future.

Adobe Lightroom 2 is a major upgrade. If you are currently using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop, you might want to consider consigning Photoshop to special image manipulation tasks, and replacing Bridge with Lightroom. Having photo library and editing tools in a single application makes for a much easier workflow.

That doesn't mean you can do without Photoshop or other image editing applications; you'll still need them for anything beyond basic image editing. But Lightroom's Develop Module is more than powerful enough for taking photos from a digital camera and creating baseline images for further manipulation.

Of course, Lightroom does have a few quirks, but none of them are deal breakers. Lightroom uses panels to display the available tools for a module. But even if you hide tools that aren't in use, you must still scroll through the panels to get to all of the options. I'd like to be able to widen a panel so the tools display in double rows, or at least be able to reorder the tools in the panel so the ones I use most are near the top.

I was looking forward to uploading the slideshow I created to my web site, but unfortunately, while Lightroom does allow you to create a slideshow for the web, it doesn't seem to be able to repurpose one you created with the Slideshow Module.

Adobe Lightroom 2 earned 4 stars from About: Macs. If you're a professional, a serious amateur, or you just have an overwhelming library of images to manage, you should add Adobe Lightroom 2 to your toolbox.