Softball - Adobe Lightroom session

leebase

Last game of the season. I decided to try Adobe's LightRoom windows beta for a "full session". I think the product holds a lot of promise. I like the color I'm getting, and the controls for getting there. The interface is really pretty, and the workflow makes sense.

However -- in it's current form -- it's sluggish -- and that's on a dual cpu machine with 2gig of ram. After about 40 photos, I stopped. I'll be going back to raw shooter for my "production work". Though I do see myself using LR for critical photos where I want the best look.



I didn't shoot all their games this season....I didn't make it to all the games. So I'm glad I got a few "key moment" shots last night.



Gallery

Lee

System

Nice pics. I too feel LR is slugish on my dual 1.4 w/ 2gb ram though for me it really doesn't matter. I'm looking forward to the final version though as I love the results and interface.

Steve Cavigliano

Nice shots Lee

So besides the sluggishness, what benefits are you seeing using this program? I mean, what do you think you are geting from LightRoom that you don't get with other RAW converters?

Steve

mercphoto

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

So besides the sluggishness, what benefits are you seeing using this program? I mean, what do you think you are geting from LightRoom that you don't get with other RAW converters?

Products like Lightroom and Aperture are more than just another RAW converter. If that was all they were it would be like "what's the point?". I think the best way to describe either product is they are trying to be a browser (think Bridge or Photo Mechanic), a RAW converter, and a cataloging program (think iView Media Pro) all in one package. One app instead of three. One stop shopping.

So, to answer your question, you should be getting an awful lot more than you get with other RAW converters, but those other things are not necessarily related to image quality.

I found Bridge too dang slow eons ago and Lightroom is only marginally better. Neither are even close to useable for me. Photo Mechanic really shines, however, as a really fast photo browser and has a lot of neat features. Re-name upon import, tag and metadata and copyright info upon import, fast previewing of RAW images (even if you have 1,000 in a shoot), batch images through a Droplet.

If Adobe can match the speed of Photo Mechanic, with the image quality of ACR, and the cataloging features of iVMP, then they have a winner. Its an awfully high bar to meet. One big gripe I have at the moment is that the changes you make to a RAW file in LR are not recognized by ACR, and both are Adobe products. Strange.

leebase

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

So besides the sluggishness, what benefits are you seeing using this program? I mean, what do you think you are geting from LightRoom that you don't get with other RAW converters?

The colors seem better to me. There are more controls for finetuning the look of the photos. I like the 6 sliders that do the curves adjustment over simply having a curves tool.

I do miss "vibrance" from Raw Shooter. Vibrance wasn't merely a "saturation" slider.

I do like the individual color controls in LR.

I also like that you can print directly from light room. As 95% of my photos only get a raw conversion (no other photoshop processing) -- I can print right from LR.

Lee