[Macworld]

Post your comments for Five Lightroom 2 features that should excite you here

[steelhorsse]

I was able to try this version out and I still prefer Apple Aperture which is more Apple friendly and has some really great plug ins available to go with it. I'm very pleased with it overall and it's a fast program. I love Adobe Photoshop CS3 now that it's native for the intel mac's. The speed in loading and rendering alone is worth the price of admission!
2 GREAT programs to have in one's aresenal for image editing whether you're a pro or serious enthusiast, they're indespensible.

[Fixx]

Is it possible to sort folder view by date created and date modified? So far sorting has been alphabetically only which is a nuisance.
Has there been any progress with curves tool and hue-saturation-lightness tool? Compared to Photoshop, curves tool is seriously underpowered and HSL rigid one trick pony, as Photoshop HSL tool is fully adjustable. Also, real killer tool would be HSL which would not only adjust selected hue but also could target effect by lightness (to shadows, midtones or highligths).
Is there really real masking tools available in LR? My impression is that there are no selection tools and local adjustments are by brushes only.
Any support for camera adjustments in NEF files? Would be nice if LR could use automatic optimizations made by camera.

[Rick LePage]

No, you can't sort folders beyond alphabetical. I understand why they're doing it that way, and I know why you would want it that way, but it does make sense, to a degree.

The brushes are pretty powerful, but if you really want to create selections, you need Photoshop.

I think Adobe's approach here is simple: give the majority of serious amateurs (and a fair number of pros) most of what they need to edit and organize their photos. They obviously have to be somewhat careful that they don't cannibalize Photoshop, and they don't want to overcomplicate a product that isn't designed to be one-stop shopping for editing.

I don't know about the 'camera adjustments for NEF files.' Could you be more specific about it? Adobe is adding support for custom camera profiles - see Adobe Labs for more. Is that what you're referring to, or is there something specific to the NEF/Nikon camera combo that I'm missing? (I have a bunch of NEF files from testing some Nikon cameras, and I get a suite of new profiles with the custom profiles added to Lightroom 2).

Rick

[Fixx]

Sorting folders: It would make sense to sort dy date as typipcally you work with last shoots/importsets mostly. Folder view is anyway the primary way to access shoots/imagesets, filtering is bound to be more cumbersome for such simple task.
Selections: you use word "mask" in your article which commonly means selection. That is why I asked, not because I want LR to be Ps.
Curves & HSL: Asking for powerful tools for curve and HSL manipulation is not too much, and there will be plenty of work left for Photoshop. I just mean that there is much to improve in those tools in LR, and there is really no good reason not to hone such basic tools to perfection.
NEF: There has been requests that LR would use better D300 generated metadata like white balance and such, the way Capture NX can. I am not expert in this issue though and I guess it bothers some shooters more than others.
Thank you for your articles, I will be waiting your in depth review of LR.

[whitedog]

Lightroom 2 is extensible, which means that Adobe is encouraging people to write plug-ins for it, too. This may be no big deal in the short run because there are few, if any, plug-ins yet available. But over time the situation can be expected to change, eventually making this one of the more important new features in Lightroom 2.

There are some subtle but significant usability improvements, in particular to keyboard shortcuts and navigation: Option-. (period) moves the focus down the list of adjustments in the right panel and Option-, (comma) moves the focus up. This is in contrast to Tab and Shift-Tab, which move from one selected data entry field to the next adjustment slider and then to the next data field down and up, respectively.

The Clarity slider can now move to the left (to reduce clarity) as well as to the right. Split toning now makes color selection easier with a pop-out panel like the Spectrum view in the Apple Color Picker.

These are the changes I've noticed in just over a day of playing with Lightroom 2. I'm sure there are many more to be found.

As for recognizing NEF metadata, I guess those of us with Canon cameras have one more reason to gloat - Canon camera adjustment information shows up just fine in Lightroom. I suspect the problems with NEF may have more to do with how tightly Nikon controls their proprietary format information than with any negligence on Adobe's part.

Last, but by no means least in my opinion, the word Photoshop seems to have been dropped from the name of Adobe Lightroom, which suggests Adobe heard all the groans and snickers over the too pretentious version of the program's name (Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - ugh!) and returned to the original, perfectly good, version.

[oldkissonthemars]

why no one talks about activate? is it adobe finally get rid of it? I'm still using cs1 just for this reason, if lightroom still use activate, i will rather buy the apple's aperture 2.0 and it is much cheaper.

I just hate activate, i have had alot of problem in my pc with activate problem, some even render my software useless.

[moose_n_squirrel]

oldkissonthemars said:

why no one talks about activate?

No one is talking about it because there's no activation in Lightroom.

[whitedog]

Adobe is using activation on their core suite of programs because they had a real problem with software piracy. The activation process with CS3, however, is more user friendly than that for CS2. Even Quark has ironed out most of the difficulties with their activation process, after a very rocky start with Quark 6. I'm sure both companies figure any business they lose due to their activation policies is small potatoes compared to what they were losing to piracy.

As for Microsoft, they haven't learned a thing as far as Windows is concerned. You can get away with treating your customers like scum when you have a near monopoly in the market. MS Office on the Mac, on the other hand, has gone the other way, provides three serial numbers with the Education addition.

As for software activation on a PC, beyond installing Windows XP and Vista, I can't speak to the issue. But I'm not surprised activation is problematic for Windows applications. It is Windows, after all. Trouble is it's middle name.

So, there's a brief discussion of activation, or at least the beginnings of a discussion. How appropriate it may be for this thread is questionable, though, given that Lightroom requires no activation.