by: Erik Bernskiold
Adobe has released updates for two products today. First it is for Adobe Camera Raw (the version that ships with CS4) which is now at 5.1. The update includes mainly improved camera support. It’s a free upgrade (links below).
Secondly, Adobe has released Lightroom 2.1 after a period available as a release candidate. Here we also have improved camera report and some performance improvements as well. It’s also available as a free update.
Macintosh
Windows
by: Erik Bernskiold
It’s early Monday morning for me and that means start of a new week, here are a bunch of news tidbits to get started:
- Jeffrey Friedl has launched a new Lightroom 2 plugin called Lighroom "GPS Proximity Search". It takes the GPS coordinates of an image and matches it up with other images from the same location (based on the coordinates). For it to work, you need to have GPS coordinates stores with your images inside of Lightroom.
- Over at CSS-Tricks there is a truly awesome post which deals with getting started and learning CSS. It’s a question I myself get asked so many times but really can’t provide a really good answer to. Now there is your link from now on!
- A Swedish blogger who runs a site called Moderskeppet, posted today about a great accessory if you are travelling a lot, so I thought I’d share it here as well. It’s really silent headphones. They are called Bose Quiet Comfort 3 and what they’ll do is they close out a great deal of noise. Say you are sitting near the engines of a plane when travelling a long distance. If you were using general headphones, you’d be cranking your volume up way high, but with these, all you get is a mind humming sound by just putting them on, that’s drained with light music! Pretty cool if you are doing frequent travelling.
- Finally I’m going to send you to David DuChemins latest blog post about experiences with people who aren’t as fortunate as we are, meaning they don’t have it as nice as we have here. Just read the post and let it soak it, and maybe do something about it
by: Erik Bernskiold
I wrote a review of the first edition of Scott Kelby’s, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers, but passing the review on this update of the book is just notwise. As a lot has been updated within the Lightroom 2 application, Scott has rewritten the book from scratch this time around and it shows. If I liked it a lot last time around, it’s just gotten a whole lot better.
You could have imagined that Scott Kelby would just have updated the book for Lightroom 1 with all the new features. Well, that isn’t really him. He’s spent a lot of time to rewrite this from scratch to cover not only the new features, but all the new things he himself have learned during the lifespan of Lightroom 1 and since he wrote the last book. This, I must say, really shows through the book. It is a much more knowledgeable Scott Kelby who has authored this version.
If anyone would come to me and say, “Well, I have the first version of the book. I’ve learnt the LR basics. Surely I don’t need this one”, I would definitely not agree. This book covers all the new features and workflow enhancements plus the whole lot that people have been asking during the lifespan of the previous book.
I really do think that it is a great read for any Lightroom user, as you cannot only pick up feature tips and new ideas but moreover the entire scope of a way on how to process your images from the shoot to the finished client showing and prints. It’s the workflow chapters at the end of the book that really sets it apart from other books on the subject, making it a top read this fall!
by: Erik Bernskiold
While Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a great program in and of itself, that some wouldn’t really think about extending further than development presets, there are a few really good resources that does make the application more powerful.
LRG Complete 3
LRG Complete 3 is one really cool web gallery that you can add into the web module. It lets you basically create a whole site, with shopping cart and all! Plus it does look nice as well. The best about it all is probably that it is fully free! You can view a sample gallery demo on their site or just go and download it directly here. Definitely go and check that out!
LRB Portfolio
Moving on with another web gallery, the LRB Portfolio, produced by Sean McCormack, lets you basically create a Lightroom gallery that behaves like a portfolio site and less like a Lightroom generated gallery. A word of warning if you are using LR 1 though, it does only work with Lightroom 2 and above. It’s available on his site for €10.
Graduated Filters
New in Lightroom 2 was the graduated filter tool and with it comes the ability to create presets for it, which is what Sean McCormack has been doing. He’s created a magnificent set of graduated filters that you can just apply with a click to any photo. You can buy them from his site, for €5.
Camera Profiles
This real goodie shouldn’t really be left out from the mix here just because it is from Adobe itself! In your camera, you have a few profiles that render your image differently, and going from a RAW file showing on your back LCD screen, to the RAW viewing in Lightroom will definitely be a change, because on the LCD screen of your camera, it’ll need to convert the image for viewing. Therefore you can get these profiles, to mimic what you saw in the camera! Download them here at Adobe Labs.
Learning, Blogging and Extending – combined!
If you like to learn new things about Lightroom in a video format, as well as read a good blog and extend the program with presets? Then you should go and surf over to Matt Kloskowski’s blog and website Lightroom Killer Tips. On there, he posts a new video tip and tutorial every week as well as a weekly preset and some discussion inbetween. It’s simply a great resource!
by: Erik Bernskiold
Adobe has just released Lightroom 2.1 Release Candidate to everyone. The release candidate label indicates that they want more community testing on it before calling it final although it is stable. Lightroom 2.1 includes support for the following cameras:
Fuji Finepix IS Pro
Nikon D700
Nikon D90
Nikon Coolpix P6000
It also adds preliminary support for the following models:
Canon Rebel XS
Canon 50D
Olympus SP-565 UZ
Sony A900
Sigma DP1
You can download Lightroom 2.1 from the Adobe Labs site.
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