Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 - Available Now

Well, the day is here. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has graduated beta and is available for download this very moment.

I'm sure you already know the run-down of features, so there's no need to rewrite the litany of improvements. The only feature I wanted to highlight was the lens correction addition. It seems that Adobe has taken the time and energy to implement an addition that makes our lives easier - kudos Lightroom team. The setting allows you to select the make, model, and profile of the lens, adjust the profile, or even manually adjust the lens correction and save it as a new one. I recall reading something from a company that creates software specifically for this cause - and that company was not impressed with this feature. From what I understand, it's too complicated for end-users and it should be left to the professionals, so they say. Wrong. Anyone with the willingness to learn how to correct lens imperfections is better for it, it'll also teach you a great deal about optics in the process.

The obvious relation between this feature and real estate photography is just that - obvious. Real estate photography demands the accurate recreation of reality and most lenses distort reality in one way or another. Even if the lens is 'perfect', the photographer probably isn't. I'm not suggesting you should ditch PTLens or DxO Optics just yet, I'm just saying that there's another player in this game and so far it looks very promising.

So check out Lightroom 3 here, it's well worth your time and energy.

Comments

[Brad Proctor]

Love it. Most useful software I use. And the new lens correction feature is such a time saver.

[TC Geist]

Hi Mike! It's now the end of August - now that you've had a chance to mess with LR3 - is PTlens outmatched or does it still have features worth sticking with for a while?

Thanks, Tim

[Mike]

Hi Tim,

The proof is in the pudding as they say - I haven't opened PTLens since I've adopted Lightroom 3, so I can honestly say that PTLens is definitely outmatched, for me at least. I say 'for me' because everyone has a different workflow - I prefer to do my lens corrections manually as opposed to automatically based on a profile - I find that I can get slightly better results that way. Since Lightroom offers the same sliders as PTLens for manual corrections, all without making the round-trip from program to program, it just makes sense for me.

Thanks for asking Tim,
Mike