lightroom

Adobe released the fourth version of its Lightroom software today, adding video abilities and editing finesse while cutting its price in half.

Lightroom 4 costs $149 new and $79 as an upgrade, a big step down from the earlier prices of $299 new and $99 upgrade. That's going the same direction Apple has with its competing Aperture, though not as dramatically: an introductory $499 price, then a drop to $199, and in the App Store version now, $80. You can download Lightroom 4 for Windows and Mac.

Lightroom is geared for photography professionals and enthusiasts, especially those who want … Read more

Photography enthusiasts have seen the light when it comes to shooting raw images, but plenty of them have yet to convert to Adobe Systems' DNG format for storing those images.

But Adobe could bring some new sheep into the Digital Negative fold with abilities arriving in Adobe's Lightroom 4 software and its Photoshop CS6 cousin. Adobe isn't evangelizing heavily, but it is offering new features that could convince people that DNG is a better alternative to the profusion of proprietary raw formats that higher-end cameras produce.

Three significant improvements are coming to DNG, two for speed and one … Read more

Unimpressed by Adobe Systems' Creative Cloud, its forthcoming $50-per-month subscription plan? Adobe wants to change your mind.

The company offered some new details today to show people that the Creative Cloud plan gets people access to more than just the full Creative Suite (CS) Master Collection and tablet-oriented Touch programs. Specifically, according to Scott Morris, senior director of product marketing on Adobe's digital media team, there are these elements:

• The Creative Cloud will include Adobe's Muse and Edge software for creating Web pages. Muse won't be part of the Creative Suite, and Adobe hasn't decided whether … Read more

Adobe Systems has published a glimpse of the forthcoming Photoshop CS6, an update that brings the dark workspace and raw-image editing tools from the new beta of its sister program, Lightroom 4.

Bryan O'Neil Hughes, an Adobe senior product manager, showed off a bit of the new software in a YouTube video published yesterday. Photoshop CS6 is set to debut along with the sixth version of Adobe's Creative Suite in the first half of 2012.

Darker photo backgrounds are all the rage for photo software since they make photos stand out nicely; the darker interface used in Lightroom … Read more

Adobe Carousel, the lightweight app for Macs, iPhones, and iPads that lets people edit photos and share them with contacts, has been renamed Adobe Revel.

Adobe announced the change today on its Photoshop blog, hinting that the new name better represents broader plans the company has in store:

Revel means to take great pleasure or delight...and that's what we hope to do in the future as we continue to add more functionality and fun to the app. In the future, you can expect we will also be able to offer additional photography solutions on the newly named Adobe … Read more

No longer is video such a second-class citizen with Adobe Systems' release of the first beta version of Photoshop Lightroom 4.

Today's Lightroom 3 understands videos in the same way a typical baseball fan understands cricket: poorly. Lightroom 4 advances several steps with video, but stops well short of taking over as a full-fledged video editor.

The new beta, downloadable from Adobe Labs, also has a host of other features, according to Tom Hogarty, principal program manager for the software:

• New editing controls to better balance changes to highlights and shadows. • The ability to geotag photos by using a … Read more

Adobe Systems last night updated Lightroom, its software for editing and cataloging photos, with support for the latest batch of small, high-end cameras.

Supported in Lightroom 3.6--along with its close cousin, Photoshop's Camera Raw 6.6 plug-in, are the Nikon 1 V1 and J1; the Panasonic GX-1; the Samsung NX5 and NX200, and Sony's NEX-7. All those models are of a newer category, compact cameras with interchangeable lenses.

More conventional compact cameras also are supported, including Canon's new S100, Fujifilm's FinePix X10, Ricoh GR Digital IV, and the superzoom Leica V-LUX 3.

Lightroom can accommodate … Read more

Adobe Systems has updated Lightroom and Photoshop to support a number of new small, higher-end cameras from Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, and Pentax.

The software packages handle the raw photos that higher-end cameras can produce, offering higher image quality and better flexibility at the expense of convenience. And as new cameras arrive, Adobe must build support for the new models proprietary formats.

Lightroom 3.5 of and version 6.5 of Photoshop's raw-image plug-in (available on Adobe's download site) now can support a host of new compact interchangeable-lens cameras (ILCs) that lack the bulk-inducing reflex mirror of SLRs. In addition, it supports high-end medium-format cameras from Hasselblad, Phase One, and Phase One's Leaf subsidiary. The full list: … Read more

By now it's a familiar pattern: Camera makers release new models that can shoot photos in the high-quality but labor-intensive raw image format, and Adobe Systems periodically catches up with a release to support those proprietary formats.

So it's no surprise to owners of Olympus' E-P3, E-PL3, Panasonic's G3 and GF3, and Sony's Alpha NEX-C3 and SLT-A35 that the release candidate for Lightroom 3.5 adds support for their cameras. The closely related Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in 6.5 release candidate, also issued, follows suit; usually it's a few weeks before the test versions are … Read more