Depth of Options
Again, the options are very basic, but they’re the options that a photographer needs to make life easy, like adjusting color temperature, fill light, exposure, gray scale, lens corrections, basic color corrections, etc. The included presets not only look great, but they are actually presets that you can really use to save a lot of time like sepia, antique grayscale, reversal, etc. This comes in very handy when putting together a sequence of stills in a film or documentary where for the story’s sake you need many different pictures to have the same look.
Even better are all the options to export. Are you tired of trying to adjust the print settings in Photoshop to get it what you want to do? This comes loaded to the hilt with all kinds of presets from an 8x10 print to a contact sheet with thumbnails of any size, and of course you can make your own presets. You can make an immediate slideshow, put it to music and show it, or export it to the web. Think of those possibilities, wedding photographers! My only complaint is that there is no feature that will burn it directly to a CD or DVD.
Performance
The things that Lightroom does, it does very well. When you first start using it you will immediately realize that this program does an astounding job of adjusting the parameters of a picture. The photo on the top was taken at 1600 ASA in a jpeg format – one of the lowest quality settings because the amount of digital information available to change is very minimal. This picture would be thrown out by most photographers, but Lightroom was able to save it. The picture on the bottom was taken in the RAW format and as you can see, Lightroom did an astounding job of adjusting the exposure so that things that were completely unseeable are brought into the open. I’ll wager that most of us didn’t know our DSLR could pick up that much information. Music video directors and photographers, can you imagine the possibilities?
Value
For $300, this really is an excellent value. With all options, the features, the ease of use this software will make your job easier, your work faster, allow you to do things that you wouldn’t have been able to get away with previously, and save your butt time and time again. This is the essential tool for the digital photographer.
Final Comments
For a first release, Lightroom is off to more than a promising start. I imagine it will soon become the right-hand solution to the amateur and professional photographer and continue to earn that reputation with future versions. It is not without its limitations, but my hopes are very high for future versions.
Ease
of Use
9.0
Depth
of Options
8.0
Performance
10.0
Value
10.0
Overall
Score
9.3
Justin Pugh is a freelance editor and documentary filmmaker who lives in Orlando, Florida. A graduate of Full Sail's Film Production program, his credits range from involvement in the Florida Film Festival to editing feature length documentaries. Outside of moving pictures, he engages his passion for still photography.
