Overview

This latest version adds a number of significant features to the product:

• A Map module for managing location information
• A Book module for creating photo books
• Advances in image processing via a new Process Version (PV 2012) and controls
• Soft Proofing for a better colour management workflow
• Emailing images directly from within Lightroom
• Enhanced Video capabilities and format support
• Enhanced DNG capabilities and workflows
• New Adobe Revel (formerly Adobe Carousel – see here for details) export workflow

More details about these and other features later.

With the latest beta the minimum system requirements have been changed with support being dropped for some older operating systems. The new minimum requirements are:

Mac:

• Multicore Intel® processor with 64-bit support
• Mac OS X v10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or v10.7 (Lion)
• 2GB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space
• 1024×768 display

Windows:

• Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• Microsoft® Windows Vista® with Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
• 2GB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space
• 1024×768 display

If your system is up to specification why not start the download while we dive deeper into what is included in the beta?

My Five Favourite Features

Rather than provide an exhaustive overview of the beta I’ll be talking though some of my favourite features instead. At the end of the post I’ve include links to other Lightroom 4 beta resources that will help fill in the gaps for those interested in the features not covered here.

Enhanced Video Capabilities and Format Support

While Lightroom 3 already includes some support for video files this beta has significantly expanded those:

• Lightroom is now able to directly playback video within the Library module
• Videos can be trimmed using the new controls visible within the Library module’s Loupe view
• Most Quick Develop tools can be used for processing a video, including the application of presets. See screen shot below for further details.
• Publish and Export services now fully support video and can optionally convert to H.264 or DPX formats during export.
  

   

   

   

   

• Most popular DSLR, compact camera and smart phone video formats can now being imported, including 3GP and AVCHD.
• The video frame (“Poster Frame”) used for the Library module’s thumbnail can be chosen by the user. 
• Individual frames can be extracted from a video as standalone images.
• A new Video Metadata Tagset has been added to the Library module’s Metadata panel, containing a variety of new video specific metadata fields. For the metadata geeks these fields appear to be a subset of those defined by the XMP Dynamic Media namespace.

These additions make Lightroom a much more useful part of a photographer’s video workflow. It is now capable of importing, playing, trimming, processing and publishing videos so could become the main video digital asset management tool for many photographers.

Lightroom’s video editing capabilities are no match for a full Non Linear Editor (NLE) but even larger projects requiring more full featured video editing tools could benefit from Lightroom’s video management and publishing capabilities. Smaller video processing tasks (e.g. cleaning up and publishing a video from your smartphone) can be quickly completed in Lightroom’s Library module.

TIP: When attempting multiple edits to a video at once it can be useful to capture a “Poster Frame”, use the Develop module to adjust the captured frame to the desired look, create a preset from the edits then use the Library module’s Quick Develop to apply the preset to the whole video.

Map Module

The beta adds a new Map module for working with location information in a visual and engaging way:

• View recorded locations for images directly within Lightroom, using satellite, street, or terrain maps
• Add location information to photos by dragging and dropping them only the map
• Save favourite map locations for use when searching for or tagging image locations (see screen shot below).
• Manage publication of location information selectively, through checking the private flag on a saved location, or broadly by checking the Remove Location Info option in your Publish or Export service.
• Load GPX tracklogs and use them to tag images with matching date/time stamps (see screen shot below).

The Lightroom Map module is fun to play with, but strangely enough it is the location information privacy features that are making GPS location capture a more regular part of my photography. I try not to attach location information to photos taken at the homes of my friends and family for privacy reasons but I frequently forget to turn tracklogs on or off and it made this a fairly frustrating experience. Now I can save these locations in Lightroom, and enable the privacy setting to hide their location information, and always capture location information safe in the knowledge this will never be published outside of my personal catalog.

Advances in Image Processing (Process Version 2012)

Lightroom 3 introduced some major improvements to the product’s image processing capabilities (officially known as “Process Version 2010”), and Lightroom 4 has taken this even further with the new Process Version 2012 and associated controls:

• Controls in the Basic Panel have been simplified (no more Fill Light or Brightness adjustments) (see screen shot below)
• Content aware Shadow and Highlight controls extract greater dynamic range from a single image
• Improvements to the operation of the Clarity and Chromatic Aberration controls
• Additional settings can be applied as Local Adjustments, including Noise Reduction, Temperature and Tint (White Balance), Shadows, Highlights and Moire (see screen shot below)
• Curve adjustments can now be applied per channel
• Soft proofing is now available in the Develop module (a separate headline feature)

The new controls may require some time to get used to but the results that can be achieved make this well worth the effort!

Book Module

Lightroom 4 adds the oft requested photo book creation feature via its new Book module:

• New Book module helps users create Blurb and PDF photo books directly within Lightroom
• Auto layout feature quickly creates initial book layouts using your preferred presets
• Easily adjust page and photo locations via drag and drop
• ~180 page layouts have been built-in for use in your creations
• A Favourites feature is available for easy access to your preferred page layouts
• Advanced layout, formatting and type features are included to give you the flexibility to customise your photo book’s appearance
• Easily add photo metadata (e.g. captions) to your pages
• Tight integration is provided to the Blurb book printing service allowing you to prepare, cost and upload your book directly within Lightroom

Initially the Book module will provide deep integration with the Blurb book printing service only, but I suspect this will expand over time just as Lightroom 3’s tethering feature started with a restricted set of camera makes and models and slowly expanded from there.

Personally I’m looking forward to spending more time with PDF photo book creation, to produce electronic photo books to share online with family and friends or view on my tablet.

JDI (“Just Do It”) UI Refinements

In addition to all of the major features added by the beta, there are a number of small refinements that help make the product more usable and deserve calling out. Some that I personally appreciate:

• Develop preset lists displayed by the Import dialog and Quick Develop panel are now hierarchical, making large sets of Develop presets (e.g. collections bought from third parties) much more usable.
• Metadata Status can now be used in Smart Collections and the Library module’s Filter bar. Very handy for those who don’t use the “Automatically save to XMP” preference but still want their Develop settings saved to their images once they have finished with a set of images.
• Additional options for restricting metadata Published or Exported with your images (e.g. “All except Camera & Camera Raw Info”). 

Lightroom Beta Learning Resources

To help get you started with the Lightroom 4 beta Adobe has provided a number of resources:

• Beta download site on Adobe Labs
• Forums for discussing the beta
• Official post announcing the beta and the features it offers. There is also a list of resources available regarding the beta, including a number of non-English resources for our international friends.
• Lightroom video channel on YouTube

Lightroom regulars have also been preparing learning resources so if you are looking for additional information I’d recommend checking out the following:

• Victoria Bampton’s Lightroom Queen site will have an exhaustive “What’s New” post and an updated keyboard shortcuts sheet.
• John Beardsworth has launched his new Lightroom Solutions site and will be covering the beta. I’m particularly looking forward to his thoughts on the new Book module.
• Laura Shoe will be covering the beta on her blog and has a knack for being able to explain product features and usage in an easy to understand fashion.
• Usual suspects Rob Sylvan (Lightroomers), Gene McCullagh (Lightroom Secrets), and Sean McCormack (Pixiq) will be providing What’s New posts and more content over the next few weeks.
• Andrew Rodney (Digital Dog) provides a  colour geek’s view of Lightroom’s new Softproofing feature
• If you prefer your beta information in video form then check out David Marx’s contributions at The Lightroom Lab and Terry White’s walkthru of the beta.

I’m sure lots more great content will be coming from these Lightroom legends over the coming weeks!

Hopefully this post has piqued your interest and you will try out the Lightroom 4 public beta. Have fun experimenting with the latest and greatest imaging tool from Adobe, and please let us know either in the comments or official forums about your personal experiences with the beta!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Adobe Releases Lightroom 4 Beta!

Related Posts:

• Import Improvements in the Lightroom 3 Beta (6)
• Easily backup your Lightroom 4 catalog on demand (2)
• My Recent Lightroom Plugin Activity over at the Photographer’s Toolbox (0)

A little over a week ago Tom Hogarty – Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – announced the Lightroom 3 public beta (download here).  Its been more than a year since the last version of Lightroom was released so I was keen to see what improvements had been m2de to my favourite photography program.  So keen in fact that I didn’t wait till I got home from my holidays and started using it immediately to import and organise photos taken on the trip!

For those of you new to Lightroom the Import feature is how you load photos into your catalog so the program can find and work with them.  The Import feature has obviously received a lot of attention from the Lightroom team this time around.  There are three major changes that have been made, and a number of usability improvements.  Major changes:

1. “Import from Disk” and “Import from Device” dialogs have been merged into a single Import dialog
2. UI has been completely overhauled aesthetically
3. UI now has Compact and Expanded modes that give you control over all aspects of the import task on a single screen

There have also been a number of usability improvements including:

• Import presets have been added to store and access your common import settings
• Expanded mode has added Grid and Loupe views for selecting photos to import
• Import’s backup will now store files using your renamed rather than camera created file names
• If you shoot using your camera’s RAW + JPEG  mode, both photos are now imported even though the RAW (or DNG) will be the only photo to show in the Library
• New “Shoot Name” field available for file renaming templates
• Additional folder naming presets

This is a beta so don’t expect perfection just yet.  The dialog can get a little sluggish under certain circumstances and I’ve logged a bug report about one specific case (Copy as DNG when source and destination are on the same drive) that can stall the import entirely.  But all in all I found it was reliable enough for my import workflow and I’m liking the new UI more and more every day. 

One of the great things about this being a beta is it will only get better over time.  I’m personally crossing my finders and hoping these three usability improvements make it into the final release:

1. Extending folder renaming to use a template-based mechanism similar to to file renaming, including access to the new “Shoot Name” field
2. Backups to be stored using the same folder structure, not just file names, as the imported files
3. Allow resizing of the dialog and the side bars within it.

I will get to the other new and improved Lightroom 3 beta features over time but wanted to share my observations after working with one of the first features most users will be encounter.  If there are any other features you are keen to hear about now  Tom has posted links to other beta related articles and resources.  And if you plan to test LR3 yourself then I’d recommend reviewing Victoria Bampton’s LR3 Beta – Popular Bugs and Forum Threads post to find out its most frequently noted limitations.

Detailed Look at Import UI

Compact Import dialog

When you first try to Import Lightroom defaults to the Compact dialog and launches over the dimmed main UI. 

Key elements of the Compact dialog:

• Source: In addition to displaying the currently selected source, clicking it allows you to change the source and access and manage the Recent Paths list.
• Import Type: Select between Copy as DNG, Copy, Move and Add import types.  All types other than Add allow renaming of files and folders during import.  Copy as DNG converts RAW files to Adobe’s DNG file format during import, but leaves the image’s backup copy (if enabled) in the original file format.
• Destination: In addition to displaying the destination folder, clicking it allows you to change the destination and access and manage the Recent Paths list.  The Folder settings provided below will be used to create folders within this location.
• Mode: Switch between the “Quick Settings” (default depicted here) and “Summary” modes (displays a summary of all Import settings in the Import Settings area) using these buttons.   The “Summary” mode is depicted in the screenshot below.
• Import Settings: Select a Metadata preset and Keywords to be applied to all imported files.  When required by the file naming scheme, “Shoot Name” and other fields also display in this area.
• Folder: Choose between “By original folders”, “By date” and “Into one folder” folder naming schemes.  “By date” allows you to choose between 13 predefined folder naming templates.  All options also allow a subfolder to be included within this folder naming scheme.
• Source Status: Upon selecting a source Lightroom immediately scans the folder (and subfolders, if configured) for images and displays the status of that scan in this area.  The arrow here toggles between the Compact and Expanded dialogs.
• Presets: Displays the active Import preset, and allows you to choose or create presets using the arrow to the right.  Presets store most detailed settings that can be configured in the Compact and Expanded dialogs.
• Buttons: Initiate or cancel the import.

If you are familiar with Lightroom 2 you will have noticed that the file renaming, Develop Presets and Preview size features are not available via the Compact dialog.  To configure these you must use the Expanded dialog, though once set you can always create a new Import preset that captures these details and can be chosen from the Compact dialog.

Additional screenshots of the Compact dialog’s “Quick Setting” and “Summary” modes (respectively) can be found below.

Expanded Import dialog

Clicking the arrow button at the bottom left corner of the Compact dialog opens the Expanded dialog.  The description below refers only to elements that differ from the Compact dialog.  

Key elements of the Expanded dialog:

• Source panel: In addition to the source section available in the Compact dialog, you also have access to detailed device and folder information via the left hand side of the Expanded dialog.  Devices and Drives are listed separately.  Drives allow you to drill down through the folder hierarchy, while Devices do not give you this option.
• Display area: Displays either thumbnails or a single photo depending upon whether Grid or Loupe view has been selected (respectively).  Import status for a photo can be changed using its checkbox, right clicking on it the change the Import Photo state, or using the P (Pick) or U (Unpick) keys to modify the currently selected photo.  At this point in time there is no way to change the import status for multiple (but not all) photos at once, so arrow keys and the keyboard shortcuts are the quickest way to work around this limitation.
• Toolbar: Controls the display area view, sort order, and allows bulk modification of import state.  Thumbnail size is also configured here but is not depicted as it was not visible on my netbook’s small screen.
• Import settings: Fine grained import settings are managed to the right hand side of the Expanded dialog.  These are controlled through four panels, only two of which are available in the Add import type:
  • File Handling: Sets the preview size, whether duplicates will be imported, and whether a second (aka backup) copy of the files is created during import.  The second copy option copies the original files directly into the nominated directory using the naming scheme assigned in the “File Renaming” panel.  This option is disabled when using the Add import type.
  • File Renaming*: Sets whether files will be renamed and which (if any) template will be used to configure that process.  Renaming uses the same custom and EXIF field formatting approach available in Lightroom 2, with the addition of the “Shoot Name” field mentioned earlier.  If included in the file naming template you will be able to specify the values of the “Custom Text”, “Shoot Name” and/or “Starting Number” fields here.
  • Apply During Import: Sets the Develop preset, Metadata preset and multiple Keywords that will be add to your files.
  • Destination*: Provides the same folder creation options available in the Compact dialog.  In addition you can browse the destination folder structure to locate and set the import destination.

* Not available for Add import type

All four import types (Add, Copy, Copy as DNG and Move, respectively) are depicted below, including at least one example of each of the Import settings panels.

I hope you’ve found this trip through the improved Import UI useful, and good luck with your Lightroom beta testing!

This work by The Photo Geek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Import Improvements in the Lightroom 3 Beta

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