Vitamins with Lightroom
Monday, January 9th, 2006
The pile of vitamins I choke down every morning with a glass of orange juice looming behind.
This is my first attempt to process a RAW image with Adobe’s new Lightroom application.
You can download the public beta of Lightroom at Adobe Labs. There’s just an OS X version now, Windows version coming soon.
I have never been a Photoshop user: I’ve never felt the need for such a high-end application until now and frankly, I’ve never found its UI very inviting. However, now that I’m attempting to broaden my photographic horizons, post-processing seems like an important area to explore.
I’m a Macintosh person. Always have been and always will be. The system requirements on Aperture gave me pause before it was so poorly reviewed (I use a 1.67 Ghz G4 15″ PowerBook as my sole computer) and so, I was starting to consider PhotoShop or at least Elements.
All of that said, I must say that I love iPhoto. Its tools are crude compared with any of these other applications but the application is so easy to use that I’ve had no problem using a “consumer level” app for my “pro-wannabe” photography.
I’ll be attending Macworld this week and I hope Apple releases an upgrade to its iLife suite including a new version of iPhoto. Even if they do, I’ll continue to experiment with Lightroom because it looks great, will run easily on my computer, and I applaud Adobe for releasing it as a public beta. I would think (hope/pray) that the retail cost of Lightroom will be much less than the cost of Aperture or Photoshop.
That was quick. ;)
Of course it’s impossible to say, but if the price were low enough I’d expect Aperture to take a real hit. Unfortunately, with Apple pricing Aperture so high it gives Adobe some head room.
I just wanted to see how it ran and whether it was going to be a “player” in my thinking before I went out to Macworld and got “Apertured.” However, I’m sure Adobe will be there pushing this as well.
I can say now, without a doubt, that it’s a player and for a beta app it runs quite well. There are pieces of it that seem clunky to me but so do some pieces of Photoshop so its undoubtedly a style thing as much as anything.
For this image, I just used its simplest controls (after messing with every button and curve I could get my mouse on) to automatically set color and contrast. I liked the results so used them. The image is nothing to write home about but it’s a good one for experimentation. More on this soon, I’m sure.