Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

Other products by Adobe

Product Features

• Enhance specific areas of a photo, or precisely adjust overall color, exposure, and tonal range nondestructively
• Automatically import, rename, and sort your entire shoot; find your photos quickly with powerful yet flexible sorting, selecting, and organizational tools
• Present your work in dynamic slide shows, interactive web galleries, and a variety of flexible print templates; easily upload your photos to popular online photo-sharing sites
• Configure your workspace to manage image workflow and presentation more efficiently thanks to support for multiple monitors
• Every change you make to an image is automatically tracked, so you can return to any state with a single click

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0018VH8S2
• Item model number: 65007312
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 4, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #103 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Software > Graphics > Professional Design
  #9 in	Software > Graphics > Photo Editing
  #39 in	Software > The Mac Software Store

Product Description

Amazon.com

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 software is essential for today's digital photography workflow. Now you can quickly import, process, manage, and showcase your images--from one shot to an entire shoot. Quickly batch process, convert, and apply metadata to your photos on import. Easily make selections with multiple viewing and comparison options. Adjust and enhance color, exposure, and tonal curves nondestructively on more than 190 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files. Every change you make to an image is automatically tracked, so you can return to any state with a single click. With Lightroom 2, you spend less time in front of the computer and more time behind the lens.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, designed for photographers, features an elegant, uncluttered interface that puts just the tools you need at your fingertips.

Enjoy more flexible, accurate enhancements by targeting a specific area for dodging and burning.

Sort and filter large volumes of photos using powerful metadata filters to quickly find just the photo you want.

Enjoy robust support for more than 190 camera raw file formats, and experiment with confidence. Adjustments you make to images in Lightroom won't alter the original data, whether you're working on a JPEG, TIFF, DNG, or camera raw file.

Enjoy tight integration with Adobe Photoshop software for streamlined use of Smart Objects, panorama stitching, high dynamic range (HDR) functionality, multiple layer workflow, and more.

Work with a tool focused on photographers' needs
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is designed expressly for both amateur and professional photographers. From its elegant, uncluttered interface to its carefully tailored tools and features, Lightroom helps you process photographs faster, giving you more time to shoot. With the new and enhanced features in Lightroom 2, you canfind the photos you want faster, make more accurate adjustments, and easily present your work in more ways than ever before.

Accelerate your workflow
Lightroom is a nimble tool that moves you efficiently through every step of your workflow, from image capture to client presentation. Use flexible tools and features to manage the processing of large volumes of photographs. Customize a wide range of importing, renaming, and metadata stamping functions to suit your needs. Keep track of the changes you've made to images, including alternate versions, easily and automatically with the History panel. And when you're ready to present your work to clients, easily assemble and output high-quality printed contact sheets, online web galleries, and slide shows, or upload your photos to popular online photo-sharing sites.

Use it your way
Lightroom is adaptable and compatible with the way you work, most of the hardware you use, and open standards, so you're less likely to be limited by proprietary systems and formats. Lightroom runs on both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. Work with more than 190 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files. Convert your images to the universal DNG format without loss of image quality. Store your photographs in the Lightroom Library--even if they're located on offline media. Using Lightroom for developing images, together with Adobe Photoshop for retouching, digital photographers now have the essential photography software toolkit. Take advantage of robust metadata support and advanced keywording capabilities help you tag and find the photographs you need quickly and easily. From developing images to presenting them, Lightroom together with Photoshop provides digital photographers with the essential photography software toolkit.

Who's It For?

Professional photographers
Photographers who shoot large volumes of images in every specialty, from fashion and fine art to portraiture and photojournalism.

Advanced amateur photographers
Photographers who don't earn a living from their images but have a deep passion for photography; take large numbers of photos, typically with a digital SLR camera; and value professional tools and results.

Educators
University and community college instructors who are shooters themselves and who teach the best tools and practices to the next generation of photographers.

The top reasons to buy Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Enhance specific areas of a photo
Enjoy more flexible, accurate enhancements by targeting a specific area for dodging and burning.

Quickly find any photo
Sort and filter large volumes of photos using powerful metadata filters to quickly find just the photo you want.

Automatically import and process your way
Import and process large volumes of photos according to your customized settings. Rename files, organize them into folders, add metadata, and convert file formats for an entire shoot simultaneously.

Native 64-bit architecture
Utilize the advanced memory-handling capabilities on the latest Mac OS and Windows systems.

Work smoothly with Adobe Photoshop software (sold separately)
Enjoy tight integration with Adobe Photoshop software for streamlined use of Smart Objects, panorama stitching, high dynamic range (HDR) functionality, multiple layer workflow, and more. See your edits automatically updated in Lightroom.

Multiple monitor support
Add a second monitor and enjoy more room to work. Support for multiple monitors allows you to configure your workspace to manage image workflow and presentation more efficiently.

Be productive quickly
Ease your learning curve with task-oriented modules that speed you through typical workflow tasks by placing just the tools you need at your fingertips.

Edit nondestructively
Enjoy robust support for more than 190 camera raw file formats, and experiment with confidence. Adjustments you make to images in Lightroom won't alter the original data, whether you're working on a JPEG, TIFF, DNG, or camera raw file.

Easily show off your photos online
Create dynamic web galleries based on Adobe Flash technology without programming. In a few clicks, you can assemble and upload an interactive gallery to your website. Or easily upload your images to popular photo-sharing sites directly from Lightroom.

Product Description

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is the professional photographer's essential toolbox, providing one easy application for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs so you can spend less time in front of the computer and more time behind the lens. Product Description: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - ( v. 2 ) - complete package Category: Creativity application Subcategory: Creativity - graphics & image editing Version: 2 License Type: Complete package License Qty: 1 user License Pricing: Standard Language(s): Universal English Platform: Windows, MacOS Distribution Media: CD-ROM Package Type: Retail OS Required: Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Apple MacOS X 10.4, Microsoft Windows Vista, Apple MacOS X 10.5

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full Featured Workflow, September 26, 2008

By	Nikon131 "Nikon131" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

I am not a professional but I have alot of photos I need to keep organized. I used iPhoto, but between it and Photoshop, there were some steps that just slowed down the process. Basically Lightroom is a combination of an organizational application with basic photo editing capabilities. It integrates well with Photoshop for more advanced editing. For my family snapshots though I rarely have to edit outside of Lightroom.

Navigating:
==========
Basic key commands:
G - Grid view, thumbnails of your photos
E - Loupe, highlighted photo fullscreen
D - Single photo in Develop mode
C - Compare, see two photos side by side, nice when you are looking for the perfect shot.
Command+Option+5 - Web module, I use this frequently to upload behind my site, via Lightroom's ftp upload option.
Command [ or ] - rotates image CW and CCW


Organization:
==========
I am an organization obsessive, especially about my family photos. I have all of my photos on an external drive and LR is pointed to them. There are basically two types of "folders" in LR Folders and Collections.

-Folders
are just that, they refer to the physical folders/subfolders on your hard-drive and reflect the same structure in LR. If you have a folder named 2008>January>01 on your hard-drive, it will be so within LR. When you import into LR you can choose to 1. add photos without moving. 2. copy them to a new location. or 3. move them to a new location.

-Collections
are "virtual folders" within LR and these actually do not move the photo physically on your hard-drive. This is nice because you may have some photos you want to print, you just drag the thumbnails into a collection folder and you don't have to worry about it floating around somewhere on your computer. (when you actually delete a photo in LR it gives you the option of removing from Lightroom only or remove it from completely from your hard-drive) A new feature of LR 2 is the addition of smart collections. There are many options of smart collections, I use them to collect top rated photos. Here is how. You add a new smart collection which takes you into a little sub menu, where you can set how this folder collects photos. I have one called "top rated" which any photo from my folders rated 4 or 5 stars goes into this collection. So where you can drag and drop your favorite photos into collections you can also set these parameters and LR will do the organization for you. Love this feature. You can set smart folders my rating (0-5 stars) color label, dates... and a couple more options I haven't explored yet. As you can imagine there are countless different ways of making these...

-Importing
I basically plug my memory card into my computer and LR asks if I want to import. I have it set to create a physical folder on my hard-drive and import there. So my photos are organized on import. At this time there are options of renaming the whole set of photos with a custom name for example "las vegas 2008 vacation_etc......jpg"

Editing:
==========
This is basically the photoshop part of Lightroom, you have basic editing tools in the Loupe (E) but you need to go to Develop Mode/Module (D) for more advanced editing. You basically have control of color in LR, for example, white balance, hue, temperature, tint, brightness, saturation, curve...etc There is also allowances for Lens correction, noise reduction, sharpening, etc. You can do cropping in develop mode as well, which is very simple.

A couple of new tools in LR 2.0, I have only started to play around with are Spot Removal and Adjustment Brush. Spot removal tool comes up like the stamp tool in photoshop, where if you have a spot of dust or a pixel you want to get rid of. This is a two step tool, where you first choose the spot you want to remove, (say a dark spot on someone's cheek) next you choose the area of the photo you want to replace the spot with (a clean area of the person's cheek) and voila the spot is gone. The adjustment brush is nice to have because you can overexpose, underexpose, adjust the contrast, brightness, saturation with a brush tool. This is something I didn't expect out of LR so I will definitely be exploring this tool.

You can also edit in Photoshop pretty seamlessly out of LR. You can edit the original (100.jpg will be the one you will be editing in PS) and see the effects back in LR. Edit a copy in PS (100-edit.jpg will be created in your hard-drive and see it next to the original in LR. Also Edit in PS with LR adjustments, any edits in LR will be exported out into PS.

One thing to keep in mind is that any edit done in LR are NOT HARD EDITS. Meaning, you do not affect the original image until you export that image out of LR. The edits are stored in LR until you do an export out into PS or into a folder on your desktop. Until then all photos can be restored back to their original state.

-Presets:
This is a fun part of LR. Lightroom comes already with some basic presets, which instead of remembering all the steps you took to edit one photo, you can save these steps into "presets". So in Develop mode you adjust the, hue, curve, temperature, detail, saturation..etc. of a photo, and you can save it as a preset, call it "preset outdoor" or something and then you can apply this preset to one or dozens of photos at once. Voila. There are lots of free presets already out there. (do a google search. the flickr lightroom group is a good source for learning) You can also cut and paste the edits of a particular photo and paste in onto a group of photos as well.

Web Module:
==========
This is also fun too. Basically you enter in your web ftp info into LR and tell it to point to a subfolder on your site. (www.website.com/gallery1) and this is where you upload the galleries too. LR comes with a few prepackaged galleries and flash galleries, you select your photos, choose the web template, edit the template (background color, type etc. and upload. and it's really that simple you have uploaded a gallery behind your site. Obviously you need to learn the basics, but before I had to upload with a ftp client, create the html etc.

All in all, Lightroom really is a fantastic tool. I am still learning alot about it. And I know there are people who prefer Aperture and I will try it out to compare, but LR just felt right for me. Try out the 30 day free trial, test out as much as you can, It is not a cheap program but if you are as excited about this stuff it really is a great tool. Cheers.

70 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Weird, Wild and Wonderful, October 15, 2008

By	Alexandra Bailee "Lexa" (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

This is the story of three bears. Papa Bear, AKA Photoshop, Mama Bear, AKA Lightroom, and Baby Bear, AKA Bridge. Papa Bear carries the weight and does the heavy lifting. Mama Bear organizes everything and gets lots of important work done behind the scenes. Baby Bear is smaller, but still important to the family. Together, the three bears are a powerful family, especially to the photographers who revere and adore them.

Okay, lets kick the bear metaphor to the curb and take a look at this marvelous thing we call Lightroom 2. Who needs it? You do, if you are an enthusiast amateur or professional photographer. You need it if you take hundreds of photos every week and you have thousands of photos in your archives. You need it if you shoot events--reunions, weddings, mitzvahs, company events--and you have to output hundreds of photos in a relatively short time. Lightroom is that part of your workflow.

The moment you pop the installation DVD into your computer, you'll want to start playing with your photos. Resist the temptation. Take a few minutes to personalize the interface by customizing the Identity Plate and Module picker. You can also set up the Panel End Marks and image background. (This is especially handy if you occasionally have clients looking over your shoulder.) Don't forget to set up the interface preferences to suit your style.

Lightroom is a collection of five specific modules: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print and Web.

The process begins by importing photos into the Lightroom 2 Library. You'll recognize a process similar to bridge. You'll add keywords and import your photos. There are Grid and Loupe views. You can compare two photos or view multiple photos. In the greater scheme of things, you'll create catalogs of large collections of your photos.

One of the features which is often underutilized but wonderfully helpful is the rating system. You have the option to sort your photos by giving them a 0-5 star rating. You can also add more specific keywords to individual photos or specific groups of photos. Taking time early on an paying attention to these mundane labeling tasks pays off big time down the road. Weeks, months and years pass, but thanks to your diligent attention to keywords and ratings, you are able to pull up just the photos you want quickly and easily.

The Develop module is where you can get in there and play with your photos. Time for processing. Go wild and change the color temperature and tint, adjust the exposure, brightness and contrast. Make changes with the Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Clarity Vibrance, and Saturation sliders. If you're still not satisfied, you can call up the adjustment brush and lighten shadows by changing the exposure in a specific
area. If that's not enough, you can open up and use the Detail tool. Next, you have the Vignette tool to separate the background from the foreground.

Wait, there's more. You have a crop tool as well, and with a few keystrokes you can enlarge the virtual image and view it against a plain, black background.

The range of possibilities in the Develop module is stunning. You have to pinch yourself every-once-in-a-while and chant, "Lightroom is not a stand-alone product. It doesn't replace Photoshop." The line where Lightroom ends and Photoshop begins can get a little blurry.

Now that your image is the picture of perfection, you can head to the Print module. Here you'll find a nice selection of Lightroom templates for various printing options like 2-up Greeting Card, Contact Sheets, Triptych or Fine Art Mat to name a few.

So, what's new in this version of Lightroom? I mentioned the Adjustment Brush and the Post-Crop Vignette. Lightroom 2 also has improved speed, better and stronger integration with Photoshop, better printing, the keywording feature has more muscle, you can use multiple monitors and the Library, Slideshow, Web and Print modules are beefier and more useful. One particularly important area of improvement is in the Find, Filter and Sort features.

I don't want to give short shrift to the Slideshow, Web and Print modules. Like other modules in Lightroom 2, they are deliciously rich and full-featured. One of my personal favorites is the Slideshow feature. I use it frequently and enthusiastically. There are so many amazing ways to utilize your photos in slideshows.

Lightroom 2 is fantastically feature-rich. You'll probably buy it for Library module, but don't cheat yourself by not taking advantage of all the other Modules. Consider it your license to creatively liberate yourself. It can be your photo-fun place. Lightroom truly is a weird, wild and wonderful thing. Download a free, 30-day trial at www.adobe.com and give it a test drive.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great resource, August 30, 2008

By	R. Cantor (Rockville, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Lightroom 2 is a great resource for photographers, combining cataloging, development and print capabilities. The develop module is the knockout here. It's similar in many respects to Photoshop's Camera Raw, but in my opinion the Lightroom interface is superior. Though it's easy to open images in Photoshop, Lightroom's local adjustment brush often makes that additional step unnecessary, and the saving in file size is significant. I'm also a fan of Photoshop, but given its high price, those who don't have it already should consider whether Lightroom alone satisfies their needs.

The lack of a printed manual is regrettable, but a pdf version is available from Adobe at http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/2.0/lightroom_2_help.pdf.