Adobe Lightroom has huge potential
I’ve seen some mean things said about the Lightroom interface. Some I agree with, some I do not. Interface notwithstanding, I think that Lightroom has huge potential, and I’ll be watching it very closely.
Adobe Lightroom: Beta One Interface
Rescue me from iPhoto
Everyone knows I love, and hate, iPhoto. iPhoto and I have a long relationship, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind cheating on her.
One of the first things I was looking Lightroom to rescue me from was Keywords. Lightrooms keyword management, while having the potential to be much better than iPhotos, isn’t quite finished yet. Normally I’d be disappointed by this, but Lightroom’s keyword management is already light-years ahead of iPhoto’s.
Another reason I’m not up-in-arms about Lightroom’s keyword management is that it is one of the first things they are attacking for the next beta. In their video preview you’ll notice that they acknowledge that this part of the application needs significant improvement. Adobe/Macromedia making that statement is also light-years ahead of Apple’s apparent ignorance towards the problem with Keywords in iPhoto.
The second thing, which comes as more a pleasant surprise than a requirement, is Lightroom’s ability to leave your files exactly where you put them, rather than managing your library directory structure automatically. iTunes has a preference for leaving your music files where they are on your disks or managing your directory structure for you. iTunes, however, does an excellent job with maintaining a very good directory structure. iPhoto, does not.
iPhoto does have a preference for leaving the files where you left them, and not copying them to your Library folder. However this is more an overall preference, rather than a “per import” preference as Lightroom allows. Perhaps its Lightroom’s transparency of this feature which seems more appealing than iPhoto adding the preference to an “advanced” panel. Apple has been slowly adding more things to their advanced preference panels though, and I don’t like the trend.
Can’t wait for Beta 2
Although I’m not ready to make the switch to Lightroom, I’m extremely anxious to see what they do with meta data in Beta 2.
Related sites
Recent features
Leah Andreone - Break Your Fall
Coheed and Cambria - The Velorium Camper II: Backend Of Forever
The Format - Give It Up
Song of the week
Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines
Sara Bareilles' "Between the Lines" is the Song of the Week for April 20 to 26.
I also installed lightroom and played with it for a couple os minutes, although it does not seem to have all the functionality of Aperture, it seems like in the near future might be something worth considering!
Bruno on January 16th, 2006 1:52 am
Bruno: I agree. If this is BETA one, I think we’re in for something really really nice in later builds and versions.
Colin D. Devroe on January 16th, 2006 1:56 am
Although it seems to be running a very simular interface to Aperture, I would imagine they will be making some major changes before the final release. I am also curious to see how and if they are going to develop a section for album montage, like aperture has.
Bruno on January 16th, 2006 2:08 pm
It looks like you’re waiting for “Lightroom: iSight Optimized” edition.
Paul Stamatiou on January 24th, 2006 3:47 am
Paul: Yeah, this screen doesn’t really do the testing I did justice. I did indeed import all of my 13,000+ photos to see how the performance would be. And, for a beta product, I was pleasantly surprised with its performance.
Colin D. Devroe on January 24th, 2006 10:21 am