Reviewed by Ron Risman, September 1 2008

Just last week Adobe released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 with major improvements for photographers and advanced hobbyists. Many of the improvements that found their way into Lightroom 2.0 were ones suggested by users who had the chance to work with a beta version of 2.0 while it was still in development. However, even with the beta release, Adobe managed to add a few surprises in to the final release which hit the stores last week.

I hope you'll find this review thorough and informative. I have created a few video tutorials/demonstrations that I have incorporated within this review and have used and reviewed most of the newer features in Lightroom 2.0. The review totals 3 long pages but is broken up with illustrations and video clips to help make for easier learning and reading.

Below is a quick snapshot of some of the new features in Lightroom 2.0

New Local Adjustment Brush: Allows users to paint adjustments over any portion of an image and then adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, detail, clarity, and color. Until now, you would have had to export the image into another application such as Photoshop to do any of these kinds of edits

• Volume management: Now photographers can easily navigate their drive volumes from within Lightroom 2.0, making it easy to locate folders and manage images. Lightroom even provides high-resolution previews of images - allowing you to work on images even when the original file is offline.


• Multiple monitor support: Like Photoshop, the new Lightroom 2.0 now supports dual monitors, allowing more elbow room on screen. Keep the grid-view open on one screen while showing the full screen image on the other.


• Plug-in ready: Lightroom 2.0 is now a platform for which anyone can develop plug-ins to make repetitive tasks easy to do without having to leave the program. Adobe.com has a growing list of 3rd party plug-ins on their website.


• Sharpen on export: Since sharpening an image is considered by many to be the last adjustment one should make to an image, this new output sharpening feature is a great addition to Lightroom 2.0.


• Print Package: Stop wasting paper and start saving money. Lightroom 2.0's print package provides quick access to pre-defined templates (such as one 4x6 and 6 2x3's on a single page) and provides the sliders to create your own layouts. You can output a single image multiple times or select multiple images to fill the page layouts. Either way, you will be amazed at the ease in which you can create layouts and you mind even find yourself printing more images.


• 64-Bit Support: Lightroom 2 now supports 64-bit processors, allowing it to access more memory when using it on a 64-bit Windows or Macintosh platform (Mac OS X, Windows Vista 64-bit).


• Seamless Photoshop CS3 integration: If you are using Photoshop version CS2, as I am, you will not benefit as much from this new integration, but for CS3 users, Lightroom now allows you to open a RAW image in Photoshop as a Smart Object. This means the image does not have to be converted to a TIFF or JPG image before editing. Once you're done editing in Photoshop - your changes will automatically be brought back into Lightroom 2.0 - and the photo never left RAW mode.

  Lightroom 2.0 also provides seamless integration of panorama stitching, HDR (High Dynamic Range) functionality, and multiple layer support.

On With the Review
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 on the Windows platform really has no competition. Offering non-destructive photo editing, localized image adjustments, excellent workflow, printing, slideshow, and web functionality. On the Mac platform, Lightroom 2.0 has to share the stage with Apple's Aperture - each application with its loyal followers and unique feature set.

In this review I'll be working with the Windows version of Lightroom 2.0 on a fairly standard Dell Inspiron 530 with 4GB RAM, Quad-core processor, nVidia graphics with 256MB video memory, and a 22" Samsung Monitor. Why is this important? Well, aside from the monitor, this should be your base configuration if you really plan to become a Lightroom 2.0 junkie. Lightroom 2.0 is a memory hungry application, even more than Photoshop, and it has a tendency to slow down when using the localized adjustment tool. For a few days I lived with this slower speed but then I decided to check the Adobe Lightroom forums for others that might be having this same performance issues and discovered that many of the users that were having problems had nVIDIA graphics cards inside their PC. My Dell did as well. Thankfully, there were a couple of great forum posts on ways to speed up and make Lightroom 2.0 more reliable. This fix applies to nVIDIA cards and after the change, Lightroom 2.0 was definitely more responsive and stable - though not necessarily a speed demon with my configuration.

nVIDIA Graphics Card Adjustments

1. Go to the nVIDIA control panel which is located inside the Windows Control Panel area.
2. Select 'Manage 3D settings' located on the left side of the nVIDIA control panel
3. On the right window, under 'Global Settings,' find and select 'Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration'
4. Change this setting to "Single display performance mode" (by default, this is set to "multi-display performance mode")
5. Now Click APPLY and you're done. You can close the control panel windows.
6. Now restart Adobe Lightroom 2.0 and you should notice a speed improvement on preview renders and when using most of the other sliders and brush tool.

If you have a dual monitor set up this 'fix' wouldn't apply since you would want to keep the setting on 'multi-display performance mode.'

Another user posted his fix for those having problems running Lightroom 2.0 with nVIDIA graphics cards. The steps below show you how to add the Lightroom.exe file to the video cards program settings:

1. Go to the nVIDIA control panel which is located inside the Windows Control Panel area.
2. Select 'Manage 3D settings' located on the left side of the nVIDIA control panel
3. Under the 'Program Settings" tab click the 'Add' button and locate the Lightroom 2.0 exe file (usually located in C:\program files\adobe\adobe photoshop lightroom 2\
4. Once added any problems you might have been having using the adjustment brush should be gone

The following tips were found here on the Adobe Lightroom forums.

Lightroom 2.0 Layout

The layout in lightroom is one of the most intuitive that I have used. Unlike Photoshop that requires a degree in icon recognition, Lightroom is chock full of plain text and easy to use sliders, allowing you to easily learn as you go. The fact that all edits are non-destructive means you can experiment to your hearts content without worrying about image degradation

Lightroom is divided into 3 sections. A left navigation panel which provides access to your drives, folders, collections, and filters. The center screen area where you view your images either as thumbnails (grid view) or full size (loupe view), and the right panel which is made up of the histogram and tools to enhance and add keywords to your photographs. A film-strip panel runs across the bottom of the screen, providing quick access to images in your current folder or collection, and when you're in the Library Module, a metadata filter and search panel is available by hitting the [backslash] key. This panel appears above the grid area to allow you to find photographs based on similar metadata or keywords (date, lens used, location, keyword, shutter speed, etc.) Each of these panels can be quickly hidden using keyboard shortcuts or with a click of the mouse. Below is a short list of some of the more important keyword shortcuts for use in Lightroom.

Quick Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Description
Tab	Hide and show side panels
Shift Tab	Hide and show ALL panels
B	Add selected photo(s) to the target collection or quick collection
C	Switch to Compare view (Works in all modules)
D	Switch to Develop Module
E	Switch to single image loupe view (Works in all modules)
F	Cycle Full Screen Mode
G	Switch to Grid View (Library Module) Spot Removal Tool (Develop Module)
L	Dim the lights (darkens entire screen, except for the photo. Hit it again to blacken the entire screen except for the photo)
N	Switch to Survey view
~	Flag the selected photo(s)
CTRL /	Shortcut Cheat Sheet (Unique in each module)

For quite some time I have been using a free application from Google, called Picasa, to manage my thousands of images. I have always loved Picasa's ease-of-use and basic non-destructive enhancements. I know how basic Picasa is but I also know a great interface can make managing images a breeze. Over the past two years I have tried many applications and none have convinced me to part with Picasa for workflow - that is until Lightroom 2.0 came along. Lightroom 2.0 is THE choice for anyone who wants more control, professional tools and results, direct RAW to DNG export, output sharpening, the ability to quickly and easily compare photographs in a 'light table' style format, and a program that acts as a great front-end to Photoshop CS3.

Favorite Features of Lightroom 2.0

The most talked about new features in Lightroom 2.0 are the local adjustment brush and the gradient filter tool, both of which are tops on my list as favorites, but I don't want to overlook a few other favorites of mine - some of which have been carried over from Lightroom 1.0. To make this topic flow I will discuss my favorite features found in each of the 5 modules (Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, Web).

Library Module

The Library module is, to me, the most important aspect of Lightroom 2.0 as it allows you to manage your entire library. Many applications fail when it comes to managing a large photo library, but Adobe got it right in Lightroom 2.0.

The Library Module provides the means to import photos and folders, create collections of photos (without duplicating them), keyword your photographs as well as add other metadata information (copyright, title, ownership, location, etc.), view your images either as thumbnails or single image view, compare images side by side, survey a group of images (the equivalent to putting select images on a light table for comparison), and rate the images using color codes or stars. The Library module also provides some adjustments (exposure, white balance, clarity, and vibrance) that allow you to apply some basic corrections. Advanced corrections are accomplished within the Develop module (the letter "D" is the keyboard shortcut).

Synchronize
The Synchronize feature allows you to keep imported folders up to date with changes that may have taken place to the photographs outside of Lightroom. In order to keep the folders in Lightroom 2.0 synchronized with those changes you can right click on any folder and select the "Synchronize Folder." When selected, Lightroom will scan for new images in the selected folders, scan for metadata changes, and remove or add missing photos from the catalog. In future releases I hope Adobe adds an option to automate this process, by continuously scanning folders that were marked for this features. This is a must have feature, especially with larger catalogs.

Tagging and Retrieving
Image management is not just knowing where your images are, it is being able to access them quickly. Lightroom 2.0 has added some very advanced and intuitive keyword tagging tools that allow you to quickly add important keywords to groups of photos all at once. More importantly, Lightroom 2.0 gives you the tools to find the images once they have been tagged. The new Metadata filter and search tool - accessible with the key combination [CTRL - F] - allows you to locate photos based on virtually any criteria. The filter panel allows you to search Text, Attributes, or Metadata. For example I can do any one of the following searches:

Text Search:
Enter keyword(s) to search in the title, caption, filename, metadata, EXIF, or IPTC data fields.



Attribute Search:
Allows you to find photos that have been flagged, starred, given a color tag, just virtual copies of images or just original images



Metadata Search:
This powerful tool allows you to find photos based on any metadata that was saved within the image, usually by your camera. These include ISO settings, whether or not the flash fired, shutter speed, camera model, date, aperture settings, and more.


Search by Date:
The filter by date column allows you to select a year and/or month to find photographs taken during that period. Dates are listed chronologically, the right column displays the number of images in each folder for that particular year or month. Clicking the left arrow next to each year will show individual months within the year.




Search by Camera Model:
This provides a method of showing or restricting images to those shot with a particular camera. If members of your family use different cameras, this filter makes it simple to find only shots taken with a particular model.





Search MetaData:
Lightroom 2.0 also allows you to find photos based on data written to the image from the camera at the time your photos were taken or on other metadata added later on. Quickly find all photos that were shot with a specific lens, aperture setting, shutter speed, ISO setting, aspect ratio, GPS data, a particular location, city, state, file type, country, and more.

For example, if you want to use the luminance and color noise reduction tool to clean up images that exhibit a lot of noise, you could filter for images shot with a high ISO since photo's taken with a high ISO always exhibit increased noise.

The Library Module is also the place where you import and export images. Lightroom will not actually move or duplicate the images upon import, unless requested, and will warn you if some of the images you selected are already in your Lightroom catalog. When importing images from a card reader or other USB device Lightroom will prompt you to select a location where you want these images to be imported to and you can have Lightroom create a duplicate 'backup' copy elsewhere. To help you save you time, Lightroom also allows you to add keywords and metadata to the collection of images being imported and/or select preset filters to automatically process the images during the import process.

During export you can apply installable plug-ins that make it easier to perform certain tasks. For example, I installed plug-ins that allow me to export a collection of photos directly to my Flickr and Picasa accounts. Other plug-ins that are available allow a watermark to be applied to each and every photo exported, borders to be added and more.

Visit Lightroom Exchange to find Plug-Ins for Lightroom

Available to any student from Kindergarten Through College

Continue to Page Two (Develop Module)