Lightroom Experience Update
Just over two weeks ago I started my Lightroom 3 Beta journey. While I have spent many hours with each release of Lightroom my photo management tool of choice has always been Apple's Aperture. However, Denise and I are seriously considering switching to Lightroom as I mentioned in a recent post, Bye Bye Aperture. Today I just wanted to provide a very brief update... The two photos (same photo: one is the original and one is edited via Lightroom) in this post perfectly demonstrate how much we love Lightroom. The edited photo took exactly FIVE CLICKS to achieve:
- Selected eyedropper
- Used eyedropper to adjust white balance
- Clicked General - Auto Tone preset
- Clicked General - Punch preset
- Clicked Sharpen - Portraits preset
Maybe I am just too easily impressed, but I find that AMAZING! There is no way Aperture would come close to that quality of editing, which has always been the advantage of Lightroom. A few other quick comments (details to follow soon):
- Keywording IMO is much easier and powerful with Lightroom
- In Aperture, with 90% of our photos my first step would be to use the eyedropper to adjust the white balance...with Lightroom I have used it THREE times with 1447 photos
- Color management JUST WORKS for prints, web, etc. In the past, color management has always been a horrible ordeal
- Still do NOT like Lightroom's modular approach to managing/editing photos
- Publish Services feature in LR rocks! And since LR has such a huge support base, there are plenty of fantastic plug-ins available
Next week Denise, Bryce, and I will be going to Phoenix, Arizona, for a family vacation. We will be further testing Lightroom on my MacBook Pro vs. using the latest-n-greatest 27-inch iMac at home. More to come!
