Adobe Lightroom Beta 4

Adobe Lightroom Beta 4

Recently Adobe released Lightroom Beta 4 for both Mac and PC. If you had used Lightroom in the past you will quickly notice the developers overhauled the interface and added a ton of new features. New to the Windows version is the “Web” tab where you can quickly and painlessly turn your library into a web page with only a few clicks. The library tab now offers advanced searching and filtering tools. I have now cut my searching time in half with this new tool and as you can see that “ON” switch is the quick way to disable all filters while still giving the ability to re-enable it by flipping the switch again.

Lightroom filtering options now offer quicker searches.

The developers at Adobe also gave the users a wonderful new curves palette that any Photoshop user will quickly recognize. You can pick a point by running your cursor across the curve or you can dial in the preferred setting using the new sliders. This new intuitive curves panel can also be found on the histogram located on the top of the palettes.

I did notice that the new install rebuilds the library data so if you have a previous version installed I suggest you backup your library as you should frequently anyways.

A less used feature (for me at least) is the new DVD/CD authoring options. This allows you to quickly build a portfolio or backup with only a few clicks. After using the new version for a few minutes you will notice that Adobe listens to their users and made this release a focus on speed, productivity and management while also fixing some really annoying bugs. The most annoying bug in LR 3 was the misrepresented timestamp that made it seem like I was 3 hours behind no matter where I was shooting.

If you are a Photographer or a Photo enthusiest you will want to download the new version and start really getting a great workflow going.