Adobe Lightroom beta Walkthrough

Review by Andy.



The main view when you startup Lightroom, and import some photos into the "Library." On your left, menus that you easily show/hide by clicking on the menu titles. Search, Browse (by shoot, collections, or keywords), Keywords, Options (to set how much info is displayed on-screen for you). On your right, a larger thumbnail view of the selected photo, RGB histogram, and some "quick develop" settings (apply a preset, white balance, adjust basic exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation). You can also go right from here to "Develop." On the bottom of your screen is a filmstrip of the photos in your current library. You can easily adjust the size of this filmstrip (bottom right) and also show/hide it with by moving your cursor to bottom of the screen.



The Loupe tool is very easy to use. You simply click on the pic once, and it goes to 100% mode. You can then use the hand tool (which, is nicely automagic when you do this) and left click, move the photo - or - you can use the magnifyer on the thumbnail, upper right. Here in this capture you also see some of the other features of the "Library" view, on the right: Caption, Keywords, Rating, EXIF, etc. Rating is very easy - you can either just type the number of the rating (1 to 5) by hitting the number key on your keyboard, or you can use your mouse and drag the cursor or click on the dots in the rating area underneath the pic when in grid mode in "Library" view.



Closeup of the left-hand panel in "Library" view.



Closeup of the "Quick Develop" choices in "Library" view.



This is the splash screen at startup. Lightroom's designers made this program very easy to use - starting up, there really are no "questions" in your mind - you know exactly how to get going.



It's OK that Help isn't available, becuase help isn't needed for Lightroom. Everything is very intuitive, and doesn't require explanation.



OK, so there is some help availalbe - a list of keyboard shortcuts for Lightroom.



In "Develop," you can adjust to your heart's content - and when you're satisfied, you can save the settings as a "preset" which you can use again and again.



Details for the "Slideshow" view - the settings you can make for the way your slideshow appears.



Lightroom's "Slideshow" view. On the left, you choose what you want to include in the show, metadata, captions, etc. - on the rigth, all of your slideshow settings, duration, effects, transitions, shadows and more.



Detail of the left and right panels of the "Print" screen.



In "Develop" mode, you have plenty of sliders to give you perfect color control. Individul channel controls for Hue, Saturation, Luminance, and more.



You can really fine tune a lot with Lightroom. The controls are all just "there" right at your fingertips. Undos are easy - keystroke or menu command. The sliders are very responsive. Speed is not an issue as the software is very fast. Here, you see the full screen mode, left pane is tucked away.



You never have to worry that you'll be changing an original. With Lightroom, you're always working on a copy of the image. True "non-destructive" editing.



And here we are, at "Print" - where you can make a contact sheet, or a single image print - with various options (print metadata, watermarks, etc). You have control over the print output, size, color management, paper, etc.



An example contact sheet.