lightroom

Whoops! Fujifilm's IS-1 is only an SLR-esque megazoom, not an actual SLR, so I updated the text.

Getting rid of the speckles of image noise in digital photos is an essential part of photo processing, but there can be too much of a good thing.

Evidently, that was the conclusion Adobe Systems reached when preparing updates it released late Thursday night to Photoshop Lightroom and the related raw-image import module of Photoshop C3. Adobe is dialing down the default amount of noise reduction in Lightroom 1.2 (download for Mac OS X and Windows) and Camera Raw 4.2 (… Read more

In general, I like Adobe Lightroom and the whole-image editing philosophy that it employs--it puts a bit more emphasis on photography and less on diddling endlessly with images on the computer. I don't feel a powerful desire for Photoshop's ability to apply lots of different changes to lots of different sections of an image.

But one feature I'd like to see is the equivalent of a split neutral density filter that could ratchet down exposure for one patch of an image while leaving the rest unaltered. It's particularly useful for sunset shots, where photographers typically have … Read more

Adobe Labs has released a tool to let customers of the RawShooter software convert image-editing settings to equivalents in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

The RawShooter conversion tool is a free download and works on Windows systems. However, because the two programs operate differently when it comes to features such as noise reduction, tone curves and color balance, images won't necessarily appear the same, Adobe cautioned.

RawShooter, software used to convert unprocessed "raw" images from higher-end digital cameras into more portable formats such as JPEG, was discontinued after Adobe bought its producer, Pixmantec, in 2006.

Photoshop Senior Product Manager … Read more

Adobe added some significant features this week with Photoshop Lightroom 1.1, but some people are having trouble upgrading from version 1.0.

Adobe is trying to figure out the causes for problems some have had moving their database of photos and editing changes from 1.0 to 1.1. "We're very concerned about database upgrade issues," said Adobe's Mark Hamburg on the company's Lightroom forum.

Hamburg's advice includes running Lightroom database integrity checks often; if your computer crashes, don't delete the "journal" file that records database changes; and don't … Read more

In yet another sign that Adobe is quickly getting the "open" message, as Stephen Shankland reports. It's not open source, but it's further momentum on that road within a company that is already displaying a marked propensity to go open.

Think about what happens if Adobe truly moves toward open source. Not necessarily in its consumer-side products today, but in its enterprise business. Here's a company with a tremendously broad reach on the desktop. Adobe could be a huge disruption for the enterprise and the consumer world if it were to extend its reach even further through an open source distribution and development methodology. Lightroom, as noted, is just one more step down this path:… Read more

The Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 update will be available from Adobe Systems' Web site later this week, but the company inadvertently released it for a short period Monday night.

"During the course of delivery testing, the update was publicly available through the Adobe.com store for a short period of time this evening," Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty said in a forum posting Monday night. "The update has been removed from the Adobe.com store and will be reposted, once all of the testing has been completed internally."

Meanwhile, one forum poster who said he found … Read more

I didn't fully appreciate how much Adobe Photoshop Lightroom changed how I deal with digital photos until I tried the latest version of the regular Photoshop software, CS3.

I shoot raw images almost all the time, and I wanted to try out the new features of Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 that's available only to Photoshop CS3 users. I like its new "clarity" adjustment, and appreciate more control over sharpening, but trying those tools out felt like a trip back to the stone age.

Lightroom isn't perfect, and it doesn't replace regular Photoshop. But … Read more

Mamiya, along with competitors such as Pentax and Hasselblad, is working to bring the digital revolution to the higher-end, medium-format camera industry. On Friday, the company plans to announce a $9,999 technology bundle for a 22-megapixel camera.

The bundle includes Mamiya's 645AFD II camera, the 22-megapixel ZD Back and the 80mm f/2.8 AF lens, which is equivalent to a 50mm lens in terms of field of view of a more ordinary 35mm camera.

Medium-format cameras often use separate interchangeable "backs" that in the old days housed film but now house an image sensor. The … Read more

Adobe plans this week to update Photoshop's plug-in for importing and editing raw images from higher-end digital cameras, adding support for several new digital SLR cameras and improving noise-reduction and sharpening tools. Raw images are taken directly from a camera's image sensor without any in-camera processing, preserving more detail but requiring processing by a person into a more portable format such as JPEG; raw support is typically only available on higher-end cameras.

But the new version 4.1 of the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in tool works only with Photoshop CS3, the San Jose, Calif.-based company's brand-new … Read more