The public beta of Adobe Lightroom 4 is now available for download. Some of the new features include: Highlight and shadow recovery, photo book creation, location-based organization, extended video support and soft proofing for prints. To see the full list of new features and to download the beta click here.
UPDATE:
Video of Adobe Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost discussing the new features in the Lightroom 4 Beta.
I'm actually un-excited by Adobe's preview.
Layout overlays while shooting tethered is something i've always wanted. Now art directors and graphic designers won't have to stop and open photos up in PS or InDesign to check the rough layout. Boom. I'm gonna give this a whirl on tomorrows set.
Managing and editing videos will be very useful as well. Especially for those who have limited knowledge in Final Cut and Premier.
LR4 is going to be a solid upgrade for me
I'm starting to use lightroom more and more, this is definitely an update I'd go after. I just love the time you gain by not having to put every image into photoshop, and now with the enhanced recovery features and that means there will be even less I need to use photoshop.
I've still never used Lightroom :/
I used it for the first time last month, up to that point I had never thought I would touch it. It cut my editing time for a wedding in more than half; I am fully converted! The only thing I didn't like was that there wasn't a color curves graph, it all had to be done with sliders and I didn't get the same results.
Laura, there is actually a curve under Tone Curve...not as nice as PS but still
Lee, you must get on that. It has reduced my retouching time and disc-space by 300%.
DO IT!!!!
I'm an Aperture user: it has a legit curves function instead of the handicapped "tone curve" tool that LR has used since it came out. Looks like they added RGB channels to the tone curve tool in 4, but I'd have to see how it operates. Aperture's not perfect, but I prefer the floating HUD to the module interface of LR too: Too much stuff moving around, it feels like a bunch of drawers that I have to keep opening and closing.
BUT, standalone organizing software for RAW conversion is a must now, so… I dunno, get on with it. :)
i am on the same boat. gonna try it out and see. I've used aperture since day (which was a train wreck and a half) but, gotta expand my horizons. hope to hear more from another aperture user
I've played around with it for a while. The new 'basic' interface is great: it's easy to get amazing smooth black details and the highlight recovery is simply the best i've ever seen. The adjustment brush can be used for local noise reduction and white balance now, which is very cool and TIME SAVING!
dl link is down
At first I thought this was a 1980's launching of the first version of Photoshop haha. What's with the background, the music and her hair? CLASSIC!!!
Agreed, that video was horrendous.
Furthermore, NO FUCKING FEATURE CREEP! STOP IT ADOBE!!! For serious yo. Lightroom's strength is it's low memory footprint and simplicity/intuitiveness. They've already junked up Photoshop with crapware creep, I'm terrified by the thought of them doing the same to Lightroom.
Adobe, if you're listening, rather than engaging in bureaucratically driven feature creep, make each program as strong as can be in it's own area, and allow them to integrate as tightly as possible. If I need to do video editing, I *should* be doing it in Premiere or After Effects. Rather than spending the energy integrating extremely feature limited functionality of other programs into Lightroom, just let the various programs mesh more tightly together without duplicating functionality. Please. Please...
Lee!! Whuuuuut? It's an amazing piece of software with a very small learning curve. Anyone can jump in and start organizing and "non destructively editing" their photos. It's awesome! Going back and forth to and from photoshop was the seller for me, it's amazing.
RIP! Fill Ligth... :(