Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 Feature Review

8/8/2019 Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 Feature Review

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A Computer Darkroom Feature Review

Lightroom 3 has been a long time in oven, but it's finallybaked and ready for serving. Has the wait been worth it?

Well, if you've already been working with either of the two

public betas you'll already be familiar with most of the

features added since version 2 shipped in late July 2008.

For those who haven't, the following is as good a place as

any to start learning.

What are the headline features of Lightroom 3?

From the outset Lightroom 3 was never going to be packed with a long list of headline grabbing features. Sure there

would be some, but these would in the main be spin offs from Camera Raw 6. For Lightroom as a whole, the key

objective was simple - make Lightroom the "best in class" application for digital photographers. Lightroom 3 beta 1

saw the first moves down this path when Adobe went back to the drawing board with the aim of improving interactive

performance (i.e. scrolling and module switching) and image quality. The first beta provided users with an

opportunity to comment on the architectural changes and some of the new and enhanced features. For example, raw

conversion and colour noise reduction algorithms were substantially overhauled in beta 1, but the absence of

luminance noise meant that the benefits were to some degree masked. Luminance noise reduction was added when beta 2

was released, and the feedback was very favourable.

With the final version we get both automatic and manual lens corrections, some tweaks to the Auto Tone algorithms,

and IPTC extensions have been implemented in Metadata browser. The following table lists the headline features that

you'll find in Lightroom 3:.

denotes new since beta 2

Workflow andLibrary:

Faster thumbnail scrolling and module switching

Completely redesigned import dialog

Publish Collections

Backup on exit

Enhanced sorting (i.e. sort by aspect ratio)

Enhanced collection and smart collection functionality

Import CMYK files

New thumbnail badge to show when photo is in a Collection

Import DSLR video files

Tethered Capture

Animation in Library Histogram

Optimise catalog command included in File menu

Improved preview quality

New Library module keyboard shortcuts for more efficient module switching

IPTC extensions in Metadata panel

Lens and focal length added to Metadata filter bar and Smart Collections

Develop: Improved raw conversionImproved sharpening

Improved colour noise reduction

Improved luminance noise reduction

Point Curve in Tone Curve panel

Process versions renamed to 2003 and 2010 (Current)

Process version switch via pop-up menu in Camera Calibration panel

New Grain filter

Improved Post-crop vignette

Collections panel added

Simplified local adjustment brush and graduated filter panel

Automatic profile based lens corrections

Manual lens and perspective corrections

New develop presets



Output: Enhanced slideshow export, which includes HD video

Export video files as originals

Ability to limit file size on export

Music selection on Mac simplified and decoupled from iTunes

Sync slideshow length to duration of selected music track

Custom Print Package allowing free-form layout of multiple photos on a page

Enhanced watermarking

New templates for Web and Print modules

Enhanced Software Development Kit (SDK)

Many of the new features and enhancements have already been covered in my beta 1 and 2 feature previews. Therefore,

if you've already read the earlier previews you can probably skip to page 2 and read about the new lens correctionstools. Also, under the heading Additional Information on page 3 of this feature review I have included links to

videos by Julieanne Kost and the Lightroom Learning Centre.

A Swedish language translation of this review is available Here

Raw Image Processing Enhancements

I have already mentioned that the raw conversion, noise reduction and sharpening algorithms had been significantly

reworked for Lightroom 3. In fact, the extent of the changes mean that for the first time since the Camera Raw Plug-in was released in 2003, it was necessary for Adobe to introduce the concept of Process Versions (i.e. ProcessVersion 2003 and Process Version 2010 (Current)). The names represent the year in which the processing technology

was introduced, which should give you an idea of how often Adobe plan on updating the process version.

By default, photos that contain develop adjustments from previous versions of Lightroom (i.e. 1 and 2) or versions

of Camera Raw right up to version 5.7 will use process version 2003. However, freshly imported photos will use PV

2010. It's when a catalog contains images with both process versions that users will notice the difference betweenthe two, both in terms of image quality and increased preview rendering times. In my opinion, the improvements in

image quality, particularly high ISO colour and luminance noise, are so great that the small increase time required

to render the previews is worth it.

Tip - the new noise reduction and sharpening algorithms only apply to PV 2010 photos, PV 2003

photos will be rendered using the same noise reduction and sharpening algorithms as previous

versions of Lightroom (i.e. Lightroom 1 and 2) and all versions of Camera Raw up to 5.7 .

Performance in general has improved as the beta cycle progressed, and users should find that thumbnail scrolling

and module switching are much smoother than in earlier versions. However, the very substantial improvements in

image quality mentioned above have come at the cost of reduced non-interactive performance. In particular, previewrendering will likely be slightly slower than it was in Lightroom 2, especially when working with PV 2010 photos.

To ensure the best balance between quality and performance Adobe have put a fair amount of engineering time and

effort into developing an adaptive system when applying noise reduction and sharpening to previews for PV 2010

photos. For it to work well the engineers had to profile the noise characteristics of each supported camera over a

wide range of ISO values. The operation of this adaptive system are quite complex and therefore beyond the scope of

this review. Nevertheless, when it comes to noise reduction and sharpening of previews, you can be fairly confident

that Lightroom 3 will do the right thing in most circumstances.

Tip - Working with Lightroom 3 and Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 6

Lightroom and Photoshop Camera Raw share the same image processing technology to ensure

consistent and compatible results across applications that support raw processing. These

applications include Photoshop CS5, Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8. These

applications must be updated with the Camera Raw 6.1 plug-in in order to ensure full

compatibility with Lightroom 3 develop module settings. Refer to Lightroom 3 readme document

for more details on inter-application compatibility.

Library Module and Workflow Enhancements

There haven't been any UI changes in the Library module since beta 2, which means that the overall appearance

should be familiar to anyone who already uses Lightroom 2 or has tried either of the two public betas. The Library

continues to be at the heart of Lightroom in so far as it's the module that provides most of the tools for managing

your photographic assets. Imported photos can be viewed in the Library in various modes or views. These include:

Grid view (G), Loupe view (E), Compare view (C) and Survey view (N). Each of these views is intended for a specific

purpose in the your workflow, but you may find one view more useful than others. For example, Grid view allows yousee large numbers of photos as thumbnails whilst at the same time providing a workspace for applying metadata,

labels, ratings, keywords, flags, and even quick development adjustments to photos in bulk. On the other hand,

Loupe view allows you to view a single photo as well as zooming up to 11x of the original. This view is

particularly use for checking sharpness and focus. The "gotcha" with Loupe view is that restricts rating,

labelling, keywording, etc to a single photo. Compare and Survey are specialist views designed to make the tasks of

comparing, rating and flagging multiple photos easier.

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Figure 1 - Library module Grid view (click for larger view)

Other minor, but nonetheless important enhancements within the Library module include:

Match Total Exposures commands added to Develop Settings menu

Collections can be created directly within a collection set by right-clicking on the collection set photos

can be sorted by aspect ratio

The name of a collection is displayed when an photo is added to a target collection

Stack badges can now be toggled on or off independently in the filmstrip via an interface preference

Stack behaviour on double-clicking on stack count badge now expands the stack with all photos selected

Erasing with the spray paint tool now requires the use of the Alt key

When the ëspray caní is used to add an photo to a collection, the collection name is now displayed upon

application

Select a folder in the Library module and choose a new option Import to here to launch the import dialog with

that folder preselected as the destination

Loupe view in import dialog supports large preview for photos on flash memory card

Import dialog defaults to New Photos when accessed via the Synchronize Folder command

The option to include items from subfolders has been included in the primary Folder panel drop down menu

Choose Library -> Show Missing Photos to locate offline or missing photos

Choose Library -> Find Previous Process Photos to locate photos first processed in earlier versions of

Lightroom

Attributes filter bar includes icon for filtering video files

Ability to define the limit file size in Export dialog

An icon has been added to grid thumbnails to indicate that an photo is part of a collection. Click on that

icon to view and/or visit the collection

Favourite sources can be added to the filmstrip source pop-up menu for quick access to specific collections

or folders

Flash State, Lens and Focal Length are now included as part of the metadata filter bar and smart collection

filter criteria

Tethered Capture

As mentioned above, there are relatively few major enhancements to the Library module since Lightroom 2.

Nevertheless, those that have been included should please a lot of users. For example, Lightroom 3 includes

support for Tethered Capture, albeit limited to a selection of DSLR cameras from Canon and Nikon. Support for othercamera makes may come at a future date, but this is very much dependent on the vendor making their SDK available.

Using Tethered Capture is relatively easy. First, you choose Library -> Tethered Capture. This opens the TetheredCapture Settings panel (shown in figure 2 below). The panel is used to configure the location for storing the

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captured photos, any metadata that wish to apply, etc.

Figure 2 - Tethered Capture Settings (click for larger view)

When the settings panel is configured to your requirements, click the OK button. At this point the tethered capturecontrol panel will open (shown in figure 3 below). Pressing the large silver button will trigger the camera

shutter, as will pressing the Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+T keyboard combination. The Develop Settings pop-up menu is used to

choose from any of the Camera Raw profiles already installed on your computer.

Figure 3 - Tethered Capture control panel

The control panel can be hidden by clicking on the circle button located below the Close (X) button on the rightside of the panel. Alternatively, the panel can be hidden by pressing on the Cmd/Ctrl+T keys. Unfortunately, the

control panel doesn't support remote adjustment of camera controls such as shutter speed, aperture or ISO; nor does

it support the "Live View" feature found in many recent DSLRs.

Video File Support

Another commonly requested feature is support for DSLR Video Files. However, as with Tethered Capture the supportfor video files is rather limited. In short, you can import the video files, view the index frame as a thumbnail

in Grid view or full-size in Loupe view (shown in figure 4 below), and export the files in their original format,

but you cannot edit them or even review them in Lightroom, Instead,. to view a video file, you press the camera

badge either on the thumbnail or loupe window to launch an external viewer such as QuickTime (Mac) or Windows Media

Player (Windows).




Figure 4 - Video file support

Import

The concept underlying the new import dialog was to make it look and feel like it was part of Lightroom. In many

ways the development team achieved their objective, but during the beta cycle some users have expressed the viewthat they would have liked them to go further. For example, a common request was that the dialog could be resized

and have adjustable side panels, etc. Alas, most of this type of request goes well beyond the scope of changes that

the development team had scope to undertake.

So, lets focus on what we did get. By default, the import dialog will open into the expanded mode (shown in figure

5 below). This view makes it much easier to visualise the whole process of importing your images. The Sourcedevices and volumes are listed on the left side and Destination on the right side panel tracks. It's also important

to note that, unlike Lightroom 1 and 2, which only gave access to folders that contained photos, Lightroom 3

displays all disk drives and folders, irrespective of whether they contain photos or not. This applies to both the

source and destinations panels. Some users have found this behaviour quite irritating, whereas others have

recognised the benefits of being able to look across the entire disk drive and folder structure on their computer

or network. In effect, the import dialog has become a File Browser, albeit limited in what it can do with the filesand folders.

Figure 5 - Expanded view of Lightroom 3 Import dialog (click for larger view)

The thumbnail (Grid) view of the photos is located in between the two panel tracks. From here, individual photos

can be included or excluded by clicking on the checkmark. However, it's also possible to use keyboard shortcuts

whilst scrolling through the thumbnails (e.g. P = Pick, U = Unpick, X = Unpick). Holding down the Shift key whilst




applying a shortcut will auto advance to next photo. Applying develop presets, keywords, metadata, etc is all done

on dedicated panels within the Destination panel track. Likewise renaming photos on import and defining the initial

preview size. It's even possible to switch between Grid view (G) and Loupe view (E), and there is even a zoom tool(Spacebar) that allows scaling from 1:4 through 11:1. This is also possible when browsing a Compact Flash or SD

memory card.

Figure 6 - Import dialog in File Browser Loupe mode (click for larger view)

In addition to the expanded mode the Import dialog also includes a compact mode (shown in figure 7 below). This

mode removes most of the complexity associated with the Source and Destination panels. The idea with this

arrangement is that the source and destination can be quickly identified via Import Presets that will already have

been configured by the user.

Figure 7 - Import dialog Compact mode

Readers already familiar with the new import dialog will probably be thinking that the shipping version isn't any

different to the betas. Well, as mentioned above a lot has changed since beta 1, less so since beta 2. The changes

are subtle and a lot of them not immediately obvious to the user. For example, the performance enhancements only

become apparent when you browse folders with large numbers of photos (i.e. thumbnails and photo enumeration has

been speeded up significantly). A more obvious enhancement can be seen in Grid view. Actually, there are three

alternative Grid views i.e., All Photos, New Photos and Destination Folders. The first (All Photos) lets you seeall of the photos within a given folder or subfolder. By default, if a photo is already in the catalog it will be

greyed out and unchecked. The second view (New Photos) only shows photos that are not already in the catalog. This

is the default view when the import dialog is accessed from the Synchronize Folder command. The last thumbnail view

(Destination Folders) separates the photos into the folder structure that you've chosen in the Destination panel.


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Compact mode also provides support for adding keywords and metadata preset.

All Photos - click for larger view New Photos - click for larger view

Destination Folder - click for larger

view

Figures 8a - 8c - Import dialog Grid views

Lightroom 3 will import the following file formats:

JPEG

TIFF (8 bit and 16 bit)

PSD (8 bit and 16 bit)

DSLR video files

DNG

Raw files from supported cameras (visit http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html for a

full list of raw file support. File support for Lightroom 3, aligns with Lightroom 2.7 and Camera

Raw 5.7/6.1)

In addition to RGB, Lightroom 3 will also allow the import of CMYK*, LAB and Greyscale files.

* Any output, with the exception of export original, or develop adjustments to these files

will take place in an RGB color space.

Publish Services

Publish Services is intended to help users publish photos to their favourite file sharing site directly from within

the Lightroom Library module. At present there is only a plug-in for Flikr, but the SDK has all the "hooks"necessary for similar plug-ins to be developed for SmugMug, etc. The current plug-in gives you direct access to theFlickr photo sharing site. Obviously, you will need a Flickr account before the feature can be used, but set up the

connection within Lightroom 3 is fairly straightforward. Simply click on the Flickr Set Up button within the

Publish Collections panel. This button opens the Lightroom Publishing Manager window as shown in figure 9 below.

Figure 9 - Lightroom Publishing Manager (click for larger view)


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The name you use within the Publishing Manager must be the same name as you use when connecting to Flickr via a web

browser. The account must also be activated from within Lightroom before your Flickr Photostream will become

available within the Publish Collection panel. Once the account has been activated publishing your photos to Flickr

is a simple matter of dragging your photos on to the Photostream collection then pressing the Publish button.

Lightroom 3 will automatically begin the process of uploading the photos to Flickr. Figure 10 below shows how

Lightroom 3 displays the progress of the upload.

Figure 10 - Display of Photo Publishing in progress (click image for larger view)

Viewing the photos after they have been published to Flickr is relatively straightforward - right click on the

Photostream to open the context menu then choose Go to Published Collection. Assuming you have an active internet

connection Lightroom will launch your default web browser at the Flickr page containing your photos.

Figure 11 - View Published images at Flickr

Clicking on the Publish button any time after the photos have been published to Flickr will import any comments,

ratings, etc that viewer may have posted to your Photostream. These will be displayed in the dedicated Comments

panel located on the right side panel track, just below the Metadata panel (see figure 12 below). Flickr Pro Account holders can subsequently modify their photos and republish them to Flickr using the same procedure as

described above.

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Figure 12 - Photostream Comments

Prior to Adobe including this feature in Lightroom I had never used my Flickr Pro account, but having the ability

to manage photos from within the application was too good an opportunity to miss. You can view some of my photo

galleries at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ian_lyons/ All of these galleries were uploaded and managed from within

the Lightroom 3 beta.

Library Filter Bar

The Library Filter Bar was first added in Lightroom 2. At the time many were critical of the amount of screen area

that it took up, but were even more vociferous in their criticism of the developers decision to make the metadata

filter operate at local level. Screams of "where have my photos gone" were common on the Lightroom User to User

forum. Even worse was the decision to make the filter sticky. Thankfully, the latter two criticisms have been

addressed in Lightroom 3, although we now have another group of users screaming that the change messes up their

workflow. Seems like Adobe can't win with this particular tool. Anyway, back to what we have now. By toggling the

padlock button on the top right corner open/close you can dictate whether Lightroom will apply the selected filter

to an individual folders/collections (local) or to all folders/collections (global).

Figure 13 - Library Filter Bar (Metadata view)

A Video File filter badge is included adjacent to the Virtual Copies filter badge the Attributes section of the

Library Filter Bar. It's shown in figure 14 below as the icon with the red boundary. Clicking on this icon when

viewing particular folder/collection will display all video files in that folder/collection. Clicking on it when

viewing All Photographs will return all video files contained within your catalog.

Figure 14 - Library Filter Bar (Attribute view)

The Filter Bar is undoubtedly quite powerful, but it is also somewhat obtuse in terms of how it works. For example,

many users struggle to get their heads around the actual filtering logic used within the Text section. It's really

not that complex, but for the benefit of new users, it's worth repeating some of the description I provided in my

review of Lightroom 2.

There are four sections to the Filter Bar: Text, Attributes, Metadata and None. The first three are used for a

filtered search of the contents of your catalog and the last (i.e. None) is used to switch the Filter Bar off. The

Filter Bar is activated from the Library>View menu or by pressing on the '\' key. You can use the Cmd/Ctrl+Lkeyboard combination to toggle on/off the last filter you used.

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By default, the Metadata filter contains four columns, but is easily configured to display between 1 and 8 columns

(i.e. via menu on the top right corner of each column). The actual column layout can be saved as a custom preset

by clicking on the Custom Filter pop-up located on the top right corner of the Filter Bar. Figure 13 above shows

an example of the Metadata filter in use.

One of the most useful aspects of the Filter Bar is filtering by keyword. The Filter Bar uses ' AND' between thecolumns and filtering within a column is an 'OR' function (i.e. hold down Ctrl/Cmd key then make appropriate

selections within column). Using multiple keyword columns it is therefore possible for both 'AND' and 'OR' keyword

filtering.

As mentioned above, the Filter Bar is also the location in which text based searches and attribute based filtering

is carried out. The rule set for text based searches has changed little since Lightroom 1.x and they remain

relatively self explanatory. However, it's worth mentioning a few of the less obvious filtering rules that come in

handy for fine-tuned searches within the text entry field. For example, placing a '+' at the beginning of a word is

the same as Starts With, placing a '+' at the the end of a word is the same as Ends With, and placing a '!' at

the beginning of a word is the same as Doesn't Contain. Also, worth noting that the Attribute bar now containsWhite and Gray label chips for Custom Label and No Label respectively. Finally, multiple filters are activated by

shift clicking the respective filter name (e.g. click Text then Shift+click Attribute followed by Shift+click

Metadata).

IPTC Extensions

Many Lightroom users will already be familiar with the IPTC Core schema for metadata. Users add their data into

predefined fields in the Metadata panel, which can then be saved to the image file or used directly within

Lightroom for searching, etc. For Lightroom 3 Adobe have added the recently introduced IPTC Extension schema for

XMP. This is a supplemental schema to the IPTC Core, and provides:

fields for additional information about the content of the image, e.g. name or location shown in the image,

an organisation or event featured by the image, etc

fields to improve administration, e.g. for a globally unique identifier

fields for cultural heritage photos, including a title, a creator, a creation date and information about the

source fields to precisely define the licensing and the copyrights of a photograph.

Currently, there appears to be little, if any other support for IPTC Extensions with Lightroom 3. For example, none

of the fields are explicitly mentioned in smart collections or metadata filter bar.

Figure 15 - IPTC Extensions in Metadata Panel

Contd. on page 2

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