Adobe Lightroom

[roteague]

Is anyone using Adobe Lightroom? I've been playing with it a bit, and was just interested in your thoughts on the program. It seems geared for the digital photographer, but I was thinking about using it to manage my 35mm and 4x5 slides.

[Dominique Labrosse]

I love Lightroom. And yes I use it with my dSLR. I've used Aperture, Capture One, Bibble & the Adobe Bridge/Photoshop combo. Personally I find that Lighroom is the most intuitive RAW converter that I've tried. I'm not sure how valuable it is as a DAM tool though. I think Aperture migth be better, but I have a suspicion that dedicated databse solutions would be even better.

[Bill Koechling]

I have used Lightroom since its first beta and have found it very useful for my digital work. It is particularly valuable for assignments with large volumes of images. My son uses it for his LF film work. Once an image is digitized whether it is from film or a digital camera it needs to be organized and Lightroom does it well.

The development history is rather unique. Adobe used photographers to make this one of the most valuable pieces of software available for photographers. They really listened to what we said and added features that would not have been there had we not asked for them. We spent a full year together tweaking this thing. It's pretty slick and we've asked for more in v 2.0!

Bill Koechling
www.koechlingphoto.com

[Bill Koechling]

It seems geared for the digital photographer, but I was thinking about using it to manage my 35mm and 4x5 slides.

To specifically answer your question, Robert... I think Lightroom is perfect for scanned film. Most of my stock library is in the form of scanned film or B&W prints. These all need keywording and organization. Lightroom is a great tool for doing this. It is also great for exporting images to the web, for slide shows, or for print.

Bill

[roteague]

To specifically answer your question, Robert... I think Lightroom is perfect for scanned film.

Thanks Bill, I have the trial version, but wanted some feedback from others before buying it. My biggest concern was because I'm a film shooter. I'll work with the program over the weekend and try it out.

[D. Bryant]

Thanks Bill, I have the trial version, but wanted some feedback from others before buying it. My biggest concern was because I'm a film shooter. I'll work with the program over the weekend and try it out.

The trial version has expired so you won't be working with it this weekend. To try Lightroom now you must purchase a copy. The beta copies quit woorking Feb. 28th.

Don Bryant

[D. Bryant]

Thanks Bill, I have the trial version, but wanted some feedback from others before buying it. My biggest concern was because I'm a film shooter. I'll work with the program over the weekend and try it out.
And one more thing about Lightroom. It couldn't handle very large files for me, the size you might have for scans of 4x5 color tranies.

Don Bryant

[Bill Koechling]

And one more thing about Lightroom. It couldn't handle very large files for me, the size you might have for scans of 4x5 color tranies.

Don Bryant

The largest file that Lightroom can currently handle is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels.
Clearly this will handle most digital cameras and moderate to largish scans. It cannot handle larger scans or stitched images larger than this. Future versions may be able to handle these large files.

Bill

[roteague]

The trial version has expired so you won't be working with it this weekend. To try Lightroom now you must purchase a copy. The beta copies quit woorking Feb. 28th.

Don Bryant


No, the trial version still works. I just installed it last night. I think you are thinking of the beta version.

[roteague]

The largest file that Lightroom can currently handle is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels.
Clearly this will handle most digital cameras and moderate to largish scans. It cannot handle larger scans or stitched images larger than this. Future versions may be able to handle these large files.

Bill

Thanks Bill, I'll have to look at this. I'm sure it will handle the files from my Epson 4990, I don't scan them very big. I'll have to re-size the drum scans into something more manageable.

[QT Luong]

I don't see Lightroom as being very useful for the LF photographer. Most of the functionalities are for editing and converting raw files with quick controls. I presume that one edits his LF takes before scanning them, and does more sophisticated digital work on them. As for the DAM capabilities, my understanding is that Lightroom is quite light with this respect, compared to the specialized programs such as Portfolio, Iview, or Imatch.

[Gordon Moat]

You might want to look into Extensis Portfolio. I think it is better at organizing many scans than most other software I have tried. If you only want to organize, then it is really good at that.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[Bill Koechling]

You might want to look into Extensis Portfolio. I think it is better at organizing many scans than most other software I have tried. If you only want to organize, then it is really good at that.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)
You are right about Portfolio being a great organizational piece of software. I used that quite a bit back in version 6 and liked it quite a bit. That would be true for images shot digitally as well.

If, however, you want software that will help you organize the files, do significant development, and export in various ways Lightroom is a great way to deal with large collections of images. Portfolio is long on organizing but has little export capabilities.

Whether the images are film based or not makes little difference.

Bill Koechling
www.koechlingphoto.com

[Hugh Sakols]

Anyone know how Lightrooms Web Portfolio function compares with that of Iview Media Pro?? Everytime I want to edit my web portfolios in iview the entire portfolio needs to be rebuilt. This means i need to re-edit some of the html text that accompanies my images. What I'm looking for is a web portfolio that is easy to edit without having rebuild everything. Would lightroom be any better?? Anyone know of other easy free web portfolios such as zenphoto.org????

[roteague]

I tried importing some 35mm scans this evening. These are 100MB TIFF files. Lightroom imported them with no problem, and I had no problem with the Develop features either. The only thing I see so far about the program that I don't like is that it doesn't have the capability to have multiple libraries - I would like to have two, one for my 35mm stock photography, and the other for the LF stuff (I don't mix the two, so separate libraries would be preferable).

[Photojeep]

I tried importing some 35mm scans this evening. These are 100MB TIFF files. Lightroom imported them with no problem, and I had no problem with the Develop features either. The only thing I see so far about the program that I don't like is that it doesn't have the capability to have multiple libraries - I would like to have two, one for my 35mm stock photography, and the other for the LF stuff (I don't mix the two, so separate libraries would be preferable).

I believe you can have multiple libraries. I just got it a couple of weeks ago and remember seeing that somewhere (but can't remember where). I will check it out and report back.

Randy

[S. Preston Jones]

I just returned from a 2 day workshop with George DeWolfe where we used Lightroom as a tool for working on images imported from a digital camera or on negatives ot transparencies which had been scanned. I personally work only with film cameras from 35mm through 8x10. We did various corrections to the image to get it ready for printing from Lightroom or export to Photoshop for more work or printing. It is an outstanding piece of software for that use. I do not plan to use it, at this time, for anything else. Being able to work on an image and then put a copy of the original image on the monitor at the same time so you can see the changes you are making was great. I have no idea of the limits of the file sizes you can import but I worked on both 5x7 black & white images and 8x10 color. I was also able to convert the color image to black & white and print from both Lightroom and Photoshop.

[roteague]

I just returned from a 2 day workshop with George DeWolfe where we used Lightroom as a tool for working on images imported from a digital camera or on negatives ot transparencies which had been scanned.

Thanks a lot. I played around with it a bit last night, and it seems like a very powerful program. I have been using Photoshop Album in the past, but this program adds a lot of really good features.

[Bill Koechling]

I have no idea of the limits of the file sizes you can import but I worked on both 5x7 black & white images and 8x10 color.

Preston,

I'm glad you are finding Lightroom useful for film scans. The development tools work very well especially with 16-bit files. It's nice to be able to create slide shows and web galleries from the scans. I particularly like the ability to make very nice printed proof sheets as well.

The maximum image size LR can import is 10,000 pixels square. Since Lightroom was designed to handle large quantities of digital images the 10k pixel limit makes sense.