Lightroom 3 came in the mail yesterday (along with CS5) so today I’m trying it out. There’s not a lot of new functionality like there was when LR2 introduced local adjustments. But there are some new things I’m really excited about.
LR3 can publish directly to Flickr. Boy, that saves a step. With LR 2.7 I had an Export preset that exported the files to a special directory. It set the file type (JPEG), size (600 pixels on the longest dimension), color space (sRGB) and added the copyright text. Then I’d export the files, log on to Flickr and upload the files from the folder. Now I can post directly to Flickr – and all the same controls are available. LR does the file conversion and uploading. I do need to log into Flickr to change file names but that’s easy compared to the old way of doing it. This is something I really like.
The import dialog has been completely reworked. It’s very visual and works quite well. I found it intuitive and easy to figure out. On the left side is the Source and on the right are the controls for Develop Setting, Metadata and Keywords. It was easy to segregate the files on import if you needed to assign different keywords to them. There is one thing I wish it did, however. I import the files to my laptop using a Canon utility. I use the utility because it’s fast. Then I Add them to the LR catalog. But when you do that LR won’t let you create a backup. You can only create a backup when you Copy or Move the files. I wish you could also create a backup when you Add them.
Speaking of backing up, the Catalog Backup dialog now comes at the end of the session instead of the start. Many times when I was prompted to back up the catalog at the start of the session I would think there was no point because I hadn’t done the work yet. So I’d skip it. Now the backup prompt comes at the end, after all the work is done. And here’s another little nicety. You also have the option of optimizing the catalog at the same time. In the past you had to go to Catalog Settings to find the optimize button. It all makes a whole lot of sense.
So these are things that make LR easier to use which is always a good thing. But is there anything that will affect the quality of my images? I think so. Now, I must admit that all of these may not be new although some definitely are. But they’re new to me so I’m mentioning them.
Adobe has added Lens Correction to LR. It corrects such things as barrel and pin cushion distortion, aberration and vignetting. This is definitely new and is what some other tools do very well. LR automatically recognizes the body and lenses from my Canon 1Ds Mark III. The G11 isn’t quite so lucky. But there’s the option of specifying the camera Make and when I do that it picks up the lens and model. I’ve only tried it on images from the G11 at this point but so far I’m pleased with the results I plan to use it regularly.
Another adjustment that seems to have been improved is Camera Calibration. I’ve never paid much attention to this before because the one or two times I checked it out it seemed pretty technical. But now there’s a profile for Camera Landscape that I like very much. So I’ll be using this too.
Under Effects there are two adjustments – Post-cropping Vignetting and Grain. I vignette most of my photographs. It’s a very strong but subtle compositional touch. I’ve done it in Photoshop but with the new post-cropping vignetting tool will certainly play around with doing it in LR. There are three types of vignetting – Highlight Priority, Color Priority and Paint Overlay. I haven’t tried Paint Overlay and have a hard time imagining that working with the kind of art I create. But Highlight Priority and Color Priority make sense and produce pleasing results. The other thing that’s good about this vignetting is that it works on images that have already been cropped; that is, it works on the cropped part of the image. Very cool.
One last thing that stands out is in the Output dialog. Instead of having a checkbox to add a copyright notice there’s now a Watermarking area. This gives you full control over the copyright text. You can also choose graphic watermarks. This has a lot of possibilities.
There are a few new or improved things that are interesting but I probably won’t use. There are a ton of new presets – all kinds of them. The variety is staggering. But since I usually don’t go for any special effects I’ll leave them to someone else.
Sharpening has apparently been improved. But sharpening has always been a part of my PS workflow and I’m completely satisfied with that. So I don’t plan to take advantage of LR sharpening.
So that’s it, a summary of the new cool things I discovered so far in LR3. I’ll keep you posted if I find more. And I’m taking a look at CS5 so might have something worth saying about that.
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