Digital Home Thoughts: Adobe Lightroom Image Management & Processing Application, Now in Public Beta

"This is a close up first-look at Adobe's Lightroom, a new generation image management and processing application. Because there are not yet any manuals or books available for Lightroom, and likely won't be for some time, I have attempted to provide an introductory primer on the program's major features and functions. This report will by no means be comprehensive, but hopefully along with Adobe's training videos and online information, as it becomes available, we will all learn together how to make the most of Lightroom. My recommendation, since Lightroom is free public test software, is for you to download it, and then use this primer to help understand the program's basic functionality. Reading this article without the program open in front of you will hopefully also be of interest, especially to Windows users, who will have to wait another couple of months before a version of Lightroom for that platform becomes available."



This is an exciting announcement for those of you who are hardcore RAW users, but only if you're using a Mac. I find the fact that Adobe only has a Mac version rather baffling - certainly, this product is an option to Aperture from Apple, but it's in beta and the real opportunity would seem to be a pro-level tool for Windows users that can't user Aperture, not something that competes directly with it on the same platform. Any of you Mac users tried this yet? What are your thoughts?