Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta .. First Impressions

[Jay Beckman]

My initial desire to download the LR4B was to take advantage of the adjustments offered for video but I finally got around to tossing a still image into the hopper so I could try it out...

Here's a T-28 straight from the camera showing the typical deep shadow inside the cowl.  Not much can be seen...


Adobe has changed some of the adjustment controls in LR4 giving you a finer handle on Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks.  There are also added handles in the Gradient Tool and Brush Tool addressing Sharpness, Noise and Moire!

Here's the settings I came up with after only about 10 minutes of tweaking:


And with no other adjustments aside from leveling and crop (and no use of Nik Viveza (my current go to tool for pulling details out of shadows)) I got this:


The Lightroom 4 Beta can be downloaded HERE and while you may need to establish an Adobe ID, it's worth it to give this new version of LR a try.  I can tell already it will be a worthwhile upgrade.

Oh, and did I mention there are adjustments for video as well!? 

[Jay Beckman]

Another Before and After pair:

Before (Crop and Straighten Only)


After

[Jay Beckman]

One more pair...

Previous Posted Edit using LR3 and CS5!


Re-Edit in LR4 Only!


Notice the amount of detail under the wings (there is a little noise penalty up close) and how much more "neutral" the Superstistions look!

[Jay Beckman]

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Version 4 is now available from adobe.com...

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

[BillOz]

B&H has Lightroom 4 on sale for $150, and upgrade for $80.

I guess I should have waited another week.

[Joe Copalman]

Pretty clever and/or sneaky on B&H's part to dump LR3 last month for almost exactly the difference between what they were planning to sell the upgrades and the stand-alones at.  Well-played, but still worthy of a shin-kick.

[F-16_fixer]

I bought LR4 this morning and downloaded it from adobe.com  Got all my LR3 stuff moved over.  Hell of an update, I can tell I'm going to like LR4 a lot.