Awesome news for Lightroom users: Adobe has just released the public beta version of Lightroom 3. You can head over to Adobe Labs’ Lightroom page and download the latest and greatest to get an idea of what’s in store for the final version. Over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to work with Adobe’s internal beta testing teams on products like Photoshop CS4 and After Effects. I can tell you Adobe is working hard to deliver a really impressive update this time around.
There is a brand new Import workflow that allows you to choose your locations quickly, preview thumbnails if you need to, add metadata and keywords and even rename files prior to import. There have also been enhancements made to capture sharpening and big changes to the quality of color noise reduction, though unfortunately the beta version doesn’t yet offer the improved Luminance reduction they’re working on. Other improvements include being able to lock in a filter combo when jumping from folder to folder, and the ability to access collections directly from the Develop module. I am currently wrapping up a 4 part series of articles introducing some of these improvements, which will be published on Peachpit.com. I’ll link them up as soon as they’re available!
