Lightroom 4 Public Beta Available

January 10, 2012 by Joe | Comments Off

Having used Lightroom since its initial release 6 years ago, I’m excited about the announcement and availability of each new version. Today Adobe announced the availability of Lightroom 4 Public Beta. This version introduces two new modules – Book and Map – and adds major new functionality to the existing modules.

New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta (from the Adobe Labs site):

  • Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
  • Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
  • Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
  • White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
  • Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
  • Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
  • Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr®.
  • Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
  • Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta can be downloaded from the Adobe Labs website.

Tom Hogarty’s Lightroom Journal has a complete description of new features, system requirements and known issues, and a very comprehensive list of Lightroom 4 resources.

Michael Reichmann has a streaming video describing the new features on his Luminous Landscape site.

The new soft proofing feature is one of the most exciting and highly anticipated additions to Lightroom. Andrew Rodney, The Digital Dog, has a very compelling video on his website describing this feature.

Ian Lyons has an illustrated preview of Lightroom 4 on his site with links to other sites that describe the new release.

Scott Kelby’s NAPP Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Launch Center is up and operational.

Then there’s Adobe TV, where Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost walks you through new features, workflows and enhancements in the latest release of Lightroom 4 beta.

In the coming days, many more descriptions, tutorials and reviews will appear on the Web. Stay tuned. And I would be remiss in not including the following caveats from Adobe:

This download will install Lightroom 4 beta and will work independently alongside your installation of Lightroom 1 or higher. The beta version is intended to provide an opportunity to give feedback and as such, does not read, upgrade or import catalogs from previous versions of Lightroom. If you currently own Lightroom, please continue to use Lightroom 1 or higher for your primary workflow needs.

When you install Lightroom 4 beta, the software will remain active through March 2012. Once the final version of Lightroom 4 is available, please follow the new installation instructions.

Note: This is a public beta, not a final product. Neither the quality nor the features are complete yet. We want to show you our direction and get your feedback so that we can incorporate it into future releases. This public beta release does not include all of the features that will be part of Lightroom 4, but instead gives you a preview of some of the new features.

Posted in Featured, Lightroom, Photography Tagged , , |

Nikon D4, the new Prince of Darkness

January 7, 2012 by Joe | Comments Off

Specifications:

  • 16.2 effective megapixel, full-frame sensor
  • 10fps shooting with AF and AE, 11fps with focus and exposure locked, 24fps 2.5MP grabs
  • 91,000 pixel sensor for metering, white balance, flash exposure, face detection and active d-lighting
  • ISO Range 100-12,800 (extendable from 50 – 204,800)
  • MultiCAM 3500FX Autofocus sensor works in lower light and with smaller apertures
  • Two sub-selector joystick/buttons for shooting orientation
  • 1080p30 HD video at up to 24Mbps with uncompressed video output
  • New EN-EL18 battery (21.6Wh capacity, CIPA-rated at 2600 shots)
  • Twin card slots – one Compact Flash and one XQD

See Shooting the D4! on Joe McNally’s blog and Thom Hogan’s article on the D4 introduction.

Posted in Photography Tagged , |

Steve Jobs – He changed our lives. We will miss him.

October 6, 2011 by Joe | Comments Off


When Devin called, I knew instantly that he was sad. After the introductory, “Hey Granddad”, he said, “Steve Jobs died”, wiping a tear from his eye. I knew that because he had called me using FaceTime from his iPod. I said, “Yeah, I heard. Steve Jobs was one of my heroes.” “Mine, too”, he said. Devin is 9 years old, by the way, and has been exposed to Apple’s technology since he was old enough to reach a keyboard. His Mom, our daughter Angela, started using an Apple II in elementary school, both at home and in class. And so did our son Michael, neither realizing how miraculous that was to me, a young electrical engineer at the time. Continue reading »

Posted in Apple Tagged , , , |

Adding EXIF with Adobe® Lightroom® 3 and LR/Mogrify 2

July 5, 2011 by Joe | Comments Off

About two years ago, I wrote a tutorial on the use of Adobe Lightroom 2 and Timothy Armes’ LR2/Mogrify plug-in to add EXIF information to an image processed for the Web. Since that tutorial was written, Lightroom has been updated to Lightroom 3 and LR2/Mogrify has been updated to LR/Mogrify 2.

This tutorial is an update, providing complete illustrated instructions for using Lightroom 3 and LR/Mogrify 2 to add EXIF data to an image processed for the Web. LR/Mogrify 2 works on both PCs and Macs, but on a PC, you must install ImageMagick first. These instructions are written from the perspective of a Mac user, but the PC process is almost identical. For those who would prefer to use Adobe Photoshop to perform this function, the PrintEXIF and FrameShop scripts, available free on this website, are good alternatives. Continue reading »

Posted in Lightroom Tagged , , , , , |

Happy Independence Day!

July 4, 2011 by Joe | Comments Off

As we celebrate the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, be reminded of the second sentence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Enjoy the day! Eat a brat, drink a beer (or three), and watch a fireworks display, all in the pursuit of happiness of course.

Posted in Other Tagged , |