As I predicted yesterday, Adobe officially released Lightroom 4. Not a whole lot is different from the public beta, but the big news about the release is that Adobe has slashed the price for Lightroom. The full version of the program is now $149, while the Upgrade comes in at $79. For what this program is capable of, in my opinion, that’s an absolute steal.
In my opinion, if you shoot RAW and have a lot of images, the use of a program like Lightroom or Apple’s Aperture is the best investment you can make for post-processing. Between Lightroom and Photoshop, I’d take Lightroom any day of the week. Mainly because there are free alternatives to Photoshop, such as GIMP, which, while not as fully featured as Photoshop, still allow a lot of the the finer processing type of things to be performed. There is nothing free I’ve seen that can match the RAW conversion quality, organizational capabilities or improve your workflow quite like Lightroom can. (Aperture fans, relax….I only say that because I use a PC and have not had the opportunity to use Aperture).
For users of the beta, there are a few minor updates (courtesy dpreview.com):
- Lightroom 3 (and earlier) catalogs can now be converted
- Blurb books can now contain up to 240 pages
- Reverse geocoding has been enabled in the Maps module
- Video compatible presets have been added and Develop module presets have been updated
- Auto tone settings in the Develop module have been updated
- The range of temperature and tint WB adjustments in the localized tools have been expanded
- Process Version (PV) is now an option in the copy/sync dialog
- The Clarity slider has a gentler effect on overall image brightness when moved in a positive direction
- The chromatic aberration (CA) algorithm has been adjusted
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