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Aug 10

Lightroom Update Finally Allows Catalog Imports, Adds FaceBook

Adobe has made available a new beta version of its Lightroom RAW photo editing software. It adds support for a lot of new cameras and old lenses, but more importantly, it squashes roughly a gazillion bugs.

RAW photo editors need to add-in support for every new camera which is released. Imagine re-jigging iTunes to play slightly different MP3 formats for every new album and you see how annoying that it. This release-candidate (RC 3.2) of Lightroom now works with the Panasonic DMC-LX5, the Samsung NX10 and Sony’s new NEX cameras, amongst others.

It also includes a lot of new lenses in its profiling section. Lightroom will adjust an image depending on what lens you used to shoot the photo, correcting for defects, color aberrations and vignetting as well as distortion. Previously, only profiles for Nikon and Canon lenses were included. Now, Pentax, Sony, Samsung and even a Phase One Schneider lens are available, along with more Nikon and Canon lenses (including some third-party models).

But best are the other tweaks. The biggest is that you can now import your old Lightroom catalogs, something that would hang if there were any duplicate pictures in that catalog (which is pretty much always). Now it works just fine, as tested by me, and now Lightroom 3 is loaded with around 12,000 images, I can confirm it is lightning-fast.

Finally, for those of you who like to give your lives away to further corporate exploitation and greed, Facebook export has been added to the Publishing Services, letting you add pictures of your cats to your account directly.

If you need any of this right now, its a free upgrade ready to download. The release candidate status usually means things are fully baked, but those more cautious photographers should wait for the final version.

Lightroom 3.2 [Adobe]

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