Lightroom 3 beta

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Oh boy!!!!

In the Develop module, an overhauled processing engine allows users to create the highest quality images. Improved Capture Sharpening and Color Noise Reduction tools provide superior results while still preserving an image’s edge detail and contrast. A new Grain tool adds a film-style grain to images, and two new Vignette modes help photographers get a more natural look.

Improved sharpening and NR is vital--they had really fallen behind on this, I think. The grain tool sounds cool as well! Gotta try this when I get a free moment.

I had been hoping for distortion correction, though. They are probably aware that this is the one thing Lightroom users are always heading to Photoshop to do.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

lickr users now have direct access to their accounts from within Lightroom and can drag and drop images directly into their Photostreams. Flickr Pro account users can automatically synch their images and even view comments made on Flickr directly within the Library.

Could be interesting...

 

[gavinlg]

installing now!

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Hey do me a favor would you and post a few crops that show the chroma NR and film grain? I'm not gonna have time to touch this until next week...

Oh yeah and I'm dying to know how the purple fringing correction is...LR2 is not very good at it.

 

[dcsang]

Just an important fyi for folks from a fellow photog deep in with the dev team @ Adobe:

"This is still in early stages - even earlier stages than the 2.0 beta - so there are plenty of bugs. It's not likely to blow up your computer, but you are strongly recommended not to switch your entire workflow over to the beta at this stage. It's been released for testing and feedback on the new features, and the beta period is likely to be longer than that of 2.0 beta. It won't allow you to upgrade 2.x catalogs to the beta, but the final release will."

Cheers,
Dave

 

[jwcat]

I just installed it. For someone like me with mental block against the library module in LR2, this looks to be a winner. In ten seconds it found all my pictures on the Mac and laid them out for me. I also just bought Flickr Pro and even thought this is beta, it is looking good. I will continue using LR2 as a backup though.

 

[dcsang]

I just installed it. For someone like me with mental block against the library module in LR2, this looks to be a winner. In ten seconds it found all my pictures on the Mac and laid them out for me. I also just bought Flickr Pro and even thought this is beta, it is looking good. I will continue using LR2 as a backup though.

As a fellow Mac user, this is a good sign.

Cheers,
dave

 

[gavinlg]

Yep, just played around with it for a while. The noise reduction algorithms are blowing my mind. It's refreshed my 5d for a while. ISO 3200? So clean, and heaaaaps of detail being kept. And that's just playing with the chroma noise slider, the lume slider isn't available on the beta (I never use it anyway - destroys detail).

I just went back through some old Olympus e-3 RAWs and I'd estimate nearly a stop GAIN in High ISO noise control in some conditions, just thanks to the new algorithms. Pretty damn cool.

It doesn't take lightroom 2 catalogs yet (the final release will), but I'm going to continue on using the LR3 beta as my main PP unit - so far it's so much better I don't want to go back to LR2.

 

[gavinlg]

Note: Just looking through some forums, people are complaining it's making their files "rougher" and giving examples of a LR2 PP'd file smoothened with the luminance NR cranked compared to a LR3 file with only chroma noise reduction. It seems to me adobe has tuned the NR to preserve MUCH more detail than before, whilst almost completely eliminating color splodging from high ISO files. This is exactly the style of NR I love, because I don't mind a bit of grain in files, but I dislike color noise.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Note: Just looking through some forums, people are complaining it's making their files "rougher" and giving examples of a LR2 PP'd file smoothened with the luminance NR cranked compared to a LR3 file with only chroma noise reduction. It seems to me adobe has tuned the NR to preserve MUCH more detail than before, whilst almost completely eliminating color splodging from high ISO files. This is exactly the style of NR I love, because I don't mind a bit of grain in files, but I dislike color noise.

OMG I am SO EXCITED, this is EXACTLY what I wanted. I have no problem with even very pronounced luminance noise, as long as chroma is kept in check.

My hope here is that, for color shots, it would be possible to eliminate color noise, then use the grain feature to make the luminance noise look more like, say, Pro800Z. This is especially germane to me now that I have thrown over my DSLR for micro 4/3ds, which is not as good at high ISO. Panasonic preserves detail by default, so this could be a perfect companion to my digicam system.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

OK, I made some time to try this. Check it out (sorry for the big images)--these are screenshots out of LR3. First one is an ISO 1600 crop of a kid in my son's choral concert, pushed to 3200 with an EV adjustment. Note the terrible chroma noise--it is actually very visible even when you're not looking at a crop.

And here's the same crop with the color noise slider dimed. The chroma noise is TOTALLY GONE.

And here it is sharpened and some grain added with the grain effect:

As far as I'm concerned, this thing is a magic bullet for high ISO shots. I cannot believe how good the chroma noise reduction is--I am actually very curious about what it will do for luminance noise. Personally, I find the grain effect to be very pleasing--it's even better in black and white. It's not that I want the photos to look like film per se--I am just after the kind of even grain film has, rather than that uneven smeary look you get with high-ISO digital pics.

I am really stoked!!!

 

[PatrickT]

Wow, that looks great! I'm going to have to try this when I get home...

 

[dcsang]

I'm sold.

Now I wonder if I have to upgrade my OS to get into using it once it's released on the full version.

I'm still on the original Tiger - no Leopard or Snow Leopard going on yet.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I had meant to show the sharpened image before I added the grain, but forgot. I can tell you, though, that the sharpening is also hugely improved.

 

[sojournerphoto]

Yikes, what was that shot on?

The chroma noise has cleaned up nicely, though I don't often go beyond 15 in LR2. The grain is not yet what I'd like, but it will probably print OK.

The problem with trying it is that you'll be paying the Adobe tax again before long.

Mike

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

It was shot on a Pentax K20D.

The grain has three sliders--grain (amount), size, and roughness. So you can get a variety of looks. But I'd love it if at some point they added different types of grain--shapes, patterns, etc.

As for the Adobe Tax...the college where I work gets group discounts so huge there is no point in not owning every single Adobe product. 😀

 

[snausages]

Wow, that looks pretty amazing - though it's hard to tell if the resulting textures, especially in the out of focus areas, end up looking airbrushed?

 

[gavinlg]

They don't... the results are significantly more "crispy" at high iso and even low iso than old ACR raw converters.

See:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2794/4036079868_894e98c917_o.jpg

I've linked to it because it's a large file, but that is around ISO 5000 on a 5d (3200 + half a stop) with only chroma noise reduction - no luminance or extra sharpening. Shot at f1.2

I'm really excited by this advance in processing!

 

[dof]

This is all quite exciting news. The Lightroom interface has always worked quite well for how my mind is wired. I've used it since beta version 1.0, in spite of the fact that other programs have long had the edge in terms of image processing quality. It appears that Adobe is catching up and may in ways surpass the competition with this release.

 

[Rich Sustich]

Now I wonder if I have to upgrade my OS to get into using it once it's released on the full version.

I'm still on the original Tiger - no Leopard or Snow Leopard going on yet.
________________________

Well I got four e-mails from Apple and two from my kids yesterday telling me the new iMac is out. Maybe we can get a volume discount for RFF?

Rich