Adobe Lightroom version 1 was recently released. This is a new photo management software from Adobe to help advanced photographers organize their photos. I downloaded the demo to try out and to see if it is a suitable replacement for my current ACDSee Pro. It has a library which allows you to tag and search your photos. Develop section allows for non destructive editing, slideshow, print features and web for exporting photos to a website.
I will start off with my impressions on the Library. There are several view options such as the typical grid and a loupe which shows a zoomed in view of the image. I find the organization and tagging of the images to be limited as compared to ACDSee Pro. It does allow you to create categories of
images by creating collections. It does allow you to create parent and child collections. Lightroom’s collection I find is more cumbersome and harder to use then ACDSee Pro’s categories. You can tag the photos with keywords to make searching for them faster. This feature is the same as any other photo management software. I generally find ACDSee Pro browsing, searching and organizing to be easier and better. Lightroom will not archive my original Pentax raw files onto dvd for off hard drive storage and it will not tell me which dvd the image is stored on.
I find that Lightroom even though it is made by Adobe the same people that makes Photoshop does 
not play well with Photoshop. As you can see in the screenshot when you right click on a photo in raw format which is the only format I use it will only export the converted image over to Photoshop with dpi of 240. I have little control with the Raw conversion and it will not load in Photoshop’s raw conversion utility. In fact if you look closely at the screenshot it flat out says edit original is not applicable for raw or digital negative. That is an instant deal breaker. Even with ACDSee Pro when I right click on a RAW image and select edit which is same steps as Lightroom it will open PhotoShop along with Photoshop’s RAW conversion so I can work fully with the image utilizing all of Photoshop’s power.
Lightroom’s developer is nice and the best I have seen with image management software. It does non destructive editing of photos. The color correction features are very easy to use. Even a novice can use it easily. It does do dust spot removal, red eye removal, crop, noise reduction and a wide range of
color correction options. It is nowhere remotely close to being as advanced as Photoshop. There are no selections, dodge and burning and you don’t have the flexibility of layers. I rarely use a graduated ND filter so for high contrast scenes I have to make two exposures and combine them. I can’t do that with Lightroom. The Developer is nice and better than other software, however it is not good enough for me to use.
Lightroom has slideshow, print and web features. The slideshow is basic. It does allow you to add captions, music and background options. Transitions are limited and it does not allow you to burn to DVD. Print feature is very similar to Photoshop but easier to use. The web feature is very nice. It allows you to post photos to the web in either html or flash. It has several customization options and allows you to upload the gallery to your website through FTP.
In summery Lightroom does not come close to meeting my needs for an image management program. What I want in an image management program is the ability to quickly and easily catalog and search my images. I want to archive to dvd original non converted files for off hard drive storage. I want the ability to push a single button to export the original image especially raw to Photoshop. I will not tolerate any changes or format conversion during the process. I don’t care about image editing or printing because that is what Photoshop is for. I find that ACDSee Pro with a price tag of only $129 does an excellent job of filling my needs where as Lightroom currently $199 but will go up to $299 in a few months doesn’t come close to meeting my needs. I do think Lightroom does show some promise and future versions will probably be much better but version 1 is a disappointment.
