Adobe Photoshop Lightroom due in Feb.

Adobe on Monday announced that Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 software is now available for pre-order from its website and is expected to ship in mid-February 2007. Photoshop Lightroom enables professional photographers to import, manage and present large volumes of digital photographs, helping photographers spend more time behind the lens and less time at the computer. The company also announced that more than 500,000 photographers participated in the public beta program over the last 12 months, officially ending the beta program. Users of Lightroom beta will have access to the program until its expiration on February 28, 2007. Adobe also announced that it is offering Photoshop Lightroom at a special introductory price of $200 through April 30, 2007 (from its online Web store only). Photoshop Lightroom will later sell for an estimated street price of $300. The software requires Mac OS X 10.4.3 and a 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a Universal Binary application that will run natively on both PowerPC- and new Intel-based Macs.

"It's an unlikely scenario that professional photographers would moonlight as software developers," said John Loiacono, senior vice president, Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. "Fortunately for us, they were willing to give it a shot. Everything, from image viewing and evaluation tools to timesaving editing features, was developed with the help of photographers. This was truly a collaborative effort and we extend our thanks to everyone who provided invaluable feedback to help us deliver a powerhouse professional photography tool."

Lightroom Feature Advancements

The final Photoshop Lightroom release includes new functionality added since beta 4.1, including significant changes to the Library and Develop modules as well as improvements to the Slideshow, Print and Web components. The company said that it also added new advanced keywording tools in the Library module to help photographers filter through large collections as well as an improved import dialogue with more flexible file handling. In addition, Adobe said the software features a new Key Metadata Browser that provides quick access to key information tags with an improved ranking and rating system that now incorporates color labels and a pick/reject system that sorts and locates photographs faster than ever.

The new Develop module brings improvements to the Virtual Copies and Snapshot tools that help present multiple versions of the same image. Also added were tools for Hue, Saturation and Luminance targeted adjustment for precise and more intuitive image edits. The final release is also set to include Clone and Healing features that provide non-destructive edits to eliminate sensor dust across one or many images, according to the company.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom will ship in mid-February 2007 and is now available for pre-order in the United States and Canada through the Adobe Store for a special introductory price of $200.

"The $100 discount is offered to all customers through April 30, 2007 in appreciation of loyal Photoshop users, early supporters of Photoshop Lightroom and beta participants who devoted time, energy and feedback throughout the process."

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