Its official, Adobe Lightroom 4 is out of beta testing and now on retail shelves. The program has gotten some major upgrades to compete with Apple's Appeture 3. The best part of all is that adobe has cut the price from $299 to $149, which I believe is in response to Apples pricing of Appeture 3 on the Mac Apps Store for $79.99. I am glad that their is finally some competition out their for photography programs because it just means better offers to us as consumers. With this type of competition it has lowered the cost for amateur photographers to begin entry into the post editing world. Hip Hip, Hooray!
Some of the improvements in 4 include improved RAW processing which allows the maximum detail in shadow and highlight areas. You can also adjust color, tone, and contrast. This can easily make beautiful black-and-white conversions which I am a big fan of. Another new option that I have become addicted to is clarirty.
Clarity is a slider that allows you to go from a extra gritty edge to the soft billowy edge used alot for portraits. I can't get enough!
Adobe has also added some features that copy directly from Appeture 3. There is a new map interface that allows you to tag all of photos with GPS data. They have also integrated Lightroom to directly connect to your Facebook and Flickr accounts for easy uploading and photo managing. Last but not least, Adobe has included a new Book creation module. This modules utilizes a variety or templates that allow you to either save you book as a pdf or upload directly to Blurb for printing.
I have to say I am really impressed with Lightroom 4 and am officially hooked. Way to go, Adobe!
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