Posted 07/30/08 at 09:18:56 AM by Mark Edward Soper

Adobe has released Lightroom 2. Lightroom enables users to view large numbers of RAW or other format photos at a time and to work with photos in groups for editing, tagging, printing, or exporting.
What's New in Lightroom 2
Lightroom 2 adds the following features to the original Lightroom, according to CNet:
- Panorama creation and merge to HDR when used on a system that also runs Photoshop CS3
- New metadata API that permits third-party applications like Flickr to work with Lightroom metadata
- Styles to create JPEG-like images from RAW files
- Dual-monitor support
- Metadata filtering to help find photos faster
- Improved image-sharpening technology licensed from PhotoKit that improves picture quality for printing
- Smart Collections uses tags to create photos by rating and tags
Additional new and enhanced features listed on the Adobe Lightroom 2 website include:
- New local adjustment brush (touch up specific areas of a photo)
- New extensible architecture through plugins
- New volume management enables you to work with high-resolution previews even when the original images are offline
- New print package support
- Enhanced nondestructive photo editing and batch processing
However, the biggest news is 64-bit Windows Vista and MacOS X support.
To learn more about Lightroom 2 and how it relates to other Adobe software, see the Lightroom FAQ page.
Cha-Ching! How Much to Buy (and Try) Lightroom 2
First-time buyers will pay $299 for Lightroom 2. Upgrading from Lightroom 1.x is $99. A free 30-day trial is also available.





