Lightroom 2 officially released

[WMBP]

Adobe has released the official version of Lightroom 2.

If you were using the public beta, you'll probably be pleased to find that a number of nifty little features have been added that you haven't seen before. And the correction brush has been improved, too.

Adobe - Photo Management Software - Photoshop Lightroom

I paid for my upgrade (US$99) and downloaded the software an hour ago and I'm now importing my old catalogs. I like Lightroom 2 very much - but I'm also eagerly waiting for Bibble Pro 5 and hope they get it out the door before I die. If we're all really lucky, both of these programs will be so good that we'll all have trouble deciding which one to use. Fortunately I own licenses to both. :-)

Will

[dkittle]

I just paid for and downloaded the update too. Unfortunately I'm at work and won't get to play with this until tonight.
I did not try out the beta - I didn't want to have to reimport my catalogs to the full release version. It'll be exciting checking out and learning all the new capabilities.

[Frogroast]

I haven't kept up with the latest on this but will look into it tonight - any chance they improved the slideshow module? Otherwise, I am a LR-lovin fool

[WMBP]

Originally Posted by dkittle

I just paid for and downloaded the update too. Unfortunately I'm at work and won't get to play with this until tonight.
I did not try out the beta - I didn't want to have to reimport my catalogs to the full release version. It'll be exciting checking out and learning all the new capabilities.

I'm at work, too, but I work at home, I'm my own boss, and this is part of what I do, so it's okay for me. I gave myself permission. ;-)

As for importing catalogs, it turns out this is quite easy. I keep all my photos on two external drives. The big - well, biggish (750 GB) - drive contains my main photo collection with photos going back years. That drive had my Lightroom 1 library/catalog file. When I started using the Lightroom 2 public beta back in the spring, I put new photos on a separate smaller drive; that's where my Lightroom 2 beta catalog was. Well, when I stalled Lightroom 2 final earlier today, I wanted to get everything on to one drive, and into one catalog. Here's how I proceeded:

1. On its first launch, I told Lightroom 2 to create a new catalog and to put it on the big drive.
2. I then went to File > Import from Catalog and followed the prompts to import my old Lightroom 1 library/catalog file. I selected the option to import the catalog without moving the files, since those files were already on the big drive and did not need to be moved. NOTE: When you do this, Lightroom does a couple steps that may initially seem slightly confusing. It has to update the Lightroom 1 catalog before it can actually read from it to import your data. I selected the "delete updated catalog after import" option since I didn't see the point of keeping the Lightroom 1 catalog around in Lightroom 2 format; figured it would just confuse me at some point.
3. After reviewing the results of this first import, I went back to File > Import from Catalog... This time, I told Lightroom 2 to import from the Lightroom 2 beta catalog on my smaller drive, the one where my newer photos were, the ones that I've edited using the beta. In this case, however, I told Lightroom that I wanted also to MOVE the files from their location on the old drive (F to the new bigger drive (J. I created a new folder on the big drive called "LR2 Beta pictures" and had all the old photos moved into that folder. This took a while as I had several thousand photos to move, but when it was done, the larger drive had ALL of my photos on it.
4. Finally, I began to use Lightroom's Library module to move folders around so that the beta-processed folders end up inside the same folder organization as the older photos. I haven't finished this process as its necessarily manual and has to be done carefully. I'm especially worried about LOSING photos if I accidentally move a folder named "20080729" on to another folder with the same name. Anyway, I hope in the end to have just one collection with everything nicely organized.

It all sounds like more trouble than it really was.

Will

[WMBP]

Originally Posted by Frogroast

I haven't kept up with the latest on this but will look into it tonight - any chance they improved the slideshow module? Otherwise, I am a LR-lovin fool

I don't use the slideshow myself but yes, there were some improvements. Scott Kelby yaks about 'em here:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Learning Center | National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP)

Click on the "Slideshow improvements" link in the list of videos on the right side of the page.

Will

[RollsUp]

Can anybody verify if LR 2 updated it's lens data? e.g. my DA 55-300 is listed as Unknown in LR 1.4.1.

[WMBP]

Originally Posted by RollsUp

Can anybody verify if LR 2 updated it's lens data? e.g. my DA 55-300 is listed as Unknown in LR 1.4.1.

The lens database remains imperfect. My Sigma 17-70 is identified as "Tamron 35-90 F4 AF or various Sigma models." I really wish this were editable so we could fix it for ourselves. There must be some sort of ID in the EXIF data that Lightroom is interpreting.

Still, this is something I can live with. If I owned a Tamron 35-90, this confusion would bother me. But I get used to it.

Will

[séamuis]

now that lightroom supports plugins I just might upgrade to 2. ive been using the beta and enjoying it more than 1.4 but the one thing that was keeping me from upgrading upon 2's release was this support. I use the Exposure2 plugin for black and white conversion of my digital photos (as well as some colour conversion) as to match the black & white film I use. however I have been previously tethered to photoshop for this. I wonder if the PS plugins work in lightroom, so I can just install it now or if I have to wait for Alien Skin software to release it for lightroom? either way as soon as I know Exposure2 is lightroom ready and capable I will be uninstalling photoshop and upgrading to 2.