empty trash
I was excited to dive into Adobe Lightroom when I picked up my XTi since iPhoto had yet to support my camera’s RAW file types. The excursion through professional-like territory was exciting, even though the greatest amount of editing I ever did with files was the occasional exposure adjustment just to see what was possible.
Then Lightroom was rebranded. Adobe© Photoshop© Lightroom™. Photoshop? Before we know it, the entire suite will be called Adobe© Photoshop © Creative Suite™. Lame. But not enough that I would walk away disgusted with this background knowledge.
Then, I realized that Lightroom is a beta and that it expires in early 2007. Then, iPhoto announced support for my camera and other latest releases. I start to feel a conflict of interest surfacing.
And today, I am dropping Lightroom from my hard drive. I simply don’t use it apart from organizing photos - why relocate RAW files to another program when I could just as easily implement them into a grand photo collection that iPhoto fluidly manages?
I’m somewhat disappointed that Lightroom wasn’t more effective for me and somewhat disappointed that I didn’t make any more use of it. However, the integration of files is important to me, more so than having another third-party application taking space on my machine. I am also against filling up computers with third-party applications unless they are regularly used. Maybe I have a healthy relationship with the delete button.
Rest In Peace, Adobe© Photoshop© Lightroom™ Photoshop© Photoshop©©™™.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:57 am
I’ve had the same conflict of interest for some time now. On the other hand, I like what Aperture has to offer, but I think its heavy RAM requirements and co$t are what’s drawing me back.
November 27th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
I couldn’t try Aperture since my last-gen iBook and Power Mac are both G4-based. Nik recommended Lightroom and I’ve been using it since beta 3. I think we have a complementary pair of experiences— I’ve never used iPhoto because it hasn’t supported Camera Raw and doesn’t offer the image manipulation/fine-tuning that I’m used to from analog darkroom processes.
In any case, I’m glad iPhoto fufills your needs. I would rather use an internal Apple program that doesn’t cost much and integrates nicely with OS X, versus a specialized third party solution to a niche problem. Maybe I’ll give it another chance— if it’s as facile as Lightroom is at so-called ‘professional’ editing, it might work for me.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:05 am
Armen - I was highly recommended to try the Aperture trial when 1.5 came out. While the downloaded disk image sat on my desktop for over a week, I never actually touched it. Perhaps, you should give it a whirl?
Chase - iPhoto has supported RAW since January of this year (if not January of last year, but I think 6.0 was the first RAW-compatible version). But, yeah, it doesn’t allow much in terms of specific adjustments. For me, the organizational aspect is key, and I never post-process a photo unless I am getting it printed - very, very infrequently. Hopefully, Lightroom will be light on the wallet and enough customer hisses will be heard to drop the Photoshop tripe.