Why I broke down and bought Adobe Lightroom 2
As an aspiring digital photographer, one of the most frustrating facts of the current software market is the lack of good choices for digital photo management and editing. Of course there is Adobe Photoshop, but it has always seemed rather clunky to me. Not to mention that the full-featured version will cost you more than a decent camera. Then you’ve got Corel PaintShop Pro. That software is quite good for the money, although performance can sometimes be an issue. There is Picasa, as well, which for a free alternative packs quite a punch. The new face-detection features annoy the crap out of me though. For someone who deals with lots of photos and who doesn’t want to spend hours touching up one photo, what are the real, professional quality choices? For me, the answer has become Adobe Lightroom 2.
Lightroom 2 has helped my work-flow immensely since I began using it a few months ago. The learning curve is a little steep at first, but with a good book to go along with the software, much of the mystery goes away rather quickly. What Lightroom lets me do is sort through a photo set in stages, screening out the best candidates for further refinement and then handling all of the common tasks with a very coherent and intuitive interface.
In the future, I’d like to see a much better web gallery editor included in Lightroom. Other than that, I hope Adobe doesn’t try to soup it up with an of the latest fads like face-detection. Keep is simple and solid and I will be a repeat customer.
Convert multiple RAW files to JPEG using Sony Image Data Lightbox
It’s quite convenient to do bulk conversions of Sony’s RAW format images (.ARW) into .jpeg files using the Sony Image Data Lightbox software. It’s basically a four step process. Following are step-by-step instructions with screen shots to help out.
Updated driver software and utilities for Sony Alpha series DSLR cameras
100 Mind Street is transitioning to a heavier multimedia shop, and one of the important components to creating original imagery is the investment in quality digital photos like the lovely snapshot at the right. We have gone against the mold to some extent and are committed to using Sony DSLR products. There are many reasons for the choice, but that is a topic for another post.
For anyone who bought a Sony alpha-series DSLR in the past year or so, there are now updates available for most of the software that ships with the camera. Check the Sony support site to get your updated software.
- The updated RAW driver allows thumbnails of Sony RAW files (.ARW) to be displayed in the Windows shell.
- Sony’s Picture Motion Browser is now up to version 3.3. It’s a major upgrade feature-wise and performance wise from the version 2.0 that shipped with my camera.
- The Image Data tools (Image Data Lightbox and Image Data) also have major upgrades.
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