Anything new and worthwhile in LR 3?

[JoeThePhotographer]

I am playing around with LR 3, and I honestly don't see a strong motivation to upgrade, unless Adobe pulls a sneaky punch and stops supporting new cameras in LR2.

One obvious area they could have improved is the import window; but it seems all they did there was window dressing.  There is still no way to verify RAW files, import videos or avoid inconsistent folder structures as between the primary location and the back up.

[pburwell]

Adobe is guaranteed to stop supporting new cameras in LR 2 once LR 3 is released.  You can take that to the bank.

I agree that there are no compelling reasons, so far, to upgrade to LR 3.

[peterkrogh]

Joe,
Camera support will stop progressing after -  likely, one more release - LR 3 is released. That's how they do it. You can add new camera support to older software by DNG conversion.

My own expectation is that the processing features - quality, as well as a few cool new features not yet visible - will be the best reason to upgrade. Hopefully, stability with large collections (a pretty invisible improvement, unless you happen to have that problem) will also be a compelling upgrade for those who want to use Lightroom as their top-level collection manager.

Peter

[WaltSorensen]

I've tested the beta. The better processing for color noise reduction, Sharpening, and vignettes are more then worth upgrading. Still missing many requested features, but a good upgrade to the underlying processing engine. You also can see noise reduction without zooming to 1:1.

The new slideshow export to video is a nice thought but needs a lot of work, my tests resulted in corrupted video when a sound file was added, but was clean a beautiful without the music file.

[Mike Guilbault]

I use the slideshow feature extensively for presenting images to clients - so that improvement alone is worth the upgrade to me.  The increased speed more than welcome and the option to backup at the END of the session just makes more sense.  I'll definitely be upgrading when released.

[Photo_op]

If you find the items below minor, then I would suggest there's not much reason to consider an upgrade. Maybe there'll be something like soft proofing in the final release that might be appealing.


Publish Collections

Image Quality

Sharpening and Noise Reduction
In the Develop module we’ve focused on tuning our raw processing algorithms to extract incredible detail and quality from your images. Capture sharpening and Color Noise Reduction improvements work together to give you incredible noise reduction results without losing that fine detail. We’re only halfway through our noise reduction efforts but believe that you will be very pleased with the results so far. We’ve actually disabled the previous Luminance Noise Reduction so that you can focus on evaluating the Color Noise reduction implementation.

Grain
While Lightroom’s improved noise reduction will give you incredibly smooth images, sometimes you want a little texture or grain in your images. We’ve added a grain tool that can add a natural film-style grain to your images to get that perfect look for your photo.

Vignette
The Lightroom team received quite a bit of feedback on our post-crop vignette tool in Lightroom 2 that allows photographers to apply beautifully styled vignettes after cropping is applied. While the tool was received quite well, we found that photographers wanted a more natural vignette that utilized an exposure or brightness effect rather than just painting black and white on the edges of images. We’ve added two vignette modes in Lightroom 3 beta, Color Priority and Highlight Priority that attempt to provide the natural vignette that photographers have requested.

Process Version
The changes above are so significant that for the first time since the Camera Raw plug-in was introduced in 2003, we’ve needed to add the concept of a process version. In Lightroom 3, the demosaicing, noise reduction, sharpening, and post crop vignette were all updated.

Custom Print Package
Lightroom 3 adds a new custom layout option for photographers who need complete control over their print layouts. Add as many different images in whatever configuration you desire on a single or multiple pages.

Watermarking
Lightroom 3's new watermarking function lets you embed your identity or other information in your images themselves. You can apply text or graphic watermarks to a photograph with adjustable size, position, and opacity. Available in the Print and Web modules as well as the Export dialog, your identity can now travel with all of your images.

[johnbeardy]

Good list, Dave (?). I'd particularly point to watermarking as a reason for upgrading - I've been whining about it since v1.

Publish too. Don't think of it in terms of "merely" publishing to Flickr. The web publishing architecture allows publishing to a range of online services which might be hosting or printing services (prints, books). It also has a Publish to Hard Drive which I think will be a slow burner. I've seen uses of it for backup, providing images for book services like InDesign or Blurb, populating folders for screensavers/iPhone, DVD authoring.

John

[Photo_op]

Good list, Dave (?).

John

Straight from the posting by Tom.

Dave(!)

[johnbeardy]

Phew - glad I didn't stick the boot in!

John