Author: Tom Hogarty

The Camera Raw 5.4 Release Candidate is now available on Adobe Labs. The release includes new camera support for the following models:

* Canon EOS 500D (EOS Rebel T1i)
* Epson R-D1x
* Hasselblad CF-22
* Hasselblad CF-22MS
* Hasselblad CF-39
* Hasselblad CF-39MS
* Hasselblad CFH-22
* Hasselblad CFH-39
* Hasselblad CFV503
* Hasselblad CWD
* Hasselblad H2D-22
* Hasselblad H2D-39
* Hasselblad H3D-22
* Hasselblad H3D-31
* Hasselblad H3D-39
* Hasselblad H3DII-22
* Hasselblad H3DII-31
* Hasselblad H3DII-39
* Hasselblad H3DII-39MS
* Hasselblad H3DII-50
* Kodak EasyShare Z980
* Nikon D5000
* Olympus E-450
* Olympus E-620
* Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1
* Sigma DP2

This release also includes new DNG Compatibility conversion options. These choices are explained on the Adobe Labs web site and help address the additional options available with an upcoming revision of the DNG Specification.

If you have feedback on this release please post a descriptive topic on the Adobe User to User forums.

A Lightroom 2.4 Release Candidate is not currently available.

Lightroom 2.3 and Camera Raw 5.3 have graduated from Adobe Labs and are now available as final releases on Adobe.com.(UPDATE:  Use this link to download the new language versions of Lightroom ) These updates include camera support for the following models:(Previously provided in the release candidates of these updates)

• Nikon D3X
• Olympus E-30

This update also includes preliminary support for the recently announced Epson R-D1x (and R-D1xG).

The Lightroom 2.3 update includes several bug fixes.

FIXES originally provided in the Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidate

• In the Windows 64-bit version of Lightroom an sFTP upload process could cause Lightroom to crash.
• Slideshows could return to the first image randomly during playback.
• A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments.
• Canon EOS 5D Mk II sRAW files could process with artifacts in Lightroom 2.2.
• Lightroom 2.2 could cause disc burning to fail for Windows customers.

FIXES new to the final version of Lightroom 2.3

• Attempting to undo(CTRL-Z) a single step in Lightroom 2.2 on Windows could cause a series of previous actions to be undone.  

Lightroom 2.3 now provides language support for the following additional languages:
(UPDATE:  Use this link to download the new language versions It indicates a trial version but it’s identical to what we’re now shipping from the Adobe.com Store for this new version. Since technically these versions didn’t exist before there was no place to put them on the Update page.)

• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Dutch
• Italian
• Korean
• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Spanish
• Swedish

I’d like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the release candidates of Camera Raw 5.3 and Lightroom 2.3 that were posted to Adobe Labs.

For those working with the new language versions of Lightroom, if you would like to switch languages just follow these instructions:

Windows

• In Lightroom, visit Edit –> Preferences and click on the General tab
• Select the desired language from the dropdown
• Restart Lightroom

Macintosh
Lightroom follows the operating system language preference.  To change it:

• Visit the Mac OS X System Preferences and select International
• Select the desired language in the list and drag it to the top of the list
• Restart Lightroom

Thanks again for everyone’s feedback on our new updates.

Lightroom 2.2 is now available on Adobe.com. (Mac, Win)  The release includes new camera support for the following models:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon PowerShot G10
• Panasonic DMC-G1**
• Panasonic DMC-FX150**
• Panasonic DMC-FZ28**
• Panasonic DMC-LX3**
• Leica D-LUX 4**

We’ve also fixed a few bugs that were introduced with the Lightroom 2.0 release:

Lightroom 2 Bugs – Fixed

• Images rendered from the Slideshow export process produced a jagged effect on hard edges relative to the quality of normal JPEG export
• Increased the number of characters allowed in Web gallery labels beyond 150 characters
• Catalogs with hundreds of root (top level) folders caused very slow launch times
• Drag and drop to move a subfolder to a different folder showed the incorrect photos in the grid
• Print Sharpening produced edge artifacts in certain conditions
• Density defaulted to 100 percent for initial stroke regardless of position of slider
• The  Adjustment brush created blocky, straight edges to brush strokes under certain conditions
• Lightroom could become unresponsive when using the graduated filter under certain conditions
• It was possible to lose the ability to edit an adjustment brush setting after applying a graduated filter with hidden pins
• Turning auto-mask on produced a lag in Lightroom performance in when applying the adjustment brush
• Print to JPEG functionality produced a low resolution image when printing photos with panorama aspect ratios
• Extended characters in a folder name caused Edit in Photoshop functionality to fail
• Smart collection did not respond to changes in custom metadata

Lightroom 2 Enhancements

• Camera profiles are now available in the Calibration panel in the Develop module.  These profiles are designed to provide different interpretations of raw capture.

**With the release of Camera Raw 5.2 (and upcoming Lightroom 2.2 release) there is an important exception in our DNG file handling for the Panasonic DMC LX3, Panasonic DMC FX150, Panasonic DMC FZ28, Panasonic DMC-G1 and Leica D-LUX 4. In this release the native, proprietary files from these cameras can only be converted to linear DNG files. A linear DNG file has gone through a demosaic process that converts a single mosaic layer of red, green and blue channel information into three distinct layers , one for each channel. The resulting linear DNG file is approximately three times the size of a mosaic DNG file or the original proprietary file format.

This exception is a temporary solution to ensure that Panasonic and Leica’s intended image rendering from their proprietary raw file format is applied to an image when converted DNG files are viewed in third party software titles. The same image rendering process is applied automatically in Camera Raw 5.2 and in Lightroom 2.2 when viewing the original proprietary raw file format.

In a future release Adobe plans to update the DNG specification to include an option to embed metadata-based representations of the lens compensations in the DNG file, allowing a mosaic DNG conversion. In the interim Adobe recommends only converting these files to DNG to allow compatibility with third party raw converters, previous versions of the Camera Raw plug-in or previous versions of Lightroom.

The Camera Raw 5.2 and DNG Converter 5.2 are now available on Adobe.com.(For Photoshop CS4 customers I recommend choosing the ‘Updates…’ option from the Help menu)  This release includes additional features and new camera support.  Lightroom will be updated to version 2.2 in December to provide the equivalent camera support.

New in this release:

• Targeted Adjustment Tool for on image adjustments
• Output sharpening for print or screen output
• Snapshots for saving all settings in a single reference
• Camera Profiles for enhanced raw file interpretation now available in the Calibration panel

Newly supported camera models:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon PowerShot G10
• Panasonic DMC-G1**
• Panasonic DMC-FX150**
• Panasonic DMC-FZ28**
• Panasonic DMC-LX3**
• Leica D-LUX 4**

**With the release of Camera Raw 5.2 (and upcoming Lightroom 2.2 release) there is an important exception in our DNG file handling for the Panasonic DMC LX3, Panasonic DMC FX150, Panasonic DMC FZ28, Panasonic DMC-G1 and Leica D-LUX 4. In this release the native, proprietary files from these cameras can only be converted to linear DNG files. A linear DNG file has gone through a demosaic process that converts a single mosaic layer of red, green and blue channel information into three distinct layers , one for each channel. The resulting linear DNG file is approximately three times the size of a mosaic DNG file or the original proprietary file format.

This exception is a temporary solution to ensure that Panasonic and Leica’s intended image rendering from their proprietary raw file format is applied to an image when converted DNG files are viewed in third party software titles. The same image rendering process is applied automatically in Camera Raw 5.2 and in Lightroon 2.2 when viewing the original proprietary raw file format.

In a future release Adobe plans to update the DNG specification to include an option to embed metadata-based representations of the lens compensations in the DNG file, allowing a mosaic DNG conversion. In the interim Adobe recommends only converting these files to DNG to allow compatibility with third party raw converters, previous versions of the Camera Raw plug-in or previous versions of Lightroom.

Last year John was kind enough to post an entry on his blog about how Aperture and Lightroom were faring in the pro community. The results as published by InfoTrends, an independent research firm, were conclusive in that Lightroom was the application of choice for pro photographers.(after Photoshop of course)   InfoTrends has repeated the survey and the results are even more telling.  Here are the results for both 2007 and 2008.

Question:  What camera raw conversion software does your company use? Please check all that apply.

	2007	2008
Photoshop Camera Raw Plug-in	66.5%	62.2%
Lightroom	23.6%	35.9%
Aperture	5.5%	7.5%
On the Mac Platform Only
Lightroom	26.6%	40.4%
Aperture	14.3%	14.6%

Even when we remove the Windows responses from the survey, it’s clear that Lightroom is preferred by a large margin over Aperture.

Ultimately numbers are just numbers so please draw your own conclusion but from my perspective, the professional community has already decided that products from the Photoshop family remain their tools of choice.

Footnotes: 

• This research is not available free of charge so we needed InfoTrend’s permission to share a small portion of the results. 
• The survey was conducted in North America in June & July of 2008, prior to the release of Lightroom 2. 
• One question that should immediately spring to mind is how did the Mac only usage stay static while Aperture’s overall usage increased?  There was an increase in the number of respondents who are using the Mac platform relative to 2007 so even though the percentage of those using Aperture on the Mac remained constant, the rise in Mac usage overall brought up the total number of Aperture users in the market.

Lightroom 2.1 (Mac, Win), Camera Raw 5.1 (Mac, Win) and the DNG Converter 5.1 are now available on Adobe.com.  Both releases include new camera support for the following models:

Canon EOS 1000D (Digital Rebel XS/EOS Kiss F) Canon EOS 50D Fuji FinePix IS Pro Kodak EasyShare Z1015 IS Leaf AFi II 6 Leaf AFi II 7 Leaf Aptus II 6 Leaf Aptus II 7

Nikon D700 Nikon D90 Nikon Coolpix P6000 Olympus SP-565 UZ Pentax K2000 (K-m) Sigma DP1 Sony A900

Lightroom 2.1 also includes a number of fixes for issues that were introduced with the Lightroom 2.0 release. The details of those fixes are listed in the Read Me file associated with the update.  I’d like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the release candidate of Lightroom 2.1 that was posted to Adobe Labs.

The beta versions of the Camera Profiles and DNG Profile Editor on Adobe Labs have also both been updated.  The Profile update includes additional profiles and incremental improvements to the previous beta profiles.  The DNG Profile Editor update includes minor enhancements.

The 5th major iteration of the Camera Raw plug-in is now shipping as part of Photoshop CS4.  Camera Raw 5 has a number of new features:

• Local adjustment brush
• Graduated Filter
• “Post Crop” Vignetting
• Opacity for the cloning/healing tool
• Improved Auto Adjustment
• Support for the new Camera Profiles that are still in beta form

The Camera Raw code is the ‘engine’ that drives the non-destructive adjustments in Lightroom’s Develop module so you’ll see that the two products are now aligned in terms of image adjustment capabilities. 

Camera Raw 5.0 is installed automatically with Photoshop CS4 so there’s no update process beyond installing Photoshop.  One important note is that the new camera support added in the last Camera Raw update for CS3 is not currently available in Camera Raw 5.0.  We’ll be providing a Camera Raw 5.1 update next week that will include additional camera support. 

Camera Raw 4.6 and the DNG Converter 4.6 has been posted to Adobe.com for Mac and Windows. This will be the last Camera Raw update for CS3 customers and it includes support for raw formats from the following 15 camera models:

• Canon 1000D (Digital Rebel XS/EOS Kiss F)

• Canon 50D

• Fuji FinePix IS Pro

• Kodak EasyShare Kodak Z1015 IS

• Leaf AFi II 6

• Leaf AFi II 7

• Leaf Aptus II 6

• Leaf Aptus II 7

• Nikon D700

• Nikon D90

• Nikon Coolpix P6000

• Olympus SP-565 UZ

• Pentax K2000 (K-m)

• Sigma DP1

• Sony A900

You won’t find this update listed on our traditional camera raw page as we are moving quickly towards updates specific to the Camera Raw 5 and the CS4 release. For our Lightroom customers, similar camera support can also be found in Lightroom 2.1 currently available on Adobe Labs as a Release Candidate.