Photoshop Lightroom 2.0

Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe's first attempt at a photo-management and -editing tool specifically for photographers, was a solid application when it was first released in 2007. And Lightroom 2.0, which is available now, comes with a large list of new and enhanced features. Many of the improvements are small ones that focus on usability and productivity, but they add up to real improvements that make it easier to manage photos. Adobe has also expanded Lightroom's editing functionality significantly, making it less likely that you'll need an external photo-editing program (such as Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to work on your photos.

Interface improvements

Lightroom's hallmark has been its organizational capabilities and the fact that it lets you edit your photos nondestructively (this simply means that any adjustments you make to an image do not physically alter the original; you can always return to your original photo). Lightroom 2.0 preserves those strengths; in fact, a cursory look at the update might convince someone that very little has changed. The same five modules--Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web--still anchor the program, but Adobe has reordered and refined things considerably, so you can easily get to your images, edit them, and present them for viewing on screen, in print, or on the Web.

The Library module, the heart of Lightroom, has received the most radical restructuring. Adobe has changed the panels on the left side of the screen, reducing clutter by eliminating the ones related to searching, leaving primarily the Catalog, Folders, and Collections panels (the Navigator panel remains at the top).

The Folders panel--which displays a list of drives and folders that contain your photos--has been redesigned, with LED-style indicators and information about the drive. If the LED is green, the drive (and its folders) is online and has sufficient disk space available. If it is yellow, the drive is available but is getting full, and if it is red, the drive is full. If the LED is not lit, the drive is offline. (You can still see offline images and their previews; you just can't edit them.)

The search panels--Find, Keyword Tags, and Metadata Browser--have been eliminated, and in their place is a new Library Filter bar that sits at the top of the main window. One of Lightroom's biggest new features, the Filter bar lets you quickly refine any set of images by their associated text (including file names, captions, and keywords), metadata (camera information), or image attribute (rating, label, flag). You can search for images based on any combination of the three filter categories, and you can create presets of your most common filters. It's a much more intuitive way to locate your photos, and Adobe has done a good job of keeping it simple yet unobtrusive.

In addition to the Library Filter, Adobe has added a Smart Collection feature, which lets you create albums (or collections, as Adobe terms them) based on any combination of the same set of criteria found in the Filter feature. If you've used the Smart Album feature in Apple's iPhoto or iTunes, you'll be right at home here.

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