Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta




Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta is available for download here. You should also watch the three tutorial videos at AdobeTV while you are finding your way through the new version. This is a Beta version for testing, and not the official release. At first glance there doesn't look as though much has changed, but when you start to poke around, you can see that there's quite a lot of new features.

The Library Module: As soon as you click the import button you will see a full new section that can be set to full screen mode for initial set-up and then reduced to a thin bar for day to day imports. A great new feature here is the ability to save import settings as snapshots. Unfortunately the import page keeps causing Lightroom to freeze all the time (it is Beta). Another great new feature in the Library Module is the ability to upload directly from Lightroom to Flickr.

The Develop Module: The big changes here are in the sharpening and noise reduction. There is a new Effects panel that revamps the way that post crop vignetting is applied. The Grain slider is a very welcome feature too.
As I've only downloaded L3 Beta today, I haven't had time to go through the full application, but I like what I've seen so far.