After months of suspense, Tuesday morning Adobe announced that Lightroom 3 is available! The retail price is $299; however, if you homeschool, go to this page and scroll down to where it says Home Schooling to find out how to prove your eligibility for an education discount. With the discount, it’s only $89!!! (I have a Lightroom ad link at the top of my blog)
If you want to get up to speed in a hurry with Lightroom 3, go visit NAPP’s public Lightroom 3 Learning Center.
I’ve been working with Adobe’s PR company since March of last year. On Tuesday I had an email from my contact there telling me that I had a profile live on Adobe’s Customer Showcase (link updated in 2012 to this page, just click over to page 2 under Customer Successes). It’s a surreal feeling to see my name, photos, and a link to my blog on Adobe’s website. If Adobe thinks I’m a success story, I can do anything, right? 😉
My weekend has been devoted to Zack Arias’s Creative Live class on studio photography. He is an amazing instructor (and human being, for that matter) and has increased my comfort level with studio photography in a mighty way so far. If you watch the course live this weekend, it’s free! It will run again on Sunday from 1-9 EST.
One of the main things I’ve learned today is that I could rule the world with a Westcott 7′ Octabank softbox. 🙂
{Disclosure: Adobe and Westcott product links are affiliate links.}
sell it to me, dawn. why do i need lightroom if i have photoshop? i used a free temporary download of lightroom last year, and while i found it easier to use than photoshop, i didn’t see why it was necessary to have both.
Melissa, Lightroom is not only easier for me to use when editing my photos—I do 95% of my editing there—but it also simplifies the process of using the photos when I’m finished. I use Lightroom to Flickr and Facebook export plugins, which simplify uploading photos there, plus I have all kinds of extra exports created, whether it’s for email, yearbook photos, my aunt’s Etsy shop, whatever. I can create export options for whatever size and quality settings I need.
In editing, I couldn’t do without the adjustment brush now, especially with the auto mask feature. In LR3 you also have a tone curve that operates more like the one in Photoshop.
I can make duotones by clicking one button and dragging two sliders, and easily remove noise or add grain.
There are lots of new things to love in the upgrade, too, like the Quick Develop panel in the Library module. A lot of time I just want to tweak exposure and add a little contrast and vibrance, and I can do it now without even going into Develop.
I love printing from Lightroom. I also like to sit down at the end of a day when I’ve taken lots of photos, gather the family around the computer, and run them as a slideshow (with or without music).
Okay, I’m going to stop before I start sounding like a commercial… 😉
Dawn, so would you recommend this over PS Elements? I’m in the market for buying photo editing software and was on the verge of buying Elements, until I read this. I’d love your opinion! Thanks!