News

Lightroom 4 Beta Is Here!

Big news today! Lightroom 4 Beta is here! As you know, ever since Lightroom first came out, Adobe has been releasing each version in a public beta before the full version ships. I’ve been fortunate enough to kick the tires on it for some time now so, along with Scott Kelby, we’ve created NAPP’s Lightroom 4 Beta Launch Center with videos covering all the new features. It’s live already so feel free to jump over and check it out and please let me know what you think by leaving a comment here.

Also, I’ll be doing some free live webcasts all day today over at the Kelby Training studios and I’m thrilled to be joined by Adobe’s Lightroom Product Manager, Tom Hogarty. We’ll of course demo all the new features, but we’ll also leave time for some live Q&A so you can get all of your questions answered. Not to mention it’s a great opportunity to see if we can do our best to make Tom squirm and release some deep dark Lightroom secrets 😉 Seriously though, we have THE actual Lightroom Product Manager from Adobe here on launch day so you don’t want to miss this. We’ll be running them live at 10am, 12pm, 2pm, and 4pm EST. So feel free to jump in to one (they’re free!).

Keep an eye out on my Google+, Twitter and Facebook pages and follow me there for random updates throughout the day. I’ve got some new presets that I’ll add so that’s a good place to find out when they’re released.

Don’t forget to check out my good friend Terry White’s blog for more Lightroom 4 Beta info as well and I’ll of course be updating the blog regularity with new stuff as it develops.

Share:

5 comments

  1. ED 16 January, 2012 at 18:51 Reply

    Matt

    Have to say I’m a little underwhelmed at the new LR4, but looking forward to some of the improvements you mentioned. As a former heavy Aperture user I find most of the improvements to only be getting caught up to what Aperture 3 users have been enjoying for the last 2 years.

    I think the improvements to the ACR engine are awesome and everyone will love that as I still consider that to be a main reason for considering Lightroom. Nothing really beats that develop module from what I have seen. I also like the adjustment brush enhancements and have to say the ability to selectively apply the much improved noise filter is worth the price of admission alone as thatÂ’s a huge time saver from having to go into CS5, Reduce noise, then apply a mask-that is awesome.

    Lightroom has always been very strong in printing and glad to see continued improvements on that front.

    Video, Email, Maps and Books only now gets the power Lightroom user to some level of what Aperture has made available. One thing I am glad to see is that books can be exported to PDF as thatÂ’s the one thing I loved about Aperture3 was the ability to tap into some awesome publishing templates and then export to a PDF..very powerful in presenting your work.

    I, for one am tired of having to import my images either back into Aperture or Imovie for mixed multimedia presentations. I’m really disappointed that they have not improved their slideshow engine to be able to be more dynamic, and flexible and be able to custom edit video and images intertwined within the presentation, but with the small video clipping capability it seems that maybe they will join the 21st century in providing some modern slideshow tools, but in my view it still is a glaring weakness in Lightroom. I mean if I get Ken Burns in Aperture shouldnÂ’t I at least be able to get Ron Howard with Adobe?

    Many thanks as always to you and Scott for your tireless effort in educating the community.

  2. Sebastian 10 January, 2012 at 11:58 Reply

    Hi Matt. I purchased Lightroom 3 just 2 months ago. Do you think Adobe will accomodate their users so they will be able to upgrade (free or at very low cost) to Lightroom 4 when it becomes retail?

    • Matt Kloskowski 13 January, 2012 at 10:07 Reply

      Hey Sebastian,
      Probably not. You can always call them and ask though. It’s worth a try. Generally they seem to stick to the industry standard of 30 days from the announcement. Like I said, give it a try though. You never know. Good luck!

  3. John 10 January, 2012 at 03:52 Reply

    Looks good. Take it we can’t actually order the books yet? Can you ask him about international delivery times and pricing? Best wishes to all. Any publishing changes? Flickr? Google+?

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *