What's in the Lightroom

| January 09, 2006, 12:25 PM

Today Adobe announced new product Lightroom, which cranks up the pressure on Apple's Aperture and stakes out Adobe's space around photo editing and production.

Right now, a Mac OS X beta is available. Adobe also plans a Windows version. I wouldn't infer anything from the betas being out of synch. Adobe recently released Photoshop Elements 4 for Windows, ahead of the update for the Mac. The company doesn't always develop Mac and Windows products exactly in synch, although it is my understanding that Lightroom will be available for both platforms around the same time.

By the way, the beta's availablity reflects some of the benefits Adobe derived from the Macromedia acquisition. Adobe is using beta infrastructure that Macromedia had in place.

To be clear, Adobe is not following Apple, even though Lightroom and Aperture bear some similarities with respect to approach and target market. Vendors don't just create software overnight. Adobe clearly has been working on Lightroom for sometime.

The approach is the right one: Providing a more streamlined set of tools for photographers, particularly for down-and-dirty editing and managing workflows. Timing is right. Falling digital SLR prices are opening up a new market of amateur and professional photographers with existing lenses.

I had a chance to start using the Mac beta last week. The interface is streamlined, much more so than Adobe Photoshop. Yet, the software clearly inherits from its sibling. Aperture, by the way, is a first-generation product, while Lightroom comes from a long heritage. I expect Lightroom to appeal to photographers, some of which may have used Photoshop. No question, Photoshop is a great photo-editing product, but its toolset and production orientation is more publishing. Lightroom is software for photographers.