Lightroom 5 is out, which I wasn’t expecting! A few big new features that are in their press release, but the big one for me is Smart Previews which could remove the only problem I have with LR: the ability to easily and quickly work on a subset of files from my laptop while keeping the main Library on my iMac, without tedious exporting and importing of huge RAW files.
I’m a recent convert to Lightroom and love it. I tried it back in Version 1 but didn’t like how it treated RAW files – I had my Nikon DSLR set up to create a certain look, which was great for JPGs but obviously LR applied a basic preset that stripped that look, and I could never recreate it to my satisfaction.
I learned a few months ago that there’s now built-in Nikon presets that match that look perfectly, so I jumped in with Lightroom 4 and haven’t looked back; it’s obsoleted Nikon Capture NX 2 for RAW conversion, and Photo Mechanic for importing and cataloguing, although I still hang on to PM for comfort as it’s an excellent tool for both those functions.
You can get Lightroom 5 from Adobe here, as an upgrade or a full price app, or as part of Adobe Creative Cloud.
