Adobe Lightroom 3 Now Available for Purchase

by Miserere

Adobe Lightroom has quickly become the standard by which all Photography software is measured. Designed specifically for photographers, it took the best that Photoshop had to offer us and added unique features to make file handling and editing photographs easier. After Lightroom 2 (LR2) came out, Adobe did not rest on its laurels and quickly got to work on the next iteration; this time they started from zero and built it from scratch. In a gutsy move, they released a number of beta versions of Lightroom 3 (LR3) and encouraged the public to install them, use them and send in their comments. This new version 3 is that combined effort between the programmers at Adobe and the (literally) hundreds of thousands of photographers who used the beta versions. Can you imagine if all Photography related companies did the same?

Here is a short list of some improvements made to Lightroom 3:

Redesigned image engine that’s faster and provides better IQ.
New Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) engine. Photos that were edited with older ACR versions will still use the old processing so all of a sudden your old images don’t change when you open them in LR3, but images that are newly imported into LR3 will use the new processing engine.
Redesigned noise reduction algorithms, producing cleaner images at high ISO and underexposed areas.
Faster overall performance.
New import methods.
New vignetting algorithm that actually dims edges instead of just adding black or white semi-transparent layers.
You can now add grain to taste in your photos.
Integration with photo sharing websites.
Improved watermark function.

You can see a 33 minute video explaining everything that’s new in LR3 below (click here if you don’t see a video window).

Lightroom 3 is now available for preorder from B&H (as an upgrade too), and Amazon (Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca).

NOTE: If you purchase Lightroom 3 through any of the above links you’ll pay nothing extra but EtL will receive a small commission…and we’ll be extremely grateful.

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