Adobe readies Lightroom 1.0

After months of beta testing, Adobe is finally releasing the commercial version of Lightroom. Aimed at professional photographers, Lightroom helps organize and edit RAW-format pictures. Most of your minor edits can be done inside of Lightroom while major editing will still require Adobe’s flagship product Photoshop CS2.

Lightroom’s preview pane

You can think of Lightroom as a beefed up and more refined version of the Adobe Bridge program that ships inside of Adobe Photoshop. We’ve been beta-testing it at TG Daily for about six months and have found the program to be an excellent way of organizing and viewing of both RAW and JPG photographs. Lightroom has one-click rating and rotation along with a nice interface that can display camera/flash details on the side.

Editing in Lightroom is non-destructive and will not harm the original photos. One of the more interesting editing features is a healing edit that will try to eliminate sensor dust artifacts on your pics. Lightroom can also display virtual versions of the same picture, without having to save physical copies.

Lightroom will ship in mid-February and in appreciation of the half-a-million people beta testers, Adobe will offer the program for $199 through April 30th. Afterwards the program will cost $299.

Current beta testers can use Lightroom until February 28th.

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