Customer Rating: 
Summary: Going Fully LR...
Comment: This is a fantastic program! The layout of the controls is near perfect and the color control from utilizing camera calibration is outstanding! I'm acheiving accurate colors and saturation with ease and the tonal qualities that I envision through local adjustments and easy to use gradients.
Customer Rating:
Summary: All I can say is "WOW!"
Comment: I've enjoyed digital photography for about 9 years now and always wondered how some people got their photos to "pop" while mine just seemed average. I'd been working on my skills for a while but finally decided to see what Ligthroom could do. I'd heard a lot of people used it and wondered why it would be any different than photoshop. I took the chance, bought it and was amazed. When I first installed it, I thought "what the heck" since I had no clue how to start. So I'd highly recommend you buy a book at the same time. I chose a book by Scott Kelby. After going through the first five chapters of his book, I was astonished at how much this software can do - and how easily! I love all the presets! One preset can add "Punch" and then the next can turn it into an old photograph - all faded and desaturated. It was fun! Scott Kelby even explained how to get that trendy gritty look and with this software I can save that as my own preset and apply it with the touch of a button! All my pictures seem a LOT better now after running them through Lightroom. It'll make me want to shoot RAW more often and I look forward to the spectacular results!
Also- I was amazed at the organizational tools. It's definitely set up for professional workslow.. it's a power packed tool! :)
What's also amazing is the amount of presets and plug-ins that are available. I downloaded some for sending pictures straight to Facebook or Picasa. So now I don't need to store a million copies of my photos for different occasions. Lightroom saves the original and remembers all your tweaks, and then just saves a new file when you export. But with some of these plug-ins, you don't have to save the raw file to your computer as a .jpg to get them online!
Customer Rating:
Summary: All you need for 95% of your editing
Comment: I started with Lightroom 1.0, survived its quirks and have now grown to love the more mature 2.0 version. Here are some of the features that make this program indispensable: Able to make fundamental edits, assign key words, and place the photos into an existing or newly created folder all on import; Can make all edits on one photo and then copy these edits to all or selected photos - the first time I corrected the white balance on a whole photo shoot with only a couple of clicks, the angels started singing (who hasn't forgotten to take the camera off the incandescent setting!); 95% of all corrections can be done without exporting to Photoshop.
Above is only the tip of the iceberg. Two features that must be mentioned: 1) Lightroom does NOT change your original photo - all changes are kept in a metadata file, so you don't have to make copies of your originals as they are untouched - no more making copies and keeping them in another folder as "originals" This allows you at any time to step back through your corrections or return to the original file to restart editing. 2) The program handles multiple file formats seamlessly. I can now shoot exclusively in the RAW file format for optimal editing capability without the old hassles of converting the RAW file for editing.
While documentation is pitiful, there are tons of excellent free video tutorials available - I use iTunes to find them and have watched dozens. Open one of these videos alongside your open copy of Lightroom and you will learn quickly as you practice the techniques.
Lightroom can be used simply for organizing your photos or complexly to manipulate to your heart's content. You will be richly rewarded for any time spent learning the more sophisticated features of this truly magnificent program.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great Workflow
Comment: Lightroom 2 is a great tool for digital photographers wanting an affordable product to process and catalog their digital images. It's designed for photographers, not graphic designers, who want to spend their time shooting; not behind a computer. The smooth workflow ensures rapid sorting, editing and exporting images, but not at the expense of some advanced editing features, should they be required. A great product all round.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Weird, Wild and Wonderful
Comment: This is the story of three bears. Papa Bear, AKA Photoshop, Mama Bear, AKA Lightroom, and Baby Bear, AKA Bridge. Papa Bear carries the weight and does the heavy lifting. Mama Bear organizes everything and gets lots of important work done behind the scenes. Baby Bear is smaller, but still important to the family. Together, the three bears are a powerful family, especially to the photographers who revere and adore them.
Okay, lets kick the bear metaphor to the curb and take a look at this marvelous thing we call Lightroom 2. Who needs it? You do, if you are an enthusiast amateur or professional photographer. You need it if you take hundreds of photos every week and you have thousands of photos in your archives. You need it if you shoot events--reunions, weddings, mitzvahs, company events--and you have to output hundreds of photos in a relatively short time. Lightroom is that part of your workflow.
The moment you pop the installation DVD into your computer, you'll want to start playing with your photos. Resist the temptation. Take a few minutes to personalize the interface by customizing the Identity Plate and Module picker. You can also set up the Panel End Marks and image background. (This is especially handy if you occasionally have clients looking over your shoulder.) Don't forget to set up the interface preferences to suit your style.
Lightroom is a collection of five specific modules: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print and Web.
The process begins by importing photos into the Lightroom 2 Library. You'll recognize a process similar to bridge. You'll add keywords and import your photos. There are Grid and Loupe views. You can compare two photos or view multiple photos. In the greater scheme of things, you'll create catalogs of large collections of your photos.
One of the features which is often underutilized but wonderfully helpful is the rating system. You have the option to sort your photos by giving them a 0-5 star rating. You can also add more specific keywords to individual photos or specific groups of photos. Taking time early on an paying attention to these mundane labeling tasks pays off big time down the road. Weeks, months and years pass, but thanks to your diligent attention to keywords and ratings, you are able to pull up just the photos you want quickly and easily.
The Develop module is where you can get in there and play with your photos. Time for processing. Go wild and change the color temperature and tint, adjust the exposure, brightness and contrast. Make changes with the Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Clarity Vibrance, and Saturation sliders. If you're still not satisfied, you can call up the adjustment brush and lighten shadows by changing the exposure in a specific
area. If that's not enough, you can open up and use the Detail tool. Next, you have the Vignette tool to separate the background from the foreground.
Wait, there's more. You have a crop tool as well, and with a few keystrokes you can enlarge the virtual image and view it against a plain, black background.
The range of possibilities in the Develop module is stunning. You have to pinch yourself every-once-in-a-while and chant, "Lightroom is not a stand-alone product. It doesn't replace Photoshop." The line where Lightroom ends and Photoshop begins can get a little blurry.
Now that your image is the picture of perfection, you can head to the Print module. Here you'll find a nice selection of Lightroom templates for various printing options like 2-up Greeting Card, Contact Sheets, Triptych or Fine Art Mat to name a few.
So, what's new in this version of Lightroom? I mentioned the Adjustment Brush and the Post-Crop Vignette. Lightroom 2 also has improved speed, better and stronger integration with Photoshop, better printing, the keywording feature has more muscle, you can use multiple monitors and the Library, Slideshow, Web and Print modules are beefier and more useful. One particularly important area of improvement is in the Find, Filter and Sort features.
I don't want to give short shrift to the Slideshow, Web and Print modules. Like other modules in Lightroom 2, they are deliciously rich and full-featured. One of my personal favorites is the Slideshow feature. I use it frequently and enthusiastically. There are so many amazing ways to utilize your photos in slideshows.
Lightroom 2 is fantastically feature-rich. You'll probably buy it for Library module, but don't cheat yourself by not taking advantage of all the other Modules. Consider it your license to creatively liberate yourself. It can be your photo-fun place. Lightroom truly is a weird, wild and wonderful thing. Download a free, 30-day trial at www.adobe.com and give it a test drive.
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