Today Adobe announced Lightroom, their answer to Apple’s Aperture, a soup-to-nuts RAW workflow program (keywording & metadata, cataloging, RAW conversion, and presentation). Looks like it’ll work with TIFFs and JPGs as well, which will make it dead useful for film photographers who scan their work and need a better way to manage it.
From the Lightroom Page:
"Lightroom Beta lets you view, zoom in, and compare photographs quickly and easily. Precise, photography-specific adjustments allow you to fine tune your images while maintaining the highest level of image quality from capture through output. And best of all, it runs on most commonly used computers, even notebook computers used on location. Initially available as a beta for Macintosh, Lightroom will later support both the Windows and Macintosh platforms."
You can download a free public beta (build 1) for MacOS X 10.4 (Tiger) from Adobe Labs.
Michael Reichmann has written a First Look and Primer on Luminous Landscape. You can also read the PDF press release from Adobe UK and the FAQ (via PhotographyBLOG, who have copied the FAQ out of the not-directly-linkable version on Adobe’s site).
I’m about to give it a go. I’ve been demoing every media manager I can get my hands on and haven’t found anything I like so far. I really hope that Adobe have nailed this one.