Adobe fired back at Apple with a public beta release of Lightroom. The beta is fully functional until June, 2006! There’s quite a bit missing from this iteration, especially in the realm of metadata handling, but Adobe plans to release several more versions before the final release.
After downloading, do check out the 20 minute video overview of the product. You can make a drinking game out of the number of jabs the narrator makes against Aperture. Things of note include:
- Ability to reference images in existing locations. You can import images directly into Lightroom’s library or keep your files when you originally placed them.
- Ability to run on less powerful machines.
- Speed of exporting images. Uses a high-resolution version of the image for exporting to PDF. No need to rerender the image.
- Camera RAW. The RAW processing algorithms should be similar to Adobe Camera RAW. If you like the results from ACR, you should like the results from Lightroom.
- Fitts Law. You can configure the app in a way where you drag your mouse to the edge of the screen, and various UI elements, such as the adjustments panel, the library pane, and the thumbnail film strip appear. Nice.
MacWorld is this week, and you can be sure that both the Adobe and Apple booths will be packed with photographers asking questions about Aperture and Lightroom. Good for us. The pro photo organization software market is ready for some innovation and competition!
What I continue to find amazing is the frequency of concurrent product ideation. Lightroom and Aperture have been in development for some time, so it’s not as if one product was whipped up days after the other’s product release. The feature sets for both products are very similar. It’s as the industry is a real entity with a mind. The companies act simply as implements for its thought processes.
More people are talking about Lightroom:
- Uwe Steinmueller has an in-depth preview of Lightroom on Outback Photo.
- Michael Reichmann on Luminous Landscape
- Story on the development of Lightroom
tow.com 
Have you tried Lightbox yet? I’m downloading it now and wondering how it compares to Aperture.
Yes, I am stupid enought to call it Lightbox instead of Lightroom. Sorry!