 I've been meaning to make this post for a while, and I have finally done it. This is going to be the longest post I've ever written, but if you've ever wondered about the tools I use to post-process my images, it will be a worthwhile read. As you can see from the picture, my latest tools are Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe Lightroom, and a MacBook Pro. I've actually had the MacBook Pro since early August 2007, and I've had Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom since September of 2007. Following are my thoughts/review of the three products (with the possibility of adding more detailed notes in the future). MacBook Pro - I was looking around for a new laptop because my old laptop, a Dell Inspiron 600m, was getting old. And with only 512MB of RAM, it became too slow for any kind of Photoshop work (even basic adjustments such as dodging and burning would occur with a delay; more memory-intensive tasks, such as correcting wide-angle distortion, would take on the order of minutes to complete). At any rate, I was looking into Apple computers for a while and decided that the MacBook Pro would be a solid investment. It was pretty expensive at around $2,200, but it has been worth it so far. I got the 15.4 inch MacBook Pro with a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2GB Memory (upgrade to 4GB), and a 160 GB hard drive. From day one, I've been very impressed with the machine. It's sleek and ergonomic. It boots up in under forty seconds. The wide-angle 15.4 inch LED-backlit display is gorgeous; the colours are richly rendered and the blacks are stronger than on any PC I've ever used. Photoshop CS3 Extended - Without a doubt, Photoshop is the photographer's number one software tool. When I upgraded to a Mac, I decided to buy the latest and greatest software from Adobe. Previously, I used Photoshop CS and Photoshop CS2 (on a PC). Photoshop CS3 has great improvements over the previous versions. In particular, the ability to stitch panoramas in Photoshop CS3 works so much better than it ever did in Photoshop CS or Photoshop CS2; I've tried stitching about ten panoramas so far, and all of them have been stitched seamlessly. Another cool feature of Photoshop CS3 is the ability to export an image into a flash-based Zoomify viewer. The extended edition of Photoshop CS3 contains tools for editing and importing some 3D graphics file formats and enhancing video. The extended edition of Photoshop CS3 also offers excellent image analysis tools, utilizing MATLAB integration and DICOM file support (the industry standard for handling, storing, printing, and transmitting information in medical imaging). Adobe Lightroom - Lightroom is an image management application database which helps in viewing, editing, and managing digital photos. I really like how easy it is to use Lightroom. I use it as my primary image retrieval tool; because I easily remember dates and numbers, all of my photos are organized by date (via the metadata browser), and finding a photo is as easy as remembering when I captured the photo! Lightroom is organized into five modules: library, develop, slideshow, print, and web; I primarily use the library (for viewing photos) and develop (for editing photos) modules. Previously, I used Raw Shooter to edit RAW images, but I'm glad to see that all of the useful features of Raw Shooter were incorporated into Lightroom (Pixmantec ApS, the company that developed Raw Shooter, was bought out by Adobe). Anyway, I could go on describing how cool it is to edit photos with user presets or the ability create vignetting effect with a slider, but I'll stop here. I'll just simply finish by saying that Adobe Lightroom may just be the best software (of any kind) that I've ever used. |
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