The Lightroom 4.3 Release Candidate is now available, adding new support for a range of cameras and offering Retina support in the Develop module.

• Canon PowerShot S110
• Canon PowerShot G15
• Canon PowerShot SX50 HS
• Casio Exilim EX-ZR1000
• Casio Exilim EX-FC300S
• Nikon D600 *
• Olympus PEN E-PL5
• Olympus PEN E-PM2
• Olympus STYLUS XZ-2 iHS
• Panasonic DMC-GH3
• Pentax K-5 II
• Pentax K-5 IIs
• Pentax Q10

Check out the Lightroom Journal entry for complete details.

Visual Supply Co., makers of popular image adjustment presets for Lightroom, has announced VSCO Keys. According to the press release,

VSCO Keys™, a powerful keyboard shortcut tool created to drastically reduce image editing time in Adobe Lightroom 4 and Lightroom 3. Fully customizable, lightning fast and economically priced… Using the VSCO Keys online app, photographers can add, change or delete shortcut keys, or even save multiple keyboard configurations.

Teaser:

They note,

We’re not automating the mouse; you’ll notice sliders just move by themselves when you press a key. This allows us to access all tools and presets in Lightroom’s Develop Panel, not just what’s visible and clickable on the screen. It also enables the user to edit their photos in any mode or layout of Lightroom. You can even hide all the panels and it will still work… VSCO Keys is totally customizable through the online app, allowing you to assign any tool in the Develop Panel, any preset, and most Lightroom shortcuts to any key on the keyboard to suite your own needs.

Demo: 

VSCO Keys costs $79 (or $59.25 for users of other VSCO products).

The update (Mac, Win) supports support for 22 new cameras & several dozen new lens combos while also squashing a number of bugs. For details check out the Lightroom Journal.

Past is prelude, and these guys are up to some seriously interesting stuff. If you’re a talented engineer interested in working from Minnesota or San Jose, you can help the future arrive faster.

We are particularly interested in candidates with strong backgrounds in digital asset management, performance tuning, and building of well-crafted user interfaces. A passion for photography is a plus.

Check out the full listing. We hope to meet you soon.

Lightroom 4.2  is now available as a Release Candidate  on Adobe Labs.   The “release candidate” label indicates that this update is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers.

New cameras supported:

• Canon EOS 650D / Rebel T4i
• Canon EOS M
• Fuji FinePix F800EXR
• Leaf Credo 40
• Leaf Credo 60
• Panasonic DMC-FZ200
• Panasonic DMC-G5
• Panasonic DMC-LX7
• Pentax K-30
• Sony DSC-RX100

For a complete list of other changes (bugs fixed, etc.) please see the Lightroom Journal.

Check it:

Learn All About the New Map Module: Come join us at the Adobe San Francisco office and learn all about the new Map module in Lightroom 4. We’ll discuss all of the features of the module, all the ways in which you can plot your photos on a map, and why you might want to. And as usual, we’ll have pizza and raffle off some prizes. Hope to see you there!

6:30 PM To 8:30 PM at Adobe San Francisco, hosted by members of the LR team:

Making Photo Books in Lightroom! — SF Bay Area Lightroom User Group: This month’s meetup will be in San Francisco, and we’ll discuss the new Book module in Lightroom 4. We’ll go through the complete process of making a book in Lightroom, from start to finish. The presentation will include a description of how to use Auto Layout Presets, which are a powerful tool for quickly and easily making the book you want in as few clicks as possible.

Check out the site to RSVP and for additional details.

Camera Raw—the engine featured in both Lightroom & Photoshop—is the definitive raw-image processing pipeline for professionals. Now there’s a unique opportunity for a badass imaging engineer to join the team. Check out more details here.

[Cynically I sometimes think, “Eh, who reads this damn blog anyway?” But last time I posted something like this, genius Eric Chan saw it, and he’s the reason ACR/LR feature killer noise reduction & many other things. –J.]

Lightroom team members will be on hand at Adobe HQ in San Jose tonight to discuss, among other things, the new Defringe and HDR Tone Controls introduced in Lightroom 4.1.

One of the suggestions we got at our last meeting was that we provide some time for networking, in addition to the presentation itself. I think this is a fabulous idea, so how about this: bring a photo that you’ve taken that you love. You can bring it on your laptop, tablet, phone, or printed on an honest-to-goodness piece of paper. Then, while enjoying complimentary pizza prior to the presentation, share your photo with at least one other person (someone not previously known to you!) and talk about why you like it. People who choose not to bring a photo will be publicly scorned.

The meeting will be held in the ‘Park’ conference room.  If you haven’t RSVP’d more than 24 hours in advance, you’ll need to get a badge from security when you arrive.”

Lightroom 4.1 is now available as Release Candidates on Adobe Labs.  It adds support for the Canon 5D Mk III and, according to the Lightroom Journal, fixes a number of bugs:

• Point Curve adjustments made in Lightroom 3 and before have been restored.
• Lightroom 4 did not properly open external applications when using the “Edit In” functionality.
• Addressed performance issues in Lightroom 4, particularly when loading GPS track logs, using a secondary monitor, and the controls within the Develop module.
• Ability to update DNG previews and metadata for more than 100 photos has been restored.
• This update allows for improved viewing of subfolders and stacks in folders with a large number of photos.
• It was possible that a layout of a saved book could be lost after quitting Lightroom 4.
• Please provide feedback on your experience with the Lightroom 4.1 Release Candidate in our feedback portal.

Former Adobe evangelist George Jardine is now offering the Adobe Lightroom 4 Video Workshop, 16 new tutorials that focus on the Library workflow & digital asset management:

This all-new set of 16 video tutorials gives you over 6 hours of the very best online education available. It covers the Adobe Lightroom 4 Library and your digital photo library management from top to bottom. We start from the ground up, and guide any serious photographer—professional or passionate amateur—through the process of building an easy-to-use, but incredibly effective digital photo library. The complete series is only $24.95.

A sample video (“Collections & Virtual Copies”) is available to check out.

Terry White shows how to use the new map module in Lightroom 4 to geotag photos using a .GPX log file, as well as how to do reverse lookup.

The Lightroom team has evolved the editing control set in the just-released LR4, replacing a couple of popular but sometimes problematic controls:

Recovery can result in muddy highlights, and Fill Light can lead to visible halos at high-contrast boundaries. Furthermore, it is difficult to transfer the technology behind these controls to local adjustments.

With Process Version 2012 in Lightroom 4, we have introduced a new set of Basic tone controls that overcomes these limitations and results in much higher image quality. For example, the Highlights and Shadows tools are optimized for very high contrast images, produce much smoother highlight and shadow gradations, are available as local adjustments, and minimize halo artifacts.

Check out the Lightroom Journal for more details. [Via Jan Kabili]

Badasses unite:

Hasselblad’s Chris Russell-Fish said: “Integrating the Adobe platform with Hasselblad is a ground-breaking step… [N]ow all users can have the excellence of a Hasselblad image file married to the functionality and ease of use of Adobe Lightroom.”

Hasselblad customers who buy new medium format H4D cameras will receive Lightroom 4 software with their new camera equipment at no additional cost.”

I’m delighted to say that Lightroom 4 is now available!  Tom Hogarty writes,

With over 300,000 downloads of the Lightroom 4 public beta we’ve heard some resounding feedback that photographers would like to start using Lightroom 4 on a daily basis and migrate their previous Lightroom work to this latest version.

We’re also excited to announce new pricing for Lightroom 4: $149 for those new to Lightroom and $79 for the Upgrade and Student/Teacher editions.  (You can upgrade from any version of Lightroom to Lightroom 4)

• Download Lightroom 4.0
• Get Started with Julieanne Kost’s fantastic video tutorial series

Changes since the public beta:

• Reverse geocoding now available in the Map Module
• Revamped and improved auto tone in Develop based on new controls
• Increased range of local white balance controls (temperature and tint)
• Updated Develop presets plus added new presets for video
• Maximum Blurb book size is now 240 pages
• Over 800 bugs found and fixed! (Thank you Lightroom 4 beta customers!)

Check out the rest of Tom’s post for additional details about camera & profiles now supported, etc. And happy shooting!

[PS–Customer feedback I just happened to see on Prodig list: “The new way of organizing the Raw adjustment sliders is to die for… You can fix your histogram with precision like a lepidopterist pinning a butterfly to a board.” — Robert Workman. Nice!]

“Magic or Local Laplacian Filters?” asks Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty. To which I want to add simply “…ladies.” Tom pulls back the curtains a tad on how Adobe researchers & their colleagues in academia have been able to “recover shadow and highlight detail with a straightforward set of controls, without introducing artifacts or over-the-top, faux-HDR effects.”

This is one I keep failing to watch, but it sounds extremely useful (as I’m always running short of laptop HD space & am moving to an SSD):

This video (How To: Move & Archive Images and Export A Catalog) shows how to create a folder on an external drive and move your files to that drive from within Lightroom. Note that the first segment answers the question “What are the question marks on my images/folders and how do I relink files?”. If you prefer to skip this section, start the video at 4 minutes 38 seconds.

The San Jose user group meets Tuesday (pizza starting at 6:30) at Adobe HQ. [Update: A similar event is happening Tuesday in Seattle.]

First, exciting news! Lightroom 4 public beta is now available as a free download! Join Lightroom Product Manager Sharad Mangalick as he walks us through the new features in Lightroom 4 beta.

Lightroom 4 has something for those starting out, as well as more advanced users. The team has been working on new features like the geo-tagging map module, DSLR video support, photo book creation and much more.

Next, we will hear from professional photographer John Lund. John has been using Photoshop for over twenty years. He will share his work, how it has changed over the years, and, just as importantly, how it has remained the same. He will show his favorite work, share some before and after images and discuss how he gets his ideas as well as explaining his approach to creating new photographic realities.

Please see the invite for details & to RSVP.

KelbyTraining.com is conducting a day of live webcasts with Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty, scheduled for 10am, 12pm, 2pm, & 4pm Eastern* today & each lasting about an hour. Matt Kloskowski (LightroomKillerTips.com) hosts, and they’ll be taking questions from viewers via their live blog.

* (Time zone converter)

I’m delighted to say that exactly six years after the first Lightroom public beta debuted,a preview of Lightroom 4.0 is available for download from Adobe Labs. Anyone can download and work with the beta (i.e. there’s no serial number requirement).

Feature highlights:

• Robust video support
• Manage images by location with the Map Module
• Simplified basic adjustments
• Powerful new Shadow & Highlight controls
• Additional local adjustments including Noise Reduction and White Balance
• Soft proofing reinvented
• Elegant photo book creation
• Email from directly within Lightroom
• Publish videos directly to Facebook or Flickr
• Enhanced DNG workflows
• Adobe Revel (Carousel) export workflow

Check out Tom Hogarty’s Lightroom Journal post for many more details, and browse Julieanne Kost’s video overviews for in-depth demos.  The NAPP folks have put together a Lightroom 4 launch center, highlighting Scott Kelby’s favorite features & more, and Tom has pulled together a list of more great resources covering LR4.

Alien Skin’s new up-rezing technology adds support for Lightroom while continuing to work with Photoshop:

Jerry Courvoisier of Lightroomworkshops.com introduces Blurb’s bookmaking plug-ins for Lightroom and explains what they can bring to your bookmaking experience. “Learn the key differences between the plug-ins for BookSmart and Bookify,” he writes, “and find out which one will work best for your project.”

A photographer friend wrote me to say that her client has requested that she stamp each image in a shoot with a visible sequence number, making it easy for the client to request shots by name. With an assist from Lightroom PM Tom Hogarty, I can suggest the following:

• Go into the Slideshow module.
• Pick a template if you’d like (Tom had me choose Widescreen).
• On the bottom toolbar press the “ABC” (“add text”) button.
• From the adjacent popup menu, choose “Filename.”
• Position the filename over the image as desired.
• In the lower left corner, choose “Export PDF…” (or hold Opt/Alt to get “Export JPEG…”).
• If for any reason you want the visible numbers to match the images’ filenames, add the following steps:
• Choose Library->Rename.
• Back in the Slideshow module, select a preset like “Custom Name – Sequence.” (You can choose “Edit” to get fancy with renaming tokens, but the presets will likely suffice.)

Lightroom 3.5 and Camera Raw 6.5 are now available as Release Candidates on Adobe Labs. New camera support includes the following models:

• Fuji FinePix F600EXR
• Olympus E-P3
• Olympus E-PL3
• Olympus E-PM1
• Panasonic DMC-G3
• Panasonic DMC-GF3
• Phase One IQ140
• Phase One IQ160
• Phase One P40+
• Phase One P65+
• Sony Alpha NEX-C3
• Sony SLT-A35
• Hasselblad “FFF” files created by the Hasselblad Phocus software for currently supported models are also now supported. (FFF files created using the FlexColor software are not supported.)

The updates also add support for various lenses & fix a number of bugs.  For full details see Tom Hogarty’s post on the Lightroom Journal. [Via Jan Kabili]

I don’t know how long this deal will last, but Lightroom 3 is being offered for $119.99 (60% off) right now on Amazon.com. [Via]

Speaking of old friends, former Lightroom evangelist/PM George Jardine has posted a free 37-minute video that dives deeply into black & white conversion. He writes,

In this video, I start by taking you on a brief exploration of some of the various conversion techniques that we all used back before there were better controls for creating good black & white’s from raw data. And I did this because I think reviewing those tried-and-true Photoshop techniques, helps set the stage for a better understanding of black & white conversion in general.

Check out George’s site for details.