The beta version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 has been released for public testing and feedback. I don't partake in the beta testing, but I was happy to get a peak at the new features.
I won't get into a bell-by-whistle rundown of the new version, because that's already been done and overdone all over the web. However, I will mention my favorites of the new features, the aspects of Lightroom 4 that I'm pretty excited about.
The one feature that will really improve my post-production life: FINALLY, we'll be able to manually geotag images. Until now you had to live with the coordinates (or lack of them) embedded in the RAW file, or do some convoluted data manipulation in third-party programs to map things right. Now Adobe has not only enabled manual editing of the location, but has even added the ability to simply drag a marker onto a map. In other words, you don't even need to know the coordinates for a photo location — you just need to know where it is on the map. Or, if you use a GPS receiver to record coordinates and generate a tracklog, you can now sync that data right in Lightroom, rather than use third-party software.
Other than that, the other features I find interesting are more minor:
We'll now be able to move more than one folder at a time within the library. This will relieve the tediousness involved in occasional reorganizing and cleanup.
A lot of photographers are excited about the new soft-proofing features. I'm not all that concerned, because I don't make a lot of prints from home. But what I do like is the ability to make live adjustments with soft-proofing turned on.
I only dabble in video, so I don't need a lot of software capability for it. But I do appreciate having a little, which is exactly what LR4 brings. Now we'll be able to playback right in the program and even do some very basic editing.
The ability to burn images to disc directly from Lightroom is not new, but it hasn't previously worked on 64-bit computer systems. Now it does. Cool time-saving feature.
Before, emailing a photo from within Lightroom required an extension. This process, too, is now built-in, and it is also a cool time-saving feature.
Four words: Auto chromatic aberration correction. Booya!
Lastly, there's a change in user interface that will actually alter suggested workflow in editing images: The Brightness control is now enveloped in with Exposure. Interesting.
Lightroom 4 comes with many other changes, too, but the remainder don't affect me as much. Either way, these new and improved features alone are enough to make the upgrade valuable.
The official release of 4.0 will come sometime later in the year; my guess is spring. In the mean time, if you'd like to play with the public beta version, you can download it at the Adobe Labs website.
