Lightroom 2.0 Beta Featured at Photoshop World Keynote

After a comprehensive demo of the new Photoshop Express, Adobe brought Tom Hogarty on stage to show off new features in the Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta. Existing users of Lightroom 1 can get the beta today by visiting Adobe Labs and clicking on the download link.

Adobe states on the Labs page: "The Lightroom 2.0 beta program is available for use by all current Lightroom customers. If you don't already own a copy of Lightroom you can download the beta and try it for thirty days. If thirty days is not enough time, Lightroom customers can invite friends to try the beta with them for the full length of the program."

Tom is the product manager for Lightroom, so he knows the ins and outs quite well. He began with a handful of nifty metadata improvements, then explained how Lightroom 2 is better integrated with Photoshop CS3. This is particularly helpful for photographers who want to take advantage of merge and HDR technologies. But the features that got the strongest response from the audience were the new selection tools that allow localized dodging, burning, and other adjustments.

Click to play the video.

Close Move

Here's a 3-minute video clip of the dodge and burn demo that will give you a good idea of the new image editing tools we'll see in the upcoming version of Lightroom.

After the Lightroom demo, Adobe chatted with Mikkel Aaland, who is in Tasmania leading the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Adventure 2008. Mikkel said during the chat that he and the team are anxious to dig into the new Lightroom 2.0 beta while working in the field.