There are a number of great additions to the Lightroom 2 beta that some of the other Bloggers have written about. One group that has me excited are the new Print module features. Specifically, Picture Package and 16 bit output.

If you do any portrait work at all, you’ll immediately recognize the usefulness of Picture Package. While you could always put multiple copies of an image on a single page in Lightroom, Picture Packages lets you put different size images on the page with a simple mouse click. It comes with six presets for common sizes, and you can edit any of these for custom sizes if needed. As you add more images to the layout, Lightroom will automatically add pages as needed.

When you finish adding images, you can click on Auto Layout to have Lightroom move images around to optimize the layout and minimize the amount of paper being used (and at the price of media, this is a very good thing). I also like the new Photo Border option to add a more traditional border to each image.

Finally, we have 16 bit output. It’s going to be up to the printer manufacturers to support this, but the latest Epson drivers have this option already (at least on Mac Leopard systems). 16 bit output is going to deliver smoother tones, which is great for portraits, black & white, and landscapes.

Many of you are probably going to be frustrated that soft proofing still isn’t in Lightroom. It’s on my wish list as well, but I’d rather not have it than have it done half way. If your printer driver supports it, you can use Print Preview to see how the print will look. It’s not the optimal setup, but it is a workaround that’s available now.
The other nice feature, and one that will appeal to anyone that sends their prints out to a lab is the ability to print directly to a JPEG file rather than the printer, and set not only the file size, but specify the color management options so you can embed a profile if you need to.
All in all, I’m very happy with the direction Adobe is going in Lightroom 2. They’re adding useful features but keeping true to the Lightroom model rather than throwing features in haphazardly.