Lake Lure Fall Morning

Lake Lure Fall Morning

Lake Lure Inn and SpaThis weekend the wife and I went away for a road trip in the North Carolina Mountains. I hadn’t expected the fall colors to be as bright as they were–pleasantly surprised! The photo above is of Lake Lure in the morning as the sun is just above the eastward mountain peaks. There’s an historic Inn and Spa at Lake Lure that was built in 1927 which over the years has hosted a diverse range of celebrities, from F . Scott Fitzgerald, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Emily Post, and Calvin Coolidge, to Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey during the filming of “Dirty Dancing.”

I’ve been poking around in the released Adobe Lightroom (LR) 3 beta and have found it mostly to my liking. Because there has already been so much published on the LR3 beta (see links below) I’ve simply listed five of the new features I’d upgrade to the final version of LR3 for.

1. New Import panel and module: The import features of LR has been totally redesigned and once I got my brain switch over from what I’m use to with LR2 I believe the new design is a big improvement.

2. Library Improvements: Backing up the catalog as you quit rather then when you launch LR. I use the LR Catalog backup feature once per week (nightly backups are done via another program) and I always hated when I’d launched LR2 and it would tell me it’s time to perform a backup. Sometimes if in a hurry I’d skip the backup–not good.

It’s also convenient that a volume can be unmounted from within the Library Module.

There are many other small changes that seem to make the function of the Library more complete and intuitive.

3. Develop Improvements: Collections are now available from within the Develop Module–about time! I use collections in handing my work flow and this saves me time and steps.

IMO, I never felt the LR2 sharpening and noise reduction were very good. LR3 beta is better, but Photoshop with dedicated plugins still is best. We’ll have to see what the final version is like.

4. Watermarking: I’m still experimenting with LR3’s implementation of this function, but a truly workable watermarking feature would be a big plus.

5. Publishing Collections: I’m not crazy that this is so Flickr focused but I do believe some type of publishing module is needed. Having the collection automatically update changes (Flickr Pro only) and retrieve comments to store in the Library with the photos is nice. If indeed they make this an open API and other publishing platforms are supported by Adobe or third party developers then this will be a nice feature/module.

Lightroom 3 beta reviews and first looks:

Lumious-landscape;
Digital Photography Review; and
Photography Review.

7 Comments

  1. Earl,
    I’ve never been a Lightroom user but did a little bit of experimenting back with the LR1 Beta. Obviously it has come a long way since and am thinking looking into LR3. Glad to hear you are excited about what is happening with the program. I guess I’ll have to go get the Beta. Thanks for your thoughts.

  2. @Drew Fulton – LR2 was a big improvement over LR1. About 70% of post processing I do is now done strictly in LR2–that percentage will probably increase a little with LR3. You ought to give the LR3 beta a look see….

  3. Simply wonderful fall colors you have over there – those rich colors seem like you could take a bath in!

  4. A gorgeous fall shot across the lake. I’d like to visit the Inn. It sounds very attractive with such a fine location.

  5. Wonderful image and love to have those get-a-ways once in a while. I love road trips. Thanks for the input on LR3. I have not downloaded it yet nor have I upgrade to the newest Mac OS. Two things I need to do.

  6. @Markus Spring – This has been an especially good year for fall colors. I’ve been surprised how bright they’ve been and how long they’re lasting.

    @don – It’s a beautiful location and the Inn is full of antiques and a sense of history. During WWII the Inn was used as a R&R spot for Air Crews returning from Europe.

    @Monte Stevens – I really enjoy road trips although the wife gets bored with them after a while. So we try to find a balance we both can enjoy.

  7. Beautiful shot Earl. I am going to d/l the beta jut to give the slideshow export a try. I think that it is nice to be able to create a QuickTime movie.