Lightroom 3 Process Quality Improvements

WispI'm pretty impressed with LR3's new demosiacing, sharpening and noise reduction in LR3's new process rendering. To the right is an image taken at this month's workshop in Mono Lake (larger view). This is a 15 second "star points" exposure taken at 1600 ISO with a 5Dmk2.  Below is a side-by-side detail comparison, processed in LR2.5 on the left and LR3b on the right. Click the image below to view at it's full resolution.

by Scott Martin

Lightroom 3 Public Beta is now available

I particularly like the improved sharpening, noise reduction, demoasicing, watermarking and new grain tools. There are significant quality improvements especially for high ISO and long exposure photographers. The completely redesigned Import dialog allows you to browse all images on the hard drive (similar to Bridge functionality). LR3 now archives the catalog during exit instead of upon launch (but they use the term "backup" incorrectly). There are also some exciting features in the wings that aren't in this public beta yet. The LR3 beta takes up lots of RAM, isn't optimized for speed and…

by Scott Martin