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 can be sluggish compared to LR2.5. This is fun to play with but professionals should continue using LR2.5 for their work until LR3 is ready. The LR3 beta is available for download from Adobe Labs.
