Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

When photographers reach for a top-notch image enhancing program, one that can also catalog stacks of digital photographs, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom finds its way onto the shortlist. Classed as one of the finest photo editors on the market, Lightroom is designed to enhance and manage captured images, to arrange and group digital photographs so that they're only ever a few mouse clicks away. The software is targeted at professionals and keen amateurs, but casual users can get to grips with Lightroom if they're willing to conquer its learning curve.

Organizational smarts shape the layout of this popular photo organizer by splitting the program into distinctive modes. On first opening the program, the library module greets the user. It's here that thumbnails of the image library are displayed in the user interface. Next, the Develop mode focuses on a slightly different workflow, for it's in here that individual images are adjusted. Everything from the contrast of a photograph to its color and exposure level is open to manipulation here via the adjustments panel on the left. Meanwhile, the right side of the Develop window is inhabited by filters, image presets that instantly alter a targeted photograph. Many of these filters are included with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and there are more available for download from third-party vendors.

Geographical tagging inhabits the Maps tag, the tab listed after Develop, so geo-tagged photographs load on to a convenient world map inside this panel. It's a fun and handy way of exploring a photographer's globe-trotting activities. The last few tabs running along the top of the interface are labeled Book, Slideshow, and Print. They're mostly employed as means of transferring multiple images into web page galleries and other print sources. Of more interest, the organizational guts of the program bind all of these modes together to create a unified whole. The main window holds the current image, the one being worked upon, but batch processing tools can quickly copy changes made here to groups of digital files. Speaking of groups, Lightroom is armed with several tools for creating user-selected groups and collections. Additionally, smart groups are a breeze to generate thanks to metadata tags and user-defined criteria. Keywords are assignable, as are ratings, labels, and flags.

A large import window dominates Adobe Photoshop Lightroom after a fresh install. All popular image formats are recognized, plus the program is fully capable of working with shots captured in the RAW mode used by high-end digital cameras. Finally, this software uses a non-destructive workflow, so multiple edits won't alter the original image.

• Non-destructive editing
• Modern use interface
• Popular image organizer
• Groups are easy to create
• Quickly enhances photographs with preset filters
• Collections can be shared on social sites
• Mobile versions are available

Cons:

• Could potentially take time to learn
• A powerful computer is required
• Works best with a larger monitor