Most of us use a combination of two photo editing tool/software to post process our photos: Lightroom, and Photoshop. Adobe has the monopoly here not by forcing anyone out of the market, but by being the company that has been listening for years to what we want, and need. If you were only to have one of the programs mentioned, there’s a more than fare chance that Lightroom would be it. It’s less daunting (at first), easier for anyone to pick up and get started with, offers the ability to organize, there are great preset systems like our industry standard Lightroom Preset System, and so many more reasons than I care to type.
So the appeal of Lightroom is there both for the novice and professional, which broadens the breadth of people to please by a fair amount, and is no easy feat to accomplish. Lightroom has come under criticism from many leaning to the pro-side of the field who want specific features that Lightroom has taken its time to include.
Well Adobe has just announced that there plans to be a major release of Lightroom in the near future, and from what we can deduce, it seems they are trying to include more advanced features and improve general application performance. The latter, I’m sure we all will hope to see, since Lightroom has the tendency to be a resource hog, and bog down computer performance under its weight.
[REWIND: Match Total Exposure | The Underused Lightroom Feature You’ll Now Make A Staple]
Perhaps in order to achieve this, Adobe has announced that a 64 bit operating system will be required for Lightroom 6, which means MAC OS X 10.8 or higher, and 64 bit version of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1. If you are not running the compatible software you’ll still be able to install and run Lightroom 5 and have the use of LR mobile. There is also a rumor through the grapevine that the next version of Lightroom will be available for standalone purchase aside from CC. But that’s hearsay.
You can find the press release here, and follow the discussion on that thread.
