Not sure if I want to upgrade right away or not. Love the selective processing feature, that's probably worth it alone. How is the healing brush and cropping different from the previous version? Seems to be the same to me. - Andre Maltais

Thomas Hawk was RAVING about Lightroom 2.0 to me. Can't wait to see what he does with it. - Robert Scoble

okay, time to take another look at Lightroom. - Chuq Von Rospach

Thomas, great writeup. Looking forward to hearing your comments once you've been using LR for a little while. Glad to hear you converted finally! I've been using LR for about 2 years and can't imagine going back to the old way. You will find many more great features as you continue to use it. One of my favorites is the ability to sync settings selectively between two or more photos. Streamlines editing if you have a bunch of shots all done in the same light or with similar exposure. - Jeff P. Henderson

I'm so glad they're putting in features I've been waiting for since I started using LR. - donato from twhirl

I use Lightroom since v1.0 right from the start and today switched from 1.4 to 2.0 after using 2.0 Beta already and desperately waiting for the release. Just love it. It is a dream. I just hope that the departure of Mark Hamburg from Adobe does not do any harm to further development of the product. - Ulrich Hilger

My old processing workflow involved using Adobe's Camera RAW in Bridge to do 95% of my work and then a remaining 5% or so in Photoshop to do spot healing, sharpening, burning and dodging etc. Now I can do all of this within Lightroom without every having to go to Photoshop. The keywording enhancements and *especially* the spot RAW processing will significantly improve my workflow. - Thomas Hawk

Jauder, I did not notice any appreciable speed improvements with this version of Lightroom. That said, this is the first version to support 64 bit processing and I think that if you have a 64 bit system that this should represent a big jump in performance. - Thomas Hawk

Great writeup. I've still been using the included Canon software for RAW image processing that came with my DSLR, but was considering a new tool. Looks like plenty of good reasons to look at Lightroom! - Kevin C. Tofel

Jody, I haven't tried out the custom color profile for the Canon 5D yet, but I did like the colors that I got better natively from Adobe on this upgrade. - Thomas Hawk

I'm an Aperture user at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to the inevitable Aperture 2 v. Lightroom 2 comparisons. If only because I'm always looking for an excuse to play with new toys. - James (@willia4)

Non-destructive local adjustments and gradient filters are REALLY cool. NAPP video learning centre here http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightro... - Andrew Smith

It kind of irks me this product is not included in Photoshop CS3 Extended or any of their Creative Suites. Not even Master Collection. - Andrew Smith

Thomas, Going from a 32 to a 64 bit application will have little or no impact on the speed of the application. It only allows the application to address more memory. Going to an application that can use multiple processors would show a significant speed improvement. I do not believe Lightroom was written to support multi processors. - Jeff P. Henderson

Lightroom is very tempting, but I'm not sure I can justify the premium over ACR (which comes as part of the $89 Photoshop Elements) - Andy Roth

good point Jeff. I haven't done any work with 64 bit processors yet but I know that sometimes when my photo processing gets bogged down it's because I've got too many apps open at once. I'd assume with more memory you'd get less of this sort of behavior. Potentially. - Thomas Hawk

I used to use PhotoShop all the time. When LR2.0 Beta came out I decided to give it a try and have never looked back. It is by far the best processing tool I have used for images. It has improved my workflow tenfold. The presets are great, the healing and cloning brushes work well and the vignette control is fantastic. I find the speed to be pretty good. I can't wait to purchase this. I am happy to pay the price for this software. - Tom Quinn

Jeff is incorrect. 64-bit CPU processing can have an impact on performance. And it has nothing to do with multiple processors. Lots of variables, but it can impact performance -- though he's correct in that it may not matter in the case of Lightroom. - Peter Kirn from twhirl

Let me just add one comment - Adobe Online store sucks big time. I live in Bermuda, which does not have an Adobe Online store, so I tried purchasing from Adobe US Store. No dice unless I have a US Billing address. Get this - I have to call a *toll number* and try to purchase that way. I can order stuff from Amazon with a Bermuda billing address without issues. Adobe needs to wake up to global e-commerce... - Tom Quinn

@Peter you are correct that a 64 bit OS can have a positive impact on performance compared to a 32 bit version, but in real life application, the performance improvement is fairly small. Here are two articles, one PC and one Mac oriented that discuss the variables and show some test data. http://www.smartcomputing.com/editori... http://www.geekpatrol.ca/2006... - Jeff P. Henderson

Oh, so I call the number and it is no longer in service. So I call customer service and they cannot take my order, and can't tell me how to get it from Adobe (due to shipping contracts, even though I only want the download). Eventually they tell me to order from CDW, which is a joke because it does not sell LR2 yet. - Tom Quinn

I wish work and sleep would stop getting in my way so I can play with LR2. :( - Squid

Dylan, Adobe let's you download any of their fully functional applications to try out for 30 days free. Why not try it out to see if you like it. If you do, all you do is pay on their web site for a software key and keep using it. If not you can uninstall it after the 30 days are up. Depends on your work flow, but it seems like if you are using Gimp or Photoshop now, Lightroom might just work for you also. - Jeff P. Henderson

Squid, I hear you! I'm trying to catch up on all of the LR2 articles and watch the Kelby videos to learn how to best use the new features. I uninstalled my beta copy of 2.0 but haven't had time to install the 2.0 upgrade that I bought last night. Still have 1.4.1 installed. - Jeff P. Henderson

One bad thing about Lightroom: US price = $ 299.00 (€192.048), EU price = € 298.80??!... I know this ain't an exclusive of Adobe but someone's earning a few bucks with this "bogus exchange rate", because its not like my copy is shipped directly from the US... - João Almeida