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Adobe has released a second free beta for Lightroom 3 (“Lightroom 3 Beta 2” — Lr3b2) with a lot of bug fixes and speed improvements, and a few new goodies not found in Lr2 or the first Lightroom 3 beta, including:
Basic video-file support.
Initial tethered capture support for recent Nikon and Canon SLRs.
New rendering engine, new sharpening, new grain, new noise reduction, new tone-curve control, etc. I used the new point-curve tone control to create the freaky rendition above, of a photo from February's ski trip with Anthony.
Unofficial support for Chinese (two flavors), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
For an overview of the user-visible changes, see the release notes in the Lr3b2 download, or even better, the traditional go-to exhaustive list is Victoria Bampton's “What's New” post. For more of an in-depth presentation of the bigger items, see here, here, and here (et en français, ici).
Is Lr3b2 Ready for Prime Time?
Do make sure to see the “Primary Known Issues” in the release notes, including warnings about being a beta and keeping backups and data loss and such, but for what it's worth, unlike the first beta which was pretty rough, I think this one is good enough for prime time, and I use it for all my new photos.
I don't use Lr2 anymore, except for testing and for old stuff.
You can install Lr3b2 on the same machine that Lr2 is installed on, and even use them at the same time if your machine is beefy enough (though I don't see much benefit in running them at the same time).
New Plugin Stuff
Internally, Lr3b2 includes a bunch of new goodies for plugin development, some of which I've been able to take advantage of already.
For example, I've just released a new Snapshot on Export plugin that allows one to have Develop snapshots created automatically on export. It's sort of like a “data backup” of the export-time develop settings, that you can revert to in case you accidentally (or purposefully) make later develop changes, but the need to recreate the image exactly as exported..
The latest versions of my other plugins, when loaded into Lr3b2, have a few new goodies as well....
My export plugins (for Flickr, SmugMug, Facebook, Zenfolio, PicasaWeb, Photobucket, and Expono) have the snapshot-on-export functionality built in, so your Export Dialog now has a new section:
My Data-Plot plugin now has the ability to save sections of images to a collection. For example, in this screenshot, I clicked on the highlighted “Zoom” link to save all images taken with a zoom lens to their own collection:
You can select individual focal lengths, or ranges, to save as well, so you can easily inspect your lens-use habits along these lines.
This particular enhancement is of interest only if you actually use my data-plot plugin, but the concept — that plugins can now work directly with Lightroom collections — bodes well for future workflow-improving plugins.
Another “bodes well for the future” example is that my Proximity Search plugin now supports an option to immediately switch the Library Filter to show only the images that are within the selected distance from the search epicenter:
Some improvements are so subtle that you might not notice them unless they're pointed out. For example, in Lr2 and Lr3b1, those using my Extended-Search plugin had to remember to deselect all images before invoking it, an unintuitive hassle resulting from a limitation in the Lightroom plugin infrastructure. Now, in Lr3b2, the plugin can tap into the “do the right thing” selection mechanism that Lightroom itself uses, for a more intuitive user experience: if you have a bunch of images selected, they'll be worked on, but if you have just one image (or no images) selected, the plugin will work on all images in the filmstrip.
With the video support new in Lr3b2, I can finally retire my kludgy Video-Asset Support plugin. It was a maintenance nightmare, so I'm happy to see it go.
I've added a “migrate” feature to the latest version, so if you had used my video-asset plugin in Lr3b1, you'll want to invoke the migration tool:
The plugin is still useful in Lr2, but once the real Lr3 comes out and everyone can upgrade their Lr2 catalogs to Lr3, the video-asset plugin can finally be fully decommissioned. Woo-hoo!
A few new tokens are available in my plugins that use my preset template language, allowing you to select date and time formats in your favorite system localized format.
I use the new localized dates in some of my plugins as well (for example, in the “uploaded at...” metadata item created by my exporter plugins).
There are plenty of other little changes and enhancements that I'm probably not thinking of at the moment. I've been so steeped in this for the better part of the last year that it's sometimes hard to keep things straight. Regular readers of my blog will have noticed that I've put up significantly fewer posts in the last few months... besides having some nasty colds, I've been working on Lr3-related things almost 24/7.
Lr3's Publish Feature
The “Publish” feature, which first appeared in Lr3b1, is still not ready for prime time. The simple Flickr plugin that Adobe includes in Lr3b2 works as far as it does, but my export plugins — including my Flickr plugin that is much more feature-laden than Adobe's — still can't take full advantage of the promise that Publish offers, so full support is still a work in progress, targeting the real Lr3.
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Anthony's Graduating First-Grade Class
Anthony finished first grade on Friday, capping a year of very big events in a little boy's life. The picture above includes self portraits of his teacher and of all the kids in his class.
Can you guess which is his?
The Japanese school year runs from April to March, and so it was a year ago that he graduated from kindergarten in a big ceremony with lots of pomp and circumstance. Then in April he started first grade, and soon was taking the city bus on his own to school in the morning, and home in the afternoon. Unlike in the three years of preschool, he had real responsibilities, with lots of school stuff and a very new (and disliked) concept: homework, including and a daily diary for class, and English reading with me.
But with new responsibilities comes new benefits, such as allowance and big-kid sports play.
It was also a year that saw his first (and last) shichi-go-san event (and portrait), turning seven years old, and trips to Tokyo Disneyland and the amazing KidZania.
Growing up fast, but not too old to set out a plate of cookies for Santa.
our little boy
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 60 mm — 1/125 sec, f/13, ISO 6400 — full exif
Fumie's Birthday Cake
I just love the font the shop used
( I can't write that nicely with a pen, much less chocolate )
Today was Fumie's birthday, and her folks were kind enough to host dinner and cake. Dinner was huge, so mercifully the cake was small, though I think the same number of calories as a jumbo “party size” were somehow packed in nevertheless. The frosting was actually rich, creamy cream... sweet, but not overpoweringly so like most frosting. It was excellent.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — 1/125 sec, f/3.2, ISO 3600 — full exif
In Charge of Candle Placement
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — 1/125 sec, f/3.2, ISO 3600 — full exif
Diligently at Work
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — 1/125 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1250 — full exif
The... er.... Result
he had even considered sticking them in horizontally from the side
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 5000 — full exif
Singing “Happy Birthday”
he somehow kept inserting his own name at the (in)appropriate points of the song
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1600 — full exif
eating cake
Down to a Science
Happy birthday, honey.
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Big Leaf
but I don't really know how big, 'cause I forgot to include something for comparison
It's been a while since I posted anything from our trip last May to Ishigaki Island in the far south of Japan, the previous post on the subject having been“Anthony Gets Crabby”, from toward the end of the trip's third day.
We started off Day 4, the last day of the trip, taking a drive up the center of the island to the fairly remote, complexly-named Yonehara Yaeyama-Palm Reserve (米原ヤエヤマヤシ群落). For us it consisted of a mildly jungle-like path where you can see some tall palm trees that are apparently found only in this part of the world.
Prior to reaching the palm trees, there's a huge variety of vegetation. Just off the parking lot, I liked the semi-transparent leaf that opens this post, viewed from below and back-lit by the sun. I just can't remember whether it was two inches across or two feet across. Probably closer to the latter, as there were a lot of big plants on the island (such as these ferns I posted last year).
Then there were these sort of creepy trees with wart-like fruit....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/100 sec, f/7.1, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sort of Creepy
A sign referred to them as giran'inubiwa (ギランイヌビワ), which is apparently the Japanese name for the scientific ficus variegata var. sycomoides, which is apparently some kind of fig or mulberry. Was sort of creepy to me.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/100 sec, f/7.1, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Here, The Creepy Sort of Sneaks Up on You
at least in the full-size version you get when clicking through
Anyway, the palm trees were indeed really tall, but I am never able to capture height in these situations....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/400 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tall Palms
take my word for it
Hah, now that I think about it, compare that photo to the lead photo on “A Visit to Kyoto's Sanzen-in Temple, Part II”, of some very tall cedars... the composition is almost identical! I guess I need to try something new.
The base of these trees appears to be a thick bundle of stringy roots, much like a super-duper-sized version of bamboo roots....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/100 sec, f/7.1, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Base of the Tree
These trees are called yaeyamayashi (ヤエヤマヤシ), “Yaeyama” referring to the small cluster of islands that makes up the small southern section of Okinawa prefecture where we were, and “yashi” meaning “palm tree”. As best I can tell its scientific name is satakentia liukiuensis. According to the IUCN it grows only on this and one nearby island. I didn't really know any of this when I was there, and wouldn't have really cared much if I had; it was just a pretty place to take a stroll.
It's interesting to see that the big bundle of roots survives long after the tree has died and rotted away....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/100 sec, f/7.1, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Gaping Hole
just over a foot across
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, cropped — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Zippy Little Friend
While we were there, I noticed a little gecko-ish lizard on the trunk of one of these trees. He was difficult to see, and moved quickly, but Anthony had a great time following him. Here he is on one of the root bundles...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Michelangelo's Inspiration?
I find the root “strings” almost mesmerizing. It looks as if they were made by pumping huge quantities of Play-Doh through a colander. Freaky.
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Good Morning, Day Three
first photo of the morning, day three of our New Year's trip
Toyama Prefecture, Japan
Recovering now from a third cold in about as many weeks, the photo above represents my backlog of email and blog comments that I have not gotten to in the last month. If one is from you, sorry.
Feeling good enough this evening finally to want to write something (but not enough to want to deal with email), I'll begin the foray into Day Three of our very snowy, fairly photogenic four-day trip over the new-year holiday. My previous post on the trip closed out Day Two, and summarized the 14 posts that came from that day's snowy adventures.
While the second day of the trip was characterized by a lot of snow where we had driven that day, to the south of where we were staying, the third day was characterized by a lot of snow where we were staying. There was a bit of snow on the ground when we had arrived on the first day, but today was something different....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 120 mm — 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
This Pretty Much Sums it Up
view from the cabin
carefully composed to leave out wires and other visual garbage
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Enthusiasm of Youth
Anthony was all excited to shovel the walk
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Perseverance of Youth
abandoning the endeavor after about 90 seconds
Despite the path not being completely clear, we somehow made it the 10 seconds to the restaurant (the building in the picture above) for breakfast...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Breakfast Awaits
The food at this place was surprisingly good
After breakfast, Fumie went back to the cabin to relax, and Anthony and I went out for a long exploratory walk to the dam we can see from the cabin.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1/250 sec, f/4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Getting Started
the hill behind our cabin
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1/200 sec, f/9, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bridge To an Unknown Future
hint: the future is cold, wet, and snowy
And so began our long walk.
It's been three months since the trip, but I have truly not even looked at the photos beyond this last one yet. I remember the scenery and occasions as being remarkably photogenic, probably increasingly so in my mind as time passes, so I'm sure actually looking at them tomorrow for the next post will be an exercise in disappointment, but that's the way it goes. The backlog of photos that I want to process and post about (“photo constipation”) is mostly the same embarrassment of riches that I've long suffered, living in as photogenic a place as Kyoto, but it's been compounded lately by multiple colds in quick succession, a problem that's plagued me in Feb-Apr most years since moving to Japan this time six years ago. Maybe I'm just getting old.