Developer(s) | Adobe |
---|---|
Initial release | September 19, 2017 |
Stable release(s) | |
Operating system |
|
Type | Image organizer, image processing |
License | SaaS |
Website | lightroom |
Developer(s) | Adobe Systems |
---|---|
Initial release | February 19, 2007 |
Stable release | 13.3.1 [3] / February 21, 2024 |
Written in | C++, Lua [4] |
Operating system |
|
Type | Image organizer, image manipulation |
License | Trialware |
Website | adobe |
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, usually called Lightroom, is an image organization and processing application developed by Adobe. It is licensed as a standalone subscription or as part of Creative Cloud. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and tvOS (Apple TV). Its primary uses include importing, saving, viewing, organizing, tagging, editing, and sharing large numbers of digital images. [6] Lightroom's editing functions include white balance, presence, tone, tone curve, HSL, color grading, detail, lens corrections, and calibration manipulation, as well as transformation, spot removal, red eye correction, graduated filters, radial filters, and adjustment brushing. The name Lightroom is a play on the darkrooms used for processing film.
Lightroom is non-destructive editing software that keeps the original image separate from its edits, saving the edited image as a new file. While Photoshop includes doctoring functions like adding, removing or altering the appearance of individual image items, rendering text or 3D objects on images, or modifying individual video frames, Lightroom is a library and development software.[ clarification needed ] Lightroom can store and organize photos once imported into the platform database, and is currently compatible with TIFF, JPEG, PSD (Photoshop), PNG, CMYK (edited in RGB color space) and raw image formats. [7]
Initially, Adobe Lightroom was only available on desktop operating systems. In 2017, it was expanded to support mobile operating systems with the release of Lightroom Mobile. Later in 2017, Adobe released a new variant of Lightroom, Lightroom CC, to be more consistent with their mobile software. The existing version of Lightroom was renamed Lightroom Classic CC, and Lightroom Mobile was renamed to Lightroom CC to have the same name as the new desktop version. The three Lightroom variations differ in how they store images and interact with Adobe's cloud storage offering, and in their feature sets. Lightroom CC stores all uploaded photos and raw files on a cloud server, while Lightroom Classic CC stores files locally and has a more extensive set of features. [8] [9] Both CC platforms and Lightroom Mobile also allow users to create, upload, and export Lightroom presets, a batch copy of an image's in-program edits.[ clarification needed ]
There is currently a large market for Lightroom presets as a tool for both mobile and digital photographers looking to apply a stylized look to their images.Many websites provide these presets free of cost for download. [10] [11]
Lightroom Classic CC [12] and Lightroom CC feature the following modules:
In 1999, veteran Photoshop developer Mark Hamburg began a new project, code-named Shadowland, a reference to the 1988 KD Lang music album of same name. [16] Hamburg contacted Andrei Herasimchuk, former interface designer for the Adobe Creative Suite, to start the project. [17] It was an intentional departure from many of Adobe's established conventions. Forty percent of Photoshop Lightroom is written in the scripting language Lua. In 2002, Hamburg left the Photoshop project and in fall of the same year he sent a first experimental software sample, name PixelToy, to his former teammate Jeff Schewe for review; in 2003, Hamburg presented Schewe a first version of Shadowland in a very early UI version. [16] After research by Hamburg, Herasimchuk, Sandy Alves (the former interface designer on the Photoshop team), and Grace Kim (a product researcher at Adobe), the Shadowland project accelerated around 2004. Herasimchuk chose to leave Adobe Systems at that time to start a Silicon Valley design company. Hamburg then chose Phil Clevenger, a former associate of Kai Krause, to design a new look for the application. [17]
Lightroom's developers work mostly in Minnesota, comprising the team that had already created the program Adobe ImageReady. Troy Gaul, Melissa Gaul, and the rest of their crew (reportedly known as the "Minnesota Phats" [18] ), with Hamburg, developed the architecture behind the application. George Jardine was the product manager. [17]
On January 9, 2006, an early version of Lightroom was released to the public as a Macintosh-only public beta, on the Adobe Labs website. This was the first Adobe product released to the general public for feedback during its development. This method was later used in developing Adobe Photoshop CS3.
On June 26, 2006, Adobe announced that it had acquired the technology of Pixmantec, developers of the Rawshooter image processing software. [19]
On January 29, 2007, Adobe announced that Lightroom would ship on February 19, 2007, list priced at $299 US, £199 UK.
Further beta releases followed. Notable releases included Beta 3 on July 18, 2006, which added support for Microsoft Windows systems. On September 25, 2006, Beta 4 was released, which saw the program merged into the Photoshop product range, followed by a minor update on October 19, which was released as Beta 4.1.
On July 26, 2016, Adobe launched Lightroom on Apple TV, a means of displaying photographs on a large screen using Apple's network appliance and entertainment device. [20]
In 2023, Adobe announced that the Expert RAW app/function on the Samsung Galaxy S23 series will integrate Adobe Lightroom. [21] [22]
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC (unofficially: version 7.0) was officially released on October 18, 2017. It is the first version of Lightroom that is not available with a perpetual license (one-time purchase price); instead, it must be licensed through a monthly subscription model, with the fee initially set at US$9.99/month. Once the user stops paying the monthly fee, the program will be limited to viewing existing catalogs, without the ability to apply further changes to images.
Adobe Lightroom CC is the online cloud-based version of Adobe's Lightroom application and can be installed alongside Lightroom Classic CC. It is included in the same US$9.99/month photography plan. Lightroom CC has the ability to sync developed photos between a laptop, tablet and mobile devices. [23] Its user interface is similar to that of Adobe's mobile version of the applications.
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe for Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editing, and its name has become genericised as a verb although Adobe disapproves of such use.
Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape in 2002. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the word casa and "pic" for pictures.
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An image organizer or image management application is application software for organising digital images. It is a kind of desktop organizer software application.
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Adobe Edge Animate, formerly known as just Adobe Edge, is a web development tool developed by Adobe Systems that uses HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3 functionality. It later became part of the Adobe Edge suite, and was available as a free 30-day trial download from Adobe Creative Cloud. As of November 2015, Edge Animate is no longer being actively developed.
Darktable is a free and open-source photography application and raw developer. Rather than being a raster graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, it comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive raw image post-production. It is primarily focused on improving a photographer's workflow by facilitating the handling of large numbers of images. It is freely available in versions tailored for most major Linux distributions, macOS, Solaris and Windows and is released under the GPL-3.0-or-later.
Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of applications and services from Adobe that gives subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, along with a set of mobile applications and also some optional cloud services. In Creative Cloud, a monthly or annual subscription service is delivered over the Internet. Software from Creative Cloud is downloaded from the Internet, installed directly on a local computer and used as long as the subscription remains valid. Online updates and multiple languages are included in the CC subscription. Creative Cloud was initially hosted on Amazon Web Services, but a new agreement with Microsoft has the software, beginning with the 2017 version, hosted on Microsoft Azure.
Noiseless is an image noise reduction application by Macphun Software. The application is designed to reduce the noise found in digital photographs. The noise is often a result of snapping pictures in low light environments.
Affinity Photo is a raster graphics editor developed by Serif Ltd. for iPadOS, macOS, and Windows, alongside Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher. Development of Affinity Photo started in 2009 as a raster graphics editor for macOS. Its first version reached general availability in 2015 with the Windows version launched a year later. It is a successor to PhotoPlus which Serif discontinued in 2017.
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