Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 public beta - already?

It seems like not so long ago I have been reporting about Lightroom 1 beta, and here I am writing about Lightroom 2 beta! That's right, today Adobe released via Adobe Labs public beta of Lightroom 2!

You can grab it here: Adobe Lightroom download.



It's an early beta, so things are pretty slow, but it's great being able to use software of tomorrow today :)
I encourage you to check it out - here's the release note (pdf), but if you want just the juice, read this post from Adobe Lightroom Team. You can also get up to speed by watching Julieanne's video tutorial.

Beauty in application interface - not Mac exclusive

For years what I have heard was: "I prefer Mac from PC because Mac applications are beautiful".

However, for some time I can see that PC applications are not far behind, if at all. And a lot of credit can go to Adobe - especially Production Studio amazes me. Have you for example seen After Effects 7 or CS3? It is fun to spend time in AE just because of its interface. Everytime it launches I feel like entering some secret place, where I can do magic noone else can.

In this post I would like point at another Adobe application that gives us beautiful workspace: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.



This is only a part of the interface, but still it is easy to see how well it works with images, no matter what colours they have. Everything is simple and easy to read. It is another evidence that beautifull design can be really, really simple.



They even included a very aesthetic pattern ornament. Take a look at knobes and sliders... We gotta get more of those :D