- Speedier Operation
- Superb Noise Control
- Lens Correction: One Last Rabbit in the Hat
- Audio/Video Integration
- Upload Directly to Flickr
- Better Import Controls
- Streamlined Tethered Shooting
- More Watermark Choices
- More Flexible Printing
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Lens Correction: One Last Rabbit in the Hat
The two public betas offered no hint at the rabbit hiding in the Lightroom 3 final release hat. When the new Lens Correction feature popped up in the final version, it marked a major surprise—and a huge step forward.
As photographers happily babble away about conquering chromatic aberration, here's the gist: Lightroom 3 can automatically correct the inevitable distortions and color shifts of a lens. In effect, this feature liberates photographers from spending what had been a lot of time adjusting and tweaking in Lightroom's Develop module.
To see what all the hubbub's about, jump to the five-minute point in this Adobe video.
The Lens Correction panel has a manual section for correcting geometric distortion, something you often see when shooting up-close with a wide-angle lens. Select a photo to correct (see Figure 4), and a light grid appears, making it easy to use a series of sliders to square-up any curving lines (see Figure 5).
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Figure 4 A common example of geometric distortion that results from shooting close to the subject with a wide-angle lens.
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Figure 5 Using the Lens Corrections panel, you can quickly square up a distorted image.
The number of lens profiles included in the panel's automatic section is still relatively small—mostly Canon, Nikon, and a few Sigma lenses. But the list of supported lenses will grow in the coming months. In the meantime, thanks to a downloadable "lens profiler," you can start creating profiles for every one of your lenses, no matter how obscure the model.