Lightroom 4

Hold on tight, folks - Adobe Lightroom 4 is about to hit us. Get out the big mouse and the pot of coffee and be prepared to spend a lot of time on the computer.

Or not - if you make use of some of the new features of Lightroom 4 to speed up your workflow. Looks like the new package contains:

Highlight and shadow recovery
Photo book creation linkage
Location-based organization
Extended video support
New camera RAW linkages
Intuitive slider controls
Enhanced online sharing links
Developmental preset regimes
Tight Photoshop integration

I want some of this action - I want to investigate the photo book idea with the Blurb organization and the 180 or so pre-made templates in this program promise a good choice to start from. Looks like there will also be a 20% discount on the first book I make with Blurb.

The developmental preset feature is good too - I want to make a sub-program that allows me to turn ordinary studio photos taken with flash into woodburytypes - this is for the 1880's dance hall gals that visit. You go off and take landscape pictures and surfing and I'll stay right here, thank you.

The ability to bounce back and forth seamlessly into Photoshop is also what I need - the pixel-edge cutouts and pasting in PSE6 and then back to LR4 for overall tones and levels. Magic.

Not too sure about the social-network posting. Lightroom 4 will make it very easy to send good quality images to Facebook and Flickr, but will this just mean that we get to see drunks at parties with greater clarity and good skin tones?