Brief Hands-On Report--Adobe Released Lightroom 1.0b2 as Universal Binary

The Beta 2 version is the second public beta of Adobe's integrated workflow application for digital photographers and the first Adobe application to be released as a Universal Binary. If one has previously downloaded Beta 1, one received notice of Beta 2 upon launching Lightroom and by an email notice sent out by Adobe. Unfortunately, Adobe has not made it easy to find Beta 2 (e.g. the application's dialog box sends one to Adobe's home page with no link to Lightroom Beta 2) so here is the Web page to download it.

Adobe calls Beta 2 a major update and lists these changes:

• Now available as a Universal Binary for compatibility with Intel-based Apple hardware
• Crop and Straighten tools included in the Develop module
• Ability to add music to slideshows
• White balance support for the Nikon D2X, D2Hs and D50 cameras
• Ability to create hierarchical keyword sets
• XMP Import and Export capabilities. (Please consult Known Issues list for details)
• Improved Edit in Photoshop capabilities
• Improved metadata handling

We downloaded and installed Beta 2 with sample content and encountered a problem when it was launched for the first time. After updating and backing up the photo library the controls on Beta 2's Finder window controls didn't work. In addition, the "Quit Lightroom" command under the Lightroom menu was grayed out. When we used Force Quit and relaunched Lightroom Beta 2, it seemed to work fine thereafter. [Bill Fox]