Some of the new features included for you to play with in the Lightroom 3 beta are:

• Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
• State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
• Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
• Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
• Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
• Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
• New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
• More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)

Also you can see a video with some new features:

Or simply download and see it yourself:

• Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta

This update includes camera support for the following models:

• Nikon D300s
• Nikon D3000
• Olympus E-P1
• Panasonic DMC-FZ35**
• Panasonic DMC-GF1

**Note that in Europe and Japan this model is marketed as the DMC-FZ38.

Unfortunately, due to a metadata difference between these cameras, files from the DMC-FZ38 wil not be supported until the next Lightroom update.

• Lightroom 2.5 includes a correction to the demosaic algorithms for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response. Olympus, Panasonic and Sony are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. But the demosaic correction provides only a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files.
• Lightroom 2.5 corrects for the following problem in Lightroom 2.4. Lightroom 2.4 on Windows continued to display the import dialog when a memory card was detected regardless of the preference setting “Show import dialog when a memory card is detected.”

• Canon           EOS 500D (Digital Rebel T1i/EOS Kiss X3 Digital)
• Canon          PowerShot SX1 IS
• Epson           R-D1x
• Hasselblad    CF-22, CF-22MS, CF-39, CF-39MS, CFH-22, CFH-39
• Hasselblad    CFV
• Hasselblad    503CWD
• Hasselblad    H2D-22, H2D-39, H3D-22, H3D-31, H3D-39, H3DII-22, H3DII-31, H3DII-39, H3DII-39MS, H3DII-50
• Kodak          EasyShare Z980
• Nikon            D5000
• Olympus       E-450, E-620
• Panasonic     Lumix DMC-GH1
• Pentax          K-7
• Sigma           DP2
• Sony            A230, A330, A380

Note: Hasselblad support is for the 3FR file format only.  The Hasselblad FFF file format is not currently supported.

Lightroom 2.4 Bug Fixes

The Lightroom 2.4 update includes several bug fixes.  The following is a list of items FIXED in this release.

• Web galleries with a Collection Title of six characters would not export or upload
• The crop aspect ratio could revert to the last selected ratio even when reset to original
• The crop aspect ratio in Quick Develop could be lost after a crop adjustment
• The crop aspect ratio lock could be lost after an orientation switch
• Images could preview incorrectly when imported using the MTP/PTP USB protocol
• Sony .ARW files may not have been recognized by Lightroom’s import dialog
• The Japanese language configuration of Lightroom on Mac OS X 10.5 could fail to switch to the print module if the HP B9180 was set as the default printer
• Metadata options that are intended for use were dimmed incorrectly when exporting DNG files
• The Japanese language configuration of Lightroom on Mac OS X was missing a shortcut for “Zoom Out”
• Several translation and shortcut corrections were made for the eight additional languages introduced with Lightroom 2.3

These updates include camera support for the following models:

• Nikon D3X
• Olympus E-30

This update also includes preliminary support for the recently announced Epson R-D1x (and R-D1xG).

The Lightroom 2.3 update includes several bug fixes.

Fixes originally provided in the Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidate

• In the Windows 64-bit version of Lightroom an sFTP upload process could cause Lightroom to crash.
  Slideshows could return to the first image randomly during playback.
  A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments.
• Canon EOS 5D Mk II sRAW files could process with artifacts in Lightroom 2.2.
• Lightroom 2.2 could cause disc burning to fail for Windows customers.

Fixes new to the final version of Lightroom 2.3

Attempting to undo(CTRL-Z) a single step in Lightroom 2.2 on Windows could cause a series of previous actions to be undone.
Lightroom 2.3 now provides language support for the following additional languages:

• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Dutch
• Italian
• Korean
• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Spanish
• Swedish

Pro Photography Show has a similarly expansive collection of links to free Lightroom presets. Collections range from authors Sean McCormack, Jack Davis, and Matt Kloskowski to Adobe’s Exchange community.

Related Links:

• Presetting Lightroom Flickr group
• Wonderland Lightroom Presets
• Presets Heaven
• Adobe’s Exchange community
• Pro Photography Show

Both releases include new camera support for the following models:

• Canon EOS 1000D (Digital Rebel XS/EOS Kiss F)
• Canon EOS 50D
• Fuji FinePix IS Pro
• Kodak EasyShare Z1015 IS
• Leaf AFi II 6
• Leaf AFi II 7
• Leaf Aptus II 6
• Leaf Aptus II 7
• Nikon D700
• Nikon D90
• Nikon Coolpix P6000
• Olympus SP-565 UZ
• Pentax K2000 (K-m)
• Sigma DP1
• Sony A900

Lightroom 2.1 also includes a number of fixes for issues that were introduced with the Lightroom 2.0 release. The details of those fixes are listed in the Read Me file associated with the update.

Exam Structure

The following lists the topic areas and percentage of questions delivered in each topic area:

Number of Questions and Passing Score

Exam consists of:

• 52 questions
• 68% minimum required to pass

Anyway, are you thinking of taking the exam or have you already taken the Lightroom (or Photoshop) ACE exam? Let me know why or why not in the comments section.

The Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 1.4 update includes these enhancements:

• Additional camera support for the Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi/EOS Kiss X2), Nikon D60, Sony A350, and more
• Updated printer driver compatibility for Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard)

Lightroom 1.4 includes corrections for the following issues:

• Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated.
• Previous camera profiles identified in the Calibrate panel of the Develop module may have displayed poor results at extreme ends of the temperature and tint ranges. A new camera profile identified as Camera Raw 4.4 is now available and will be applied by default to all images without existing Camera Raw or Lightroom settings. The creation of new default profiles will also include the updated Camera Raw 4.4 profile. Images edited in Camera Raw or Lightroom with earlier profiles will retain the earlier profile value and visual appearance.
• In previous grayscale conversions the Color Noise setting was disabled and this could result in an image with excessive noise when grayscale channel mixing is applied. Both the tool and effect have been enabled in Lightroom 1.4 providing the ability to reduce noise in grayscale conversions. In order to return to the prior visual appearance, Color Noise reduction can be set to zero.

Lightroom 1.4 includes the following known issues:

• In the print module, deselecting the Identity Plate option when the option to render on every image is already applied will result in no change and the Identity Plate will be applied to every image. To remove the Identity plates, deselect the option to render the Identity Plates on every image then deselect the Identity Plate option.

Lightroom 1.4 Update: Macintosh | Windows

By the way Photoshop 1.0 shipped on February 19th, 1990.