I don’t think I’ll be trying out the Adobe Lightroom beta, because I really don’t want to get hooked up to the kind of program that redefines workflows when it’s only a beta and will quit being free in June, but the first overview video seems promising enough. The interface isn’t quite as pretty and innovative (what, no stacks?) as Aperture’s, but the possibility to run it on a real-world Mac configuration (and the fact that Adobe is anything but new at decoding RAW files, so Lightroom will probably be as good as it gets at this) should make up for any limitation. I’m very curious to see the next overview video, uncovering the most important part of the software: “developing” photos.

It’s sad that Apple itself wasn’t able to make its program usable on regular Macs, and it’s particularly surprising that salvation would come from Adobe, which is more renowned for the growing sluggishness of the Creative Suite or the Acrobat plugin.

Now we’re left to wonder why Aperture and Lightroom look so much alike when their release dates are so close. Which of Apple or Adobe left too much information out about their new project? And how will Adobe make Apple pay, now that it’s obvious they do care and we’re way past complementarity and into direct competition?

[12/01] Adobe Lightroom First Look and Primer.