Adobe releases Lightroom 4, drops price to $149.99 and $79.99

[Rick]

After being in beta for just a couple of months, Adobe has released the retail version of Lightroom 4 for public consumption. The latest milestone of the photography workflow application sports many improvements, but most notably an improved price: $149.99 for the full version, $79.99 for the upgrade version. 

One explanation for the price drop may be that Adobe is feeling pressured by Apple's competing product, Aperture 3. The Mac App Store version of Aperture was slashed by 50 percent to just $79.99 in January. At $150 though, Adobe's offering will be more attractive to serious amateurs and those who wish to upgrade from Aperture to Lightroom.

Some of the new features found in Lightroom 4.0 include a photo book creator (a la Aperture), location-based organization which leverages GPS data found in an increasing number of cameras these days, highlight and shadow recovery, soft proofing, improved video editing and RAW image processing. 

Adobe claims it has been focused on providing richer RAW support with Lightroom 4.0. Improved RAW handling should help give serious photographers the best possible dynamic ranges between highlights and shadows in their photos.

While working with video footage, Lightroom 4.0 allows users to extract still images, crop and trim video footage and apply visual filters not unlike those included for photo processing. Although video editing has been improved, aspiring videographers will still want to export their video to an external, non-linear video editing application like Final Cut or Premiere.

The Windows version requires a minimum of 2GB of RAM, a Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 and Windows Vista or higher. The Mac version requires 2GB of RAM, any 64-bit Intel CPU and Mac OS X 10.6.8 or newer.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/47682-adobe-releases-lightroom-4-drops-price-to-14999-and-7999.html

 

[EEatGDL]

Ehm... was there ever a Mac out there with a x86 (32-bit only) Intel's processor? I think they don't have to specify the "64-bit" part.

 

[Guest]

Sadly, Adobe have adopted a crazy pricing structure for countries outside of the USA. Here in NZ, we are unable to purchase at the price of $149 USD (approx $185 NZD). Instead the Adobe website directs us to an Australia check out with a price of $212 AUD. $212 AUD works out to be approx $275 NZD.

A lot of Photographers in New Zealandare upset with this blantant price difference, we have downloaded the trial and simply want to pay the price everyone else is paying for an activation code. We have posted messages on the Adobe NZ Facebook page and we all got this generic reply:

“Hi, thanks for your comment. Adobe delivers mission-critical software to creative professionals. Our pricing methodology takes into consideration the costs of doing business in different regions and customer research that assesses the value of the product in the local market. Conditions vary between markets and it’s difficult to make a straight comparison between countries.”

What a load of rubbish! Up your game Adobe, we live in the digital age!

 

[Rick]

EEatGDL said:
Ehm... was there ever a Mac out there with a x86 (32-bit only) Intel's processor? I think they don't have to specify the "64-bit" part.

Actually, I know that Intel's "Yonah" was used in some very early Intel Macs.

Yonah is 32-bit only and the only reason I know it was used in some Macs is that I used to work just a couple labs over from where Yonah was being tested/validated under Apple reference boards in 2005. That's the only reason I left that in there.

I don't think it was ever used in Mac laptops (could be wrong), but rather their desktop lines (iMac probably, not sure about the mini). However, I don't think I've ever crossed a Yonah-based Mac in the wild though, so it was probably hardly worth mentioning anyway. I just want to make sure I'm as accurate as possible.

 

[Guest]

first series of macbook pros had the 32bit cpu's

 

[Arris]

~$100 in the UK to get the upgrade! Think I'll survive without it for the time being.

 

[Guest]

Yes $100
In the Uk = £60.57 - just paid for Upgrade download

Seems reasonable to me -- I like the latest version

 

[Guest]

Why waste money on Lightroom when Raw Therapy is Open Source. Therefore "FREE". IF it is not as good as Lightroom now it will be within the next release or two...meaning later this year.

Google it for your OS (Linux, Windows and Mac) try (and keep using) it for free.

Same price in EEC, NZ, OZ, US even Japan....FREE