As we count down.

Lightroom will begin shipping and downloading on the 19th as the whole world and his dog know by now. V1.0 is finished and ready for release to a very expectant audience. Not counting multiple downloads, over 570,000 individuals downloaded the Beta's. That's a big crowd to have waiting, not to mention the newcomers since the Launch on the 29th January.
I've outlined a lot of the new features (but not all) on Lightroom-News.com, but that still won't satisfy those who want the program now.

If I were seeing the program for the first time since Beta 4.1, I would be over the moon with the new features. The key thing for me that changes the usability of Version 1, is Spot Removal. This brings almost 90% of my workflow into one application. A good sharpening/noise reduction toolset would bring it to 90%. The remaining 10% is for special files (final selects) requiring skin retouching and other layer based edits. Unless someone writes a dedicated retouch module (which is more than possible), then access to Photoshop is always going to be required. I'm very happy that I can now choose to do my Edits as ProPhoto RGB PSD files, rather than Tiff. I prefer using Photoshops' native format. Lightroom will recognise and show multi-layer PSD files. You need to choose Edit Original though, when going back to Photoshop, or else Lightroom will send out a flattened image. Also Maximize Compatibility must be turned on. All this leaves for me to say is : Roll on the 19th!