Camera Raw 5.2 and DNG Converter Available

Tom Hogarty has announced Camera Raw 5.2, along with letting us know that Lightroom 2.2 will be along in December.
There's a list of new cameras supported including the new Canon 5D MkII. Panansonic files that need to be converted to DNG have a little caveat whereby they increase to 3 times the normal raw file size. This is because the 3 channels (red, green and blue) need to be added in linear form, allowing lens corrections from Panasonic to be included in the file. A future version of the DNG spec will change this back to normal size, allowing lens compensations to be stored in metadata in the DNG file.

(Via Lightroom Journal.)

LRB Portfolio updated to 1.01

LRB Portfolio has been updated to 1.01, fixing a width issue with the menu under IE, and changing the right click code to be compatible with WebKit based browsers like Safari and Chrome.
Additions include longer text fields for Home and About, a HTML Metadata Keywords box, Remove home page link, and a slider to set the distance from the top of the broswer. To avoid confusion with those seeing errors with not enough images selected, the Home, About and Contact pages show image 1. You will see the error on gallery pages with not enough images selected. I've added titles to each section for clarity.

Known Issues. On Mac, entering a number directly in the Image Per Gallery silder box doesn't force an update. Click on the slider to force the update. Using the Slider, or hovering over the number and dragging work as normal. I'm in touch with Adobe engineers to see why this code isn't working as normal.

To update, simply use the link you received on purchase to download the new version. Most of you have only one or 2 downloads, so you still have plenty left. Reply with the download link email if you run into trouble.

Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4

Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4: "
The Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 updates have been posted to the following locations: Lightroom(Mac, Win), Camera Raw(Mac, Win).  The updates include support for the following new camera models:

Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi/EOS Kiss X2)

Fujifilm S100FS

Nikon D60

Olympus SP-570 UZ

Pentax K20D

Pentax K200D

Sony A200

Sony A300

Sony A350

Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 include corrections for the following issues:

• 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 and Camera Raw 4.4 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 corrections for the following issue:

• Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated. I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my earlier post regarding this topic. Some valuable feedback was provided and by working directly with Apple and Epson we are able to provide a resolution through this Lightroom update.

As always, don't forget rule #5!


"

(Via Lightroom Journal.)

Updates of many natures.

As is common knowledge by now, Lightroom has been updated to 1.2. To keep compatibility with Photoshop, Camera RAW 4.2 has also been released. I would've made the announcement myself at release time, but I was away in London for a few reasons. One of them was to see Prince in concert. I'd love to show you some pictures processed in Lightroom but cameras were banned from the show!

There is an installer issues for those with non English regional settings, which can be solved with Andy Rahn's walkthrough on the official Lightroom blog: >Lightroom Journal.

1.2 for me has a great fix and small break: The base noise reduction at different ISO's has been reduced. This is great for concert images at ISO1600, which looked very painterly. Yes there was little noise, but unfortunately, there was also little detail. And no, I'm not confusing sharpened noise with actual detail. The break was with Import from Device, which no longer functions. If you auto import from card, you probably won't even notice it, but as I leave the card in and do multiple imports for different shoots, I do notice it. I have to eject and reinsert the card for each import set. Very annoying.
This actually reminds me of an old request I've made a few times. When we dealt with the Shoots concept in the Betas (where a mix of real and virtual folders), you could import different dates to different folders and apply different metadata, develop and keyword settings to each date. In the release versions you can only apply one set of each on import. I'd like to be able to apply the old way please!

My final update is to mention that I'm getting my nose to the grindstone in the writing of a Lightroom book. More details will follow as I find out how much I can say!