Canon G11 and Lightroom 2.62 RC

One important feature of the Canon G11 is that it supports both JPEG and RAW formats. I've been getting excellent JPEG files directly from the camera, but with RAW files I've had quality concerns with Adobe Lightroom conversions. Canon's own DPP software does a very good job with these files -- as you would expect from the same manufacturer -- but I'm not a great fan of DPP and generally prefer to use Lightroom. Although the most recent version did technically work with G11 RAW files, its profile for this model did not produce very good default results, at least for me. I also tried the Lightroom 3 beta, which supposedly had better support for the G11, but I found those results to be not much better. Fortunately, this problem now seems to be solved with the latest LR 2.6 RC upgrade. This version now appears to have an improved standard profile for the G11 and the default conversions are much more to my liking.

This delay was inevitable since no software can be pre-programmed to anticipate the characteristics of all future camera sensors. New camera models generally require significant testing to create optimal profiles for converting their RAW data. These profiles are essential for producing good RAW conversions and I'm very glad Adobe is committed to regularly updating LR to provide them.

Up until now I've been capturing both JPEG and RAW files with the G11 to have more development options. But I don't like having to manage dual copies of images. My early experience with this update is that the new conversions are good enough that I may resume shooting RAW only. At the very least, I'm much more comfortable with the default conversions that LR now produces when working with G11 RAW files.

LR3 Beta

On the subject of the Lightroom 3 beta, I must profess that so far I find it to be a bit underwhelming. It does have some modest improvements, but mostly for things it already did fairly well. Performance enhancements are always nice, but with major increment upgrades I've come to expect more. For Lightroom what I want most is the addition of features that keep me from having to LEAVE the application in order to do important edits that many of us regularly perform. For instance, things like lens distortion and perspective correction, HDR, image blending, and masking -- all done non-destructively -- are features I could really get excited about.

Yes, I know I can currently export, edit in other applications, and then return to LR, but the more I can do without round-tripping, the better. Not only would this improve my productivity, but it would eliminate the need to create and add alternative versions of files to the library.

To be fair, this is only a beta version of LR3 and Adobe has indicated that there is much more to come. I do anticipate other important enhancements in future releases. I just hope they aren't so protective of Photoshop market share that they withhold some of its most important features for photographers from Lightroom. If Adobe is serious about Lightroom becoming THE essential workflow software for photographers, then they need to expand its capabilities seriously too.