And while you are there  check out Ashu Mital’s Flickr space. Ashu is on the Adobe Prerelease team and a Lightroom Worshipper and she Tweets at @ashumittal

And a reminder from Lightroom Killer Tips about The Photo Geek’s Catalog and Preset Backup Plug-in.

Timothy Armes has released LR/Mogrify 2.00, with a new, and much requested, compression feature which finds the optimum JPEG compression value to produce the best image quality for a specific output size.

Other features include:

• Watermarks can be scaled to the shortest or longest edge, ideal for same size watermarks on Landscape and Portrait images.
• Annotations now work the same way.
• Unnecessary punctuation will be removed as well.

The update is free to current paid users.

Search and Replace is the first.

The latest is Open Directly which allows a Raw file to be opened directly with another Raw editor (rather than sending it as a TIFF when you use Edit With …)

Lightroom 2.4 is available here for Mac and Windows. Camera Raw 5.4 is available here for Mac and Windows.

Supported Cameras

• Canon EOS 500D (Digital Rebel T1i/EOS Kiss X3 Digital)
• Canon PowerShot SX1 IS
• Epson R-D1x
• Hasselblad CF-22
• Hasselblad CF-22MS
• Hasselblad CF-39
• Hasselblad CF-39MS
• Hasselblad CFH-22
• Hasselblad CFH-39
• Hasselblad CFV
• Hasselblad 503CWD
• Hasselblad H2D-22
• Hasselblad H2D-39
• Hasselblad H3D-22
• Hasselblad H3D-31
• Hasselblad H3D-39
• Hasselblad H3DII-22
• Hasselblad H3DII-31
• Hasselblad H3DII-39
• Hasselblad H3DII-39MS
• Hasselblad H3DII-50
• Kodak EasyShare Z980
• Nikon D5000
• Olympus E-450
• Olympus E-620
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1
• Pentax K-7
• Sigma DP2
• Sony A230
• Sony A330
• Sony A380

Note: Hasselblad support is for the 3FR file format only. The Hasselblad FFF file format is not currently supported.

Lightroom 2.4 Bug Fixes

The Lightroom 2.4 update includes several bug fixes.  The following is a list of items FIXED in this release.

• Web galleries with a Collection Title of six characters would not export or upload
• The crop aspect ratio could revert to the last selected ratio even when reset to original
• The crop aspect ratio in Quick Develop could be lost after a crop adjustment
• The crop aspect ratio lock could be lost after an orientation switch
• Images could preview incorrectly when imported using the MTP/PTP USB protocol
• Sony .ARW files may not have been recognized by Lightroom’s import dialog
• The Japanese language configuration of Lightroom on Mac OS X 10.5 could fail to switch to the print module if the HP B9180 was set as the default printer
• Metadata options that are intended for use were dimmed incorrectly when exporting DNG files
• The Japanese language configuration of Lightroom on Mac OS X was missing a shortcut for “Zoom Out”
• Several translation and shortcut corrections were made for the eight additional languages introduced with Lightroom 2.3

New Lightroom 2.4 and Camera Raw 5.4 DNG Options

This release includes new DNG Compatibility conversion options. These choices help address the additional options available with the new DNG 1.3 Specification (http://www.adobe.com/dng):

• Camera Raw 2.4 and later: The DNG file will be readable by Camera Raw 2.4 (Photoshop CS) and later, and Lightroom 1.0 and later
• Camera Raw 4.1 and later: The DNG file will be readable by Camera Raw 4.1 (Photoshop CS3) and later, and Lightroom 1.1 and later. The DNG file will often be readable by earlier versions, depending on the camera model
• Camera Raw 4.6 and later: The DNG file will be readable by Camera Raw 4.6 (Photoshop CS3) and later, and Lightroom 2.1 and later. The DNG file will often be readable by earlier versions, depending on the camera model
• Camera Raw 5.4 and later: The DNG file will be readable by Camera Raw 5.4 (Photoshop CS4) and later, and Lightroom 2.4 and later. The DNG file will often be readable by earlier versions, depending on the camera model
• Custom: (Not available in Lightroom 2.4)
  • Backward Version Option: DNG 1.1, DNG 1.3 (default 1.3)
  • Checkbox: Linear (demosaiced) (default unchecked)
  • Checkbox: Uncompressed (default unchecked)

DNG 1.3 Specification Update

The DNG specification has been updated to version 1.3. The update includes the following changes:

• In Chapter 2, “DNG Format Overview”, the section on Defective Pixels has been updated
• The section on Opcode Lists has been added to Chapter 2, “DNG Format Overview”
• The CFALayout tag has been updated in Chapter 4, “DNG Tags”.
• Additional Tags for Version 1.3.0.0 were added to Chapter 4, “DNG Tags”
• Chapter 7, “Opcode List Processing” was added.
• “Appendix A: Compatibility with Previous Versions” was updated.

The additional “Opcode Lists” allow complex processing to be moved off the camera hardware, which can have limited processing power, and into the DNG reader, which is often running on more powerful hardware. This also allows processing steps to be specified, such as lens corrections, which ideally should be performed on the image data after it has been demosaiced, while still retaining the advantages of a raw mosaic data format.

(via Lightroom Journal)

You can buy an extensive set of Graduated Filters from Sean McCormack’s site. Sean has created a vast number of grads, both hard and soft, horizontal and vertical.

This contains support for new cameras:

* Canon EOS 500D (EOS Rebel T1i)
* Epson R-D1x
* Hasselblad CF-22
* Hasselblad CF-22MS
* Hasselblad CF-39
* Hasselblad CF-39MS
* Hasselblad CFH-22
* Hasselblad CFH-39
* Hasselblad CFV503
* Hasselblad CWD
* Hasselblad H2D-22
* Hasselblad H2D-39
* Hasselblad H3D-22
* Hasselblad H3D-31
* Hasselblad H3D-39
* Hasselblad H3DII-22
* Hasselblad H3DII-31
* Hasselblad H3DII-39
* Hasselblad H3DII-39MS
* Hasselblad H3DII-50
* Kodak EasyShare Z980
* Nikon D5000
* Olympus E-450
* Olympus E-620
* Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1
* Sigma DP2

This release also includes new DNG Compatibility conversion options. These choices are explained on the Adobe Labs web site and help address the additional options available with an upcoming revision of the DNG Specification.

<via Tom Hogarty>