The Lightroom 4 beta is now out. Free 30-day trial download is available. Early user reports are positive.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4/

Crap....and I just bought Lightroom 3. :)

-Tony

Thanks Tony, your selfless purchasing act ensured the release of Version 4 could proceed. :-)

Depending on the time to actual release, they might upgrade you for free, otherwise it's been a $99 upgrade rather than a full $300 purchase. OTOH if you got LR3 at the $99 firesale price of the last few months, you're still ahead.

Cheers,

Rick

Rick,

Just doing my part to support the economy....that is what I tell myself with my adult video rentals too. :)

Actually, I paid $120 - $150 approx in Nov on sale at Amazon, which Jacob was nice enough to point out the sale to me.

I also spent about $60 on two books to teach me how to use it.

Installed the program, but have done nothing to use it yet.

Lazy on my part...plus, I am going to try to build my 1st computer from parts and will load Lightroom 3 on it and start working with it on that machine.

From what I have heard, should be a perfect replacement for my Adobe Elements program and can batch process multiple photos at once vs. my doing them one at a time now.

Will have to see if there is an upgrade deal for me.

-Tony

Hi Tony,

You still did quite well at that price. The Lightroom workflow takes some getting used to, but the ability to organize, tag and track your photos through its database are worth the effort alone. The extensive non-destructive editing features are a more obvious benefit. Make sure you're building a 64-bit system to get the speediest LR performance. It does make a difference.

Finally, a plea: In the future, please refrain from using "Lazy" and "build my 1st computer" in the same sentence. It makes actual lazy people like myself look really bad.

Cheers,

Rick

I have Jacob for giving me the heads up on the deal for what I paid.

As for my attempt at building a computer.....if I manage to not electrocute myself, then it will be a success.

And yes, I did pick up the 64 bit version of Windows 7.

Appreciate the input and advice.

-Tony

Tony, if you haven't discovered newegg.com yet, it should help you start heading in the right direction in building your first comp. I've built 6 or so pc's and it really is easier than people think. Took me a whole 30 min start to finish to put the hardware together on the last one.

If you are looking for any recs, let me know.

-Josh

Josh,

Thanks a lot for the offer for help.

Maybe you can give me suggestions on my build.

Mind you....case, CPU, MOBO, and RAM have been ordered.

Going Small Form Factor Mini Itx forces additional cost and compromises, but this is going to sit on top of my desk.

I have been researching using Tom's Hardware, checking Newegg, and Amazon for prices and user recommendations.

Here is what I have planned for my build, SFF type midrange gaming box:

Case: Silverstone SG08 Mini Itx Case with 600 watts power supply & fans $200.00

CPU: Intel i5 2400, not overclocking due to limited ability with mobo $189.00
Stocks CPU Cooler using Artic Silver 5 Thermal Paste

Mobo: ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX $120.00

RAM: 8 GB DDR3(2x4GB)Patriot G2 Series PC3-12800 1600 HMZ (tested/compatible by ASrock)$40.00

SSD Boot Drive: Intel 320 Series 120 GB SATA 3.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
(chosen due to reviews stating few problems with drivers or BSOD with OCZ SSds) $185.00

2nd Drive: Recycled 2.5" 500 gig drive that I have in my laptop to hold me over til HDDs drop back down to sane levels, pre-flood in Thailand that effected WD production

Video Card: SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 PCIE Graphics Card with $20 rebate for $144.00 net price on Amazon

Optical Drive: Slim DVD Burner Drive- expensive, but only option for this SFF Case $30

OS: Windows 7 64 Bit Professional OEM Builders $120.00

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated...though I know the hard part is getting all the pieces to work together once they have been put together.

The part that I am very murky about is the BIOS settings/configuration once all the pieces have been put together, so I can install the OS.

-Tony

Edited by Valshar on 01/18/2012 01:20:28 MST.

Looks like a great build, Tony! I would've probably gone with the 2500k processor so you could have overclocked it in the future, but it should still be crazy fast. I am putting together a PC for a friend right now and it is pretty close to this.

Everything is pretty straight forward. When you are putting it together, make sure you seat the ram well, it's pretty common for people to be nervous and not push it in hard enough.

For the settings, everything should be pretty straight forward. When you boot up for the first time you can go into the bios and check your boot priority. Make sure it has your optical drive first.

I believe that you have to change the settings on your SATA to either AHCI or RAID for your SSD - I'm not sure, I have never done this and am pulling from a vague memory, you are going to have to look this up. Im pretty jealous of the SSD, honestly, I have been wanting to pick one up, but I just reloaded my OS a couple weeks ago, and the thought of doing it again makes me a little queasy.

After you get it up and running Windows and the drivers installed, you could go back into the bios and make sure your memory is running at the advertised speed and timings.

Oh, and if nothing happens the first time you power it up, dont freak out, just unplug the computer and reset the CMOS (probably a jumper, check the manual) and try it again. It's pretty common for static electricity during installation to put the CMOS on the fritz.

Rob,

Thanks for the input....now you have me worried: AHCI or RAID!!!!

I am guessing AHCI is non RAID- which is having two drives linked together for speed and redundance? (The whole RAID thingy seemed complicated and I avoided it).

Good to know about setting the Optical drive as the boot drive, which makes sense....need to load the OS from disk.

I am excited by the SSD too, as I have read and seen youtube videos of how fast it is.

I debated about the 2500k CPU, but the MOBO that I am looking at has crappy reviews for limited ability to OC.

Also, my research on Tom's Hardware shows that there is not a huge bump in performance/frame rate on games by OCing.

Looking forward to the build and hopefully without much difficulty or drama.

Worse case scenario....I have a lot of expensive broken bits of computer laying around me with a baseball bat in my hands. :)

-Tony

I think that AHCI would be the setting you would want, as you said. As long as it isnt legacy IDE or ATA, you should be fine. Those settings do not allow you to use some of the higher level commands that make SSD's efficient.
Again, I would read something from someone that actually knows what they are talking about, but that is my understanding.

Happy building! Be careful, it can be as addicting as light weight backpacking! haha.

I came across this elsewhere... just passing it on to the good people of BPL.

Lightroom 3 $70
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/720705-REG/Adobe_65081059_Photoshop_Lightroom_3_Software.html

Photoshop Elements 10 $70
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/822135-REG/Adobe_65136565_Photoshop_Elements_10.html



I've never seen LR sold at that price before. This would be worth it just to get in on the $99 upgrade when LR4 is released, even at that combined cost it's a nice deal.

Lightroom 4 is now available, and its only $149.99. Will this be the regular price or are they selling it cheap for the time being? Here is a link to Dell's website with it listed:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=A5802186&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch

Majority opinion is Adobe changed their LR pricing strategy and this is the actual retail price, not a teaser price. The good news for current users is the upgrade is less than a hundred bucks and there are ample reasons to make the switch.

Cheers,

Rick