X

Adobe tests Lightroom 2.1 with new SLR support

A release candidate of version 2.1 fixes a number of bugs and adds Nikon D90, D700, and P600 support.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise Processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science. Credentials
  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
Stephen Shankland

Nikon's new D90 SLR Nikon USA

Adobe Systems has put out a Lightroom 2.1 release candidate that stamps out a number of bugs, improves performance in some cases, and adds support for several newer Nikon cameras.

As with the test version of the Camera Raw 4.6 and DNG Converter software released last week, the new software supports raw images from Nikon's midrange D90 and higher-end D700 SLRs, its top-end Coolpix P6000 compact camera, and Fujifilm's Finepix IS Pro camera, according to the Lightroom 2.1 release notes. (Updated 9:35 a.m. PDT Sept. 22 with the correct Nikon camera model number.)

The new version also improves rendering performance on 64-bit Intel-based Macs, handles some previously unworking raw images from Olympus cameras, fixes some rotation problems with Nikon raw images, gets rid of some memory leaks, takes care of some problems when transferring files to Photoshop, and fixes some metadata problems when importing libraries from Lightroom 1.4. Alas, if you've already upgraded your library from Lightroom 1.4 to 2.0, you'll have to run an Adobe-supplied script to enable proper inclusion of keywords when exporting photos. (So that's why some Flickr photos were missing keywords!)

For further details, check the the blog posting from Adobe's Tom Hogarty or the Lightroom 2.1 release candidate download site.

And while you're at it, I highly recommend the Lightroom camera profiles software, also in testing, which in my opinion greatly improves photos' overall colors.