Since the introduction of Aperture, and then Lightroom, I've been following the development of these tools that I refer to as "super browsers." Geared to solve a number of problems many people had with their workflow - especially if shooting RAW files - these program showed a lot of promise, but I had some issues with them as well. With Lightroom, it was how difficult Adobe made it to open an original RAW file from Lightroom with anything but their software. That's now changed with the release of Lightroom 1.2.

Here's why I took issue with that, and why I'm so glad it's changed. While Adobe's done a nice job rendering the color from the various RAW formats, if you want to see how the manufacturer intended the color to look, you had to use their software. In addition, some companies, like Nikon, offered you tools from within their software (Dust Off, Fisheye Correction) that wasn't available anywhere else.

Prior to Lightroom 1.2, if you used Lightroom to catalog your RAW files, there was no easy way to bring that file out in its original RAW format and open it in another (competing) image editor. That's now changed, and it's a great improvement. There's a lot to like about programs like Lightroom, and I'll be using it much more now that it lets me handle my image files the way I want to. Thanks Adobe!