Adobe Systems has announced the availability of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 software, a toolbox for managing, adjusting and presenting large volumes of digital photographs.

Lightroom 2 features new enhancements such as dual-monitor support and advances in non-destructive localized image correction, and streamlined search capabilities. As Adobe's first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel processors and Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit operating systems, Lightroom 2 also provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images.

"A worldwide community of photographers provided valuable insight and feedback, as part of the Lightroom 2 public beta program, ultimately helping us deliver a better product," said Tom Hogarty, senior product manager for Lightroom and Camera Raw at Adobe. "We've considered their requests which helped us develop useful features that make it easier than ever for our customers to quickly refine, enhance and present brilliant photographs."

The enhanced Library module in Lightroom 2 helps streamline and accelerate photographers' workflows. With the ability to visually organize images across multiple hard drives, Lightroom 2 and its Library Filter Bar makes it easy for users to quickly find the images they need. The Suggested Keywords feature helps photographers keyword their images by making intelligent suggestions based on their own previous efforts. New dual-monitor support allows users to expand their workspace, giving them flexibility to edit and organize images in a way that maximizes an additional display.

In the Develop module, the new Local Adjustment Brush lets photographers fine-tune specific areas of an image to precisely adjust color, exposure and tonal range without affecting other areas of the image. The new Graduated Filter expands the toolbox in Lightroom, allowing for edits to larger areas by applying gradually diminishing or increasing adjustment effects such as exposure, clarity, and saturation, alone, or in any combination. Lightroom 2 also helps print more efficiently by quickly arranging photos of multiple sizes on one or many pages with flexible and customizable templates to maximize paper and ink.

Intelligent algorithms automatically determine optimal sharpening for screen or print, producing crisper images faster.

New raw technology gives access to flexible camera profiles. Adobe is supplying default camera profiles that closely emulate the visual looks that photographers are used to seeing from their favorite camera, while also providing the ability to create highly customized profiles to suit different tastes. Camera profiles are available for immediate download on Adobe Labs for use with Lightroom 2 and Camera Raw 4.5, along with the DNG Profile Editor for the community to test and create their own profiles.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is available now through the Adobe Store in English, French and German with the Japanese language version planned to be released at a future date.

The estimated street price is USD$299 for new users with an upgrade price of USD$99 for registered users of qualifying Lightroom customers.

Recommended system requirements are Macintosh OSX 10.4, 10.5 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel based processor, or Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise, Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1 GB RAM and a 1024x768 resolution screen.

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