We recently bought Adobe Lightroom 2. We’re learning our way through it, so far it seems to be “camera raw on steroids” plus some additional new functions. I like the ability to save presets – a set of parameters – and them apply them to images later on. On the downside, Lightroom 2 is a resource pig. This is the first program that feels slow on my MacBook Pro. It used all 2 GB of ram, so I bought 4 GB and this helped a lot. Memory has gotten inexpensive, I found 4 GB of PC5300 ram for less than $90 including shipping. Installed it this morning. The Macbook Pro has 2 memory slots, so I had to take out the original 2 GB and replaced it with 4 GB on 2 simm’s. Anyone want to buy the original 2 GB?
I also bought an ebook on Lightroom from Michael Clark. I really like ebooks for anything but fiction. They are PDF files, so they are searchable. And trees do not have to die. I just started with the book so I don’t have an opinion on it yet.
Dagny's Desk 
Tombo said:
Lightroom 2 is pure awesomeness. And still less of a resource hog than bridge+photoshop.
Have fun with LR!!!
Stew Stryker said:
I’m looking forward to a review of this ebook before I buy it. I’ve seen lots of buzz, but no thorough commentaries. Thanks!
profiphotos said:
Did it really make that much of a difference going from 2 Gigs to 4? I’m also running Lightroom with 2 Gigs and am wondering if the upgrade to 4 is worth it. Hence my question.
I also thought that the apparent problems with the new localized adjustment tools being so slow is a software issue that Adobe is addressing. I read about memory leakage problems which to me explains why the system really slows down when you’ve got more than two adjustment brush masks one one image.
Cheers, Markus
Dagny Gromer said:
Markus – The difference between 2 and 4 Megs was made Lightroom usable. It was so slow with 2 megs that I’d click on a button, wait … wait … wait and eventually the UI responded. I work with Nikon raw images that are huge, which is likely a factor. Anyway I bought 4 MB for about $90 including shipping. My MacBook Pro has 2 memory slots which had 1 MB in each. To go to 4 MB, I had to take those out and install a pair of 2 MB memory units. Well worth the $90 IMHO.
I guess the bottom line here is, if Lightroom is slow for you max out your RAM.