I’ve processed a few images now, and I have to say that I’m super impressed with the new beta already. The videos talked about how the core has been re-written for quality and responsiveness, and boy have they delivered. It’s more impressive given that they’ve described this as a rough beta.
I was recently turned on to the DNG profiles and earlier today had switched to using the Camera Standard profile for most images, which I’m finding I prefer. That, combined with the new responsiveness of the slider adjustments in Develop mode, is really making for some real fun when processing images.
The new sharpening is a wonder to behold. I’m finding that it’s able to sharpen more to bring out detail without introducing artifacts and noise. I’m not sure how they did it, but it’s working.
As I said, I’ve only played with a few images (and only ones from the D700) but I can’t rave enough about what I’m seeing so far quality-wise.
Also, I imported a few DNG files that I’d already started processing in Lightroom 2 into a new LR catalog to play with. The new import process is much nicer than the old one, although I’m not sure I’d call it intuitive. I need to play with it more and noodle on what’s not quite right there. Still, it’s an improvement for sure.