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There's a brief press release on Adobe's website today with the headline “Adobe Further Extends Leadership in Digital Photography Raw File Workflows”. It looks pretty dry stuff (aren't Adobe already a leader in raw workflow?) until you read the article and think through the contents: Adobe just bought Raw Shooter. Technically they have acquired the technology assets of Pixmantec ApS but to you and me that means they bought Raw Shooter.
For anyone who doesn't know, Raw Shooter burst onto the digital photography scene in February last year. It came from nowhere and had the backing of well known photographers such as Andy Rouse. It quickly picked up market share for two very simple reasons:
- It is very good. Lots of people have compared it to Capture One (which at the time was reckoned by many to be the best raw converter out there). Lots of users switched from other packages because they found it easier to use or got better results with it - and sometimes both.
- It was free. The original version was called “Raw Shooter Essentials” and was promoted as “free for ever”. There has since been a paid for version (Raw Shooter Premium) but the free version is still available and does everything most users will need.
The announcement by Adobe today is both slightly worrying and very exciting. It's slightly worrying because this may be the end of the road for Raw Shooter. The premium version is being discontinued and the free version will only be available for a limited time (until it is merged with Adobe's product lineup). It's great to see though that Adobe will be supporting Pixmantec's customers through the transition.
It's very exciting because of what Adobe plan to do with it. If you use a Mac and shoot raw pictures then there are two things you must know:
- The Raw Shooter Essentials Mac version never got written
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Adobe have their own product, currently in beta, called “Lightroom”. This is a very good raw converter and looks gorgeous - palettes fly up when they are needed and vanish when they are not. The software also includes some excellent “canned conversions” for black and white and split toned images.
Today's announcement is going to make Mac owners very happy because Adobe say they are going to merge Raw Shooter with Lightroom - the power of RSE with the feature set and beauty of Lightroom should be a killer combination.
The news is even better because Adobe announced recently that they are taking pre registrations from PC users for the Windows version of Lightroom. The beta test version can't be very far away.
While I'm slightly saddened that RSE will soon be no more - I can't wait to see the new version of Lightroom. The current version already runs great on my Mac. If Adobe can successfully port it to Windows then they will have a winning product.
Links
Raw Shooter - http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.asp
Lightroom - http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/
Capture 1 - http://www.phaseone.com/
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