Adobe Lightroom 3 available in beta

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is expected to arrive at the start of next year--Adobe normally takes 18 months to produce its professional-level software--but a beta version is available for download now from Adobe Labs.


You can install the beta version of Lightroom 3 on Windows and Mac OS X (there's still no Linux support), but as this is just a trial, you can't use it with your existing photo library.

There aren't that many extraordinary changes for this new version: the library is a little faster, and the system for importing photos has been improved somewhat.  Noise handling has also been revised, leaving grain that is more attractive and less coloured.

A new Publish module also allows you to share your photos directly with sites like Flickr.