Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 - Not More Scrolling Credits

My email was peppered today by Adobe as they made sure that I learned that they had finally released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0.   The software will allow photographers to better manage their hordes of RAW images captured from their 8.0 Megapixel cameras by the thousands.  Adobe utilized 500,000 beta testers to build and refine the product and so it will probably be very solid and a must have tool for a photographer.

Photoshop Lightroom leverages Adobe Camera Raw technology and supports over 150 native raw file formats, in addition to JPEG and TIFF, bringing raw conversion into a single workflow experience.

Source: Adobe Ships Photoshop Lightroom 1.0

I am a reticent fan of Adobe in general.  They come out with very refined software that can do just about anything.  I just have a couple small complaints-

1. Their software is expensive, expensive, expensive
2. They offer so many precise software tools that every time I purchase something like Studio 8, I rapidly realize that I am missing at least a few thousand dollars (see point 1) of addition add ons or programs that ’ I really need’ to get the most out of my user experience.
3. It takes far too long for Adobe to load and scroll through their credits.    
4. Oh and they are a big system resource hog.

Now, don’t get me wrong I think they provide some great products, and I do believe in giving credit where credit is due.  I’m also very happy that Microsoft doesn’t present credits for the creation of XP or Office in a scrolling window every time I reboot from a crash.  Can you imagine how long it would take to boot up if they did? 

Microsoft probably scrapped that idea when they couldn’t figure out how to run it in a PowerPoint viewer.

OK, laugh all you like if you are using an Apple.  Their list would probably be about 3 lines long, and they’d probably have to sue themselves for trademark violations if they provided that credit to their own software engineers.

In keeping with their typically expensive mantra, Adobe will sell this software for $299, but you can get it for $199 if you buy before April and $99 if you area student, professor or own a student or professor that can get you a license.

One of these days I am going to tally up just how much it would cost to buy every product that Adobe sells.  I suspect the total cost is close to $10 or $20k or $1 per name in the credit list of each peace of software they sell.