Although I've not used it myself, a friend showed me his copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and I was really impressed. In addition to allowing you to do some cursory editing right in the program, it allows you to rate photos, organize, and even has a few editing features that I don't think Photoshop has, such as an overexposure detection/correction tool (not sure if this is what it's called or not), for photos with areas of overexposure when the majority of the photo is ok (for instance, the leading edge of a wing, etc).

Another aspect of the program that I was really impressed with is that instead of warehousing periodic copies/sizes/versions of the same photo as you progress through your editing sequence, the program instead archives the progression of edits as commands in the form of text files, which alleviates the need to have multiple copies of various versions of the same photo and saves a lot of hard drive space (jpeg files are incredibly large in comparison to a text file). Moreover, Adobe Lightroom works with Adobe Photoshop, and the commands can be exported (not sure if this is the correct term) to Photoshop during editing.

Since I don't own/use Lightroom (yet), please don't take my word as gospel. I openly admit that I am doing nothing more than regurgitating the information I was given as I understand it. Instead, these web sites (also courtesy of my friend) are probably more accurate and reliable than anything I could say....

http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom/index.html

http://www.photoshopuser.com/?page=lightroom/videos

This second site is of a Photoshop TV show, and is very informative in general. I'm sure there is more information on the site regarding Lightroom specifically than the little bit I've pointed you to.

I wish I had more specific information, and hope that if anyone knows more, they will post it here so we can all learn a little bit. To the best of my knowledge, Lightroom hit the market in mid February at a discount price of $199 until April 30th, 2007. Thereafter, the price will be $299.

Mike

I am a Lightroom user and I really like it!

Basically there's 5 different modules to work in: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print & Web. The two you will use mostly are the Library and Develop mode.

The library mode is a great tool to manage all your photos. I have some 3000 aviation photos in the database but within a few seconds I can find the one photo I need to use or see. Sorting criteria in my own database are: location, date taken, aircraft type, operator and serial number. You can make your own database exactly as you want.

The develop mode is especially nice for photographers shooting RAW (CR2 for Canon or NEF for Nikon). Almost as many tools to edit your photos as in Photoshop and it works a lot faster once you got used to it. With one click you can open the photo in Photoshop.

In the Slideshow mode you can create a slideslow of your own photos. Lots of options to get the slide show the way you want it.

I haven't really used the Print and Web modes yet, but it has something to do with printing your photos and putting your photos on the internet (how obvious :wink).

Hope this helped a bit.