mindspan - 9:10 pm on Aug 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

Lightroom is for professional photographers or serious amateurs. You aren't going to realize the true benefits until you are

a) shooting in RAW
b) have many thousands of images you have to organize and be able to find in a variety of circumstances and by a variety of criteria
c) require a sane and rapid workflow for processing hundreds of images in a sitting
d) are demanding about colour accuracy and output quality
e) need tight integration between pixel level editing software (Photoshop) and your RAW processor/cataloguer (Lightroom)

etc...

Simply put, Lightroom isn't for your point and shoot crowd.

The previous version wasn't "OK", it was fantastic. It has become the standard almost overnight. Version 2 offers tons of great extra features which, while maybe not appealing to casual users, are must-haves for pros. Just one example is the new dual monitor support. This has improved my workflow at least 25%... and when dealing with thousands of images, that ain't trivial. Dig a little deeper and you'll find a treasure trove of kickass features which makes the pro photog's life a lot easier. Lightroom has dramatically improved almost every aspect of my photographic workflow. Kudos Adobe.