FINALLY Lightroom delivers on nearly all fronts

Question

Since Lightroom 1, I've been frustrated by its great workflow and toolset combined with dismal-quality RAW conversions. I chose Apple's Aperture over the original Lightroom, even though its toolset for severely more limited simply because the quality of its conversions was appreciably better than could be gotten from Lightroom. Lightroom 2 added some great workflow enhancements and useful capabilities, but again the quality of RAW conversion–especially default color rendition–trailed Aperture and especially Capture One 4.X, which I chose to use in tandem rather than waste ungodly hours trying to coax even pleasing color from Lightroom. Then along comes the Camera-specific Profiles, which improve default color rendition GREATLY, but brought oddball color shifts to highlights during recovery, especially with Nikon NEFs. I believe it's called a 'twist'. Still, the new profiles give good enough results that I began the laborious process of calibrating LR for all my cameras and various lighting conditions...what a pain. BUT, I have managed to get color pretty well in-hand. Too bad about the still-not-great luminance qualities of the RAW conversion, especially at high ISO, where the artificial smearing and noise splotching is simply not attractive. Funnily enough, Wednesday night I had just given up and gone back to using Aperture 2 when Thursday morning I read about the LR3 Beta. I didn't expect any change in the quality of RAW conversion at all, but WOW, what a difference. I love the finer rendition of details and the granular quality of the noise. Default color seems a bit better as well, though still not perfect. If you guys at Adobe manage to figure out the color issue, erradicate the jagged appearance of red edges, and find a solution for the ugly posterization that results at OFF high contrast edges from aggressive application of fill light, Lightroom 3 will FINALLY be the single RAW conversion and workflow tool I need. I'll be able to get rid of Aperture and Capture One.
Good job, Lightroom team, on the Beta. It's a HUGE step in the right direction. PLEASE get ALL the color issues nailed down. PLEASE do what you need to the Fill Light control to soften the transition between highlight and shadow when that tool is used aggressively. PLEASE find a way to get rid of the jagged reds. PLEASE make this the best damn RAW converter on the market and I you will have earned an intensely loyal (and vocal) user.

Answer 1

I also want to voice my gratification at seeing what seems to be significantly improved raw conversions.  Some time ago, I voiced criticism at how Lightroom (and Camera RAW) were handling fine detail rendition and noise reduction, especially the ISO specific "baseline" NR that seemed to me, to be far too heavy handed.  There were some long heated threads which I had initiated, with a lot of disagreement and frustrating back and forth, but in the end I gave up the "fight" due to my time being taken up with mother's worsening condition in her fight with cancer at that time.  May she rest in peace.
In any case, despite its occasionally poor image quality, I have continued to use Lightroom for its wonderfully fluid workflow, excellent print module and the ability to heavily customize its web gallery exports.  There have been quite a few subtle improvements in how Lightroom has handled NR over numerous updates, to the point where I have been mostly happy with what it is doing. However sometimes I still found myself turning to RAW Developer for its greater control over NR and its very useful RL-deconvolution sharpening abilities, and on occasion to Capture One 4 PRO as well.
Now, with the brief time I've had with the LR 3 beta, I am seeing substantial improvements in image quality and I have to agree with the OP regarding fine detail rendition and the look of high ISO noise.  The new colour NR seems very good at getting rid of larger blotchy noise as well and fine detail rendition immediately reminded me of how RAW Developer looks with its RL-D sharpening.  I applaud the new look!!!  In fact, I am quite blown away with the image quality from my EOS-7D files when run through the LR 3 beta, beta colour profile issues aside, to the point where I feel that high ISO 7D files run through LR 3 beta may look better than equivalent 5D Mark II files processed by LR v2.5.  Note that this is a "gut feeling" of mine only, and I have not done a side by side, so take that statement for what its worth... very likely not very much, other than demonstrating how happy I am with what I am seeing.
Now if only the highlight recovery and fill light can be transformed into a little less of a blunt instrument, perhaps with the addition of "radius" sliders similar to Photoshop's Highlight/Shadow tool, I feel that Lightroom (and Camera RAW) may once again take the crown for best raw conversions!  In my own opinion only of course... I have certainly come to realize how many varying opinions there are on what constitutes a "good looking" image when viewed at the pixel level and, by association, on the largest possible prints made from an image.  None of the complaints I ever had were really noticeable at small (11x14 or less) print sizes.
In any case, keep up the good work guys!
Regards,
Mike Mander