Six years ago today the first public beta of Lightroom 1 was released.  What a great 6 years it has been!

I remember when a mentor of mine and fabulous photographer, George DeWolfe, showed our class Lightroom 1.  He raved about it and used it all week in class, but he said “Lightroom HAS to have local adjustments!!!”  I said back (given my 15+ years of business experience and M.B.A. from the University of Chicago), “Forget about it, George!  If Adobe added local adjustments, they wouldn’t be able to sell us Photoshop!”

Of course Lightroom 2 came out with the adjustment brush and graduated filter, and I happily ate my words. Then Lightroom 3 came out with perspective correction and more, and I concluded that Adobe really is committed to making Lightroom more and more powerful, to truly meet the needs of photographers.

Thank you, Adobe! Here’s to more exciting years!

Gene McCullagh at lightroomsecrets.com and Sean McCormack at pixiq.com have the old beta (and official) splash screens — some cool designs you may not have seen.