Finally, a Lightroom 2 Add-In that doesn’t suck!

If you are like me, you’ve tried a few Lightroom 2 add-ins, only to discover they quite honestly suck. They crash or they simply launch Photoshop, so if you don’t have Photoshop then you’re screwed. Well, tonight I finally downloaded the Viveza for Lightroom 2.0 add-in (free for existing Viveza users) and am happy to report that it doesn’t suck!!!!!

Here’s how it works (and how it’s different from the average add-in):

1. Select the photo you wish to modify
2. Choose Edit In (usually from a right click) and choose Viveza
3. You’ll be prompted for a format to export (unfortunately, it does save a new file to disk). I tried a 16-bit ProPhoto PSD, but that failed, so I stuck with the default TIFF format on the next try.
4. The simple to use Viveza UI comes up and you make your changes, as you would from Photoshop (but the key here is that Photoshop is NOT required).
5. When you are done, choose save (where you’d normally say OK) and the file is saved back to disk and you are returned to Lightroom.
6. No fuss, no muss, no crashes!!!!!

I’ve already reviewed Viveza here, and I love it. I use it quite often, so I’m pleased to be able to use it with Lightroom now. Here’s a really bad photo I had of “Chub the Frog” (my kids pet frog) taken inside his filthy dirty plastic home (the kids insisted that we not take him out):

Even though the odds were against me (hover over to see the before), I managed to save this muddy photo into something reasonable using ONLY Lightroom 2.3 and Viveza 1.0! A special thanks goes out to Chub the Frog and my kids for participating in this article! :-)

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