Adobe has released its 1.0 version of the Photoshop Lightroom software which will bring the product out of its year-plus beta period and available for retail purchase. The Lightroom software is a digital photographers ‘toolbox’ used for managing, developing and presenting a digital photo library.

The product is available initially for $199, but will go up to $299 starting in May. If you are currently using the beta 4.1 or previous, it will expire at the end of February and you will have two months to take advantage of the $100 discount.

Lightroom 1.0 has some additional features which help filtering through large collections of photos by keywords and a new Key Metadata Browser for key information tags. It also has an improved ranking system with colored labels and a feature to pick or reject items. The Develop module has some new features for comparing versions of …

The Portable Document Format (PDF) is the ubiquitous document format used by both the public and private sector to securely exchange and preserve information. Adobe published the complete PDF specification in 1993 and has been committed to making the PDF an open standard within recent years.

In an effort to reinforce their “commitment to openness”, Adobe has announced that it intends to release the full PDF 1.7 specification to AIIM for ISO standardization. AIIM will be responsible for identifying issues and will develop a draft document that will then be presented to ISO for development and approval as an International Standard.

Going back to 1995, Adobe has a long history of working within the ISO process to deliver various specialized subsets of PDF as standards for specific industries and functions. PDF for Archive and PDF for Exchange are already ISO standards, …