Pixiq

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Adobe didn't develop Lightroom. They bought it (RawShooter) from the Danish company Pixmantec. Because I was a registered user of RawShooter I got a free upgrade to Lightroom 1.0.

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200606/062606Pix...

I hate to break this to you, Dave, but Adobe was already developing Lightroom (as a product called Shadowland - Google it) when it bought RawShooter. IIRC the acquisition was after LR1 was released. It incorporated some of its ideas into Lightroom.

The acquisition of RawShooter happened in 2006; LR1 was released in February of 2007.

I'm surprised you don't remember the outcry by disgusted RawShooter users when Pixmantec sold out to Adobe.

I read the article by Jeff Schewe about Shadowland. Unfortunately it was written before the acquisition of RawShooter so it does not explain why, if Shadowland was in development for so many years, the LR team thought the acquisition necessary.

Of course I remember that outcry - RS was a well-liked app. It doesn't make your earlier assertion accurate though!

LR1 was in fact initially released as a public beta a year earlier than you write - January 2006. That was barely a month after Apple's Aperture was released, which may explain something! Adobe bought Pixmantec almost 6 months later and incorporated some RS technology (IIRC in vibrance and clarity) and moved their Michael Johnsson (may have got that name wrong) over to California. In no significant way was Lightroom a development of Rawshooter.

If I understand you, Adobe paid several million dollars (IIRC the price for RS was over >10 million) for 2 minor features? Does that make any kind of sense?

And to acquire their business and its customers? No idea what the price was, and if it was ever made public, but Michael was a prized asset.