Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 for Windows & Mac - Upgrade Version

Pros: Does a great job of letting you extract details that your camera won't find for you. Reasonably easy to use. If you use raw files--and you definitely should!--you want Lightroom.
I hand-adjusted raw files and compared them withe the .jpg files produced by the camera's processor. With flower pictures, I could bring out the details. With river rapids flowers, the .jpg files showed just white in the foam, but the hand adjusted files showed everything.

Cons: Not particularly useful for those who work only with .jpg files (raw files have about 250,000 times more information in them). Definitely takes a little practice and a little time to adjust pictures. Cropping seems to be limited to the original pictures aspect ratio (or maybe I just haven't found the more powerful cropping yet). Does not replace Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

Pros: A real value for all the new features you get to work faster and do better quality.

Cons: None

Pros: LR 4 has a new map module and a new processing engine. I don’t have GPS module for my camera and don’t have the time or interest to enter map data manually so I can’t say much about the map module. The new processing engine however really make it much easier to bring out highlight and shadow details than LR3 and to me it is worth the upgrade price alone.

Cons: The box I received has a cut about 2” long on the surface. My guess is NewEgg’s warehouse people cut into too deep when to use knife to open the shipping bulk box and slice the top copy which happens to me mine. Although it did not cut the box open nor damage the s/w, I wish they be more careful about it.

Other Thoughts: If you are not sure of upgrade, you can down load trial copy from Adobe to decide.

Pros: Adobe cut the price by half for LR 4 compared to LR 3, which is great. I've been using the beta for a few months (and LR 3 for about a year as well as PS for 5-years) and find LR 4 to be a significant improvement. The new 2012 process version sliders are much more intuitive and easier to make adjustments with. There's a new moire-reducing tool in the brush menu. There are new modules - Map (geotagging) and Book. I've tried the Map and it links to Google Maps allowing you to navigate to and enter shot location and bird's-eye-view into metadata - even if you don't have a camera gps system. I don't process much video but LR 4 can now handle this too.
There are several other new and/or improved features but the bottom line for me is that once I started using LR 4, I couldn't stand returning to LR 3 for editing.

Cons: I had to pay $79 for this upgrade even though I owned LR 3 for only a year. Adobe should have made the upgrade less expensive.

Other Thoughts: It took me a while to switch over from Photoshop to Lightroom but I'm glad I did. I now do almost all of my post in LR and visit PS only for some specialized plug-ins and retouching work.