Adobe has released a free beta version of Adobe Lightroom 2.

I began using Lightroom during the first beta nearly two years ago and have come to depend greatly on it for almost all my raw image post-production. Adobe had made some significant improvements to the first version so I’m looking forward to see what’s in this beta.

At $299 Lightroom is a bit steep, but for editing, color correcting and tagging a large collection of photos I can’t see using anything else. I haven’t had a chance to try out Adobe Bridge so I wouldn’t know how the two compare.

Download the free beta (Windows & MAC) here.