Photographers rejoice, as Adobe’s Lightroom 3 is on the horizon. In typical Adobe fashion they’ve launched a public beta test which will let users refine and evaluate the product.

Whether you’re a hardcore Lightroom user looking to pound out some bugs and try new features, or you’ve never used Lightroom before, this is a great opportunity to jump in.

If you’re unfamiliar with Lightroom, it’s similar to Adobe Bridge, Google Picasa or Apple’s iPhoto cranked straight to eleven. It does some powerful photo organization but the killer feature is the speed and depth of its photo retouching. Some of the photo retouching is similar to can be done with Photoshop, but the focus is placed on workflow and fast batch processing. Adobe likes to refer to it as your digital darkroom, and it’s a good analogy, but the scope goes beyond what can be done in a traditional darkroom.

Some of the new beta features include measures to prevent large libraries from seizing the application, new noise reduction tools, film grain simulation, built-in watermarking, slideshow and print output, better importing and expanded web publishing options. We’re a bit disappointed that they haven’t added facial recognition, though.

The beta is set to expire in April 2010, so you’ll have some time to play with it. However, there is a catch: Adobe states that the beta is for providing feedback on the next version, not for your primary production needs, so it will not import pre-existing Lightroom libraries. It is not yet known if libraries created during the beta test can be migrated to the final release, though Adobe notes that the beta must be removed prior to installing the final version.