After I’ve spent just a few days with the 2012 processing engine of Lightroom 4 Beta, it is really tough to load up version 3. I have started to work with recent images like ballet dancer summer intensive headshots and first arabesques…

In the Develop module, gone are Fill Light and Recovery, but the new set of sliders work just as well, if not better. The exposure slider as best as I can tell, now acts a lot like the now missing brightness slider. Exposure adjusts exposure, but now seems to bias the mid-tones. Going from top down, this is the first place I go. I can get the mid-tones where I like them even if I end up over exposing some parts of the image. After getting the contrast close to where I want it, I can bring back blown out details with the highlight slider. Shadows is close to what fill light did and is good for bring detail out of muddy areas. Be mindful of the histogram and what it tells you.

Use the alt/option key along with the blacks and Whites sliders and you should be close to a properly exposed image.

Some thoughts:
There are a ton of improvements in other areas, like soft proofing, adjustment brush and some new DNG features that I’ll maybe get into another time. I’ve only had one crash so far with the Beta. If you are the adventurous type, download the beta from Adobe Labs.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but each version of this software makes Photoshop less and less necessary. If you are thinking about buying Photoshop, maybe buy this first. Many of the tasks that require masking in Photoshop are easily done in Lightroom with the adjustment brush. I still use Photoshop mainly for retouching and also some Content Aware fill/scale features. -But Lightroom can do just about most everything else a portrait or landscape photographer needs, and in a non-destructive manner that does not touch your original file.