which software for a newb with a 7D

hi everybody!

my name is brian and i am here to learn as much as i can. i have shot a few underwater pics with a point and shoot and a sony hc9. i shoot mostly video and just bought a canon 7d. i am waiting till i get comfortable with the camera on land before i buy my housing. im currently debating on buying lightroom or the package deal with lightroom and photoshop. any suggestions? im also looking for a tokina 10-17mm for a canon. im hoping tokina releases some to there venders soon.

lightroom? or lightroom with photoshop? i can save a few dollars now if i buy the package. is photoshop worth it? also should i wait for lightroom 3 and CS5 before buying?

im very new to photo editing but have had experience with desiging black and white logos in photoshop. a friend of mine used to teach graphic design in photoshop on high school level. i will be taking moslty wide angle shots in 20 feet or less of water with some deeper shots. i primarily freedive. i plan on adding macro lens and strobes eventually so i can take pics of the little guys. i will try to shoot in clean green water or bluewater on oil rigs. water is murky alot of the time. let me know if there is any more information needed.

thanks

Hi Brian,

Lightroom and the front end of Photoshop are the essentially the same. They use Adobe Camera Raw to process the pictures and the tools to do the photographic processing like White Balance, exposure, cropping and color correction are the same. Lightroom has the added features of easier batch processing. In other words you don't need Photoshop to process your files. If you want to put multiple images together or modify a file to add or delete something major then you'll need Photoshop. LR3 should be very close to being released so you might consider downloading the free trial of the LR3 beta to get used to it and see if you like it before dropping a bunch of $ on LR 2.6 and PS.

There is a ton of stuff to learn in Lightroom and with the new tools you'll very rarely need PS for the common photographer tasks.

HTH,

Steve

thanks for the quick reply!

ill do just that. my camera comes in on wed. im excited!

I agree. I would download the Lightroom 3 Beta and see what you think. I personally use Lightroom and I use photoshop CS4 as well. I use photoshop to remove to do some things such as backscatter. I definitely use Lightroom more, which I'm sure everyone who uses both do. I jump over the photoshop on the images that I go to print with. FYI, I do shoot a lot of wrecks, which you can't always light.

Kirk

Another vote for lightroom, but if you are a mac person then you should download both LR and Aperture as well as photoshop and you can play with them all for free for 30 days or so. A lot will depend on your workflow habits and how you want to organize your files.

Bill

I had the same problem before. While I agree with what the others said about Lightroom, I chose to go with Photoshop anyway. The reason behind that was because the literature and classes on post processing available at my place was mostly on how to use photoshop. And when it comes to searching for how-to(s) topics (e.g. how to get whiter clouds in your images) on the net, people would normally explain them with photoshop. But the amount of literature i was talking about was back a couple of years ago. I am not aware of the prevalence of Lightroom literature today, but if theirs a lot now, then I would go with Lightroom.

Great point is does take the literature a while to catch up. The best way I've found to learn Lightroom is with their videos; http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-lightroom-20/

Have fun,

Steve

thanks for all the responses. i got my camera in last week but have been working a lot and have not had much time to play with it. i will try to post some land based pics when i get a chance. i downloaded lightroom 3 and it looks like i have a lot to learn!!!!!

I was wondering if anyone can tell me the details on the LR3 beta download. I'd like to try it, but I don't want to download and install it if its going to expire in 30 days or something like that. I'd rather wait till I get back from my first trip with my new camera rig. On the other hand, if they're only going to offer the beta download for a limited time, I'll want to get right on it.

I've gone to the download site and couldn't seem to figure out the detils without doing the install, so I backed out.

Also, I hear a lot of talk about LR3, and adobe in general, operating on pictures in the RAW format. Ive looked through my camera's user manual, and I'm not able to store photos in that format. Can I assume that LR3 won't have any problem doing the conversion? If you can't capture in RAW, does that mak LR3 any less useful?

Thanks,

Mike

Also, I hear a lot of talk about LR3, and adobe in general, operating on pictures in the RAW format. Ive looked through my camera's user manual, and I'm not able to store photos in that format. Can I assume that LR3 won't have any problem doing the conversion? If you can't capture in RAW, does that mak LR3 any less useful?

As to the current Beta Version

The Lightroom 3 beta program is available to the public, so that means anyone with an Internet connection can download it and start putting it to the test. You do not need to own (or have tried) a previous version of Lightroom. You can download the beta and use it until the product expires. The current Lightroom 3 public beta 2 will expire on June 30, 2010.

RAW is really where Lightroom and Aperture shine, but it will also work on JPEGs as a decent tool, though processing RAW is ultimately where you want to be.

As to the current Beta Version

 

RAW is really where Lightroom and Aperture shine, but it will also work on JPEGs as a decent tool, though processing RAW is ultimately where you want to be.

Thanks for the info on the beta version. I guess I'll download it now.

As for the RAW, that may be the direction I go eventually, but right now I'm on the start of the learning curve and I've already made my initial investment. I've been diving for 15 years but never took photo's till last year when we rented a point and shoot in bonaire with no external strobes. Our pictures were definitely "rough", and I can at least use those to learn and experiment with the LR tool.

Just recently got a canon p&s with an external strobe and video/focus light. I'm psyched to test it out in a month or so. Just trying to do all the reading I can until then to educate myself.

Thanks for this info - I am in the same situation so this is very helpful