Lightroom vs Photoshop

Hi

I've just upgrade from a P&S to a D7000. Raw on the P&S was painfully slow so I'm on a new learning curve with a camera that's Raw capable. I've searched but still have a few questions. I have PS Elements 9 and Nikon NX2 and I'm quite proficient with Elements It seems to me that LR has some benefits for bulk processing from Raw but as we are constantly at different depths, lighting etc etc I'm not likely to have too many photos requiring the same processing.

Currently I have a PC so not considering Aperture though I will probable need to upgrade my computing power and am tempted to go to Apple. Do you think I need LR?

Lightroom is mainly a program to catalog your pictures and has more than basic editing functions.

Photoshop is a powerful tool to edit your photos but has no catalog functions.

When you have a big collecion of pictures, Lightroom comes very handy and the price for it is ok.

I load all my pictures from the camera in Lightroom to see them and make basic corrections like exposure, contrast, etc,

for use in a slide show or for low-res internet use.

If i need to edit a particular picture for high quality use or to apply special filters i open it with Photoshoop ad edit it there.

Chris

Lightroom is all I use for my images. It is fantastic for cataloging and adding keywords which makes it very easy to track down images taken in the past. For example, I can easily find all the images I have of cuttlefish.

I can do all the editing I need to do with Lightroom. Most of the time I need to do very little, perhaps a tweak to contrast here or there. Sure, Photoshop would be more powerful but I figure if I need to do that much editing I screwed up at the time of taking the image anyway.

The automation available in Lightroom is amazing and there are many plugins available to supplement the built in functions.

Lightroom is not perfect, and there are a number of bugs and areas that could do with improving, but overall it works well.

You can download a free trial (full function for 30 days) and see how it works for you. If you are shooting raw I recommend using the camera profiles.

I believe lightroom and photoshop use the same basic engine.

For photographers, L/R can do all requires relative to image manipulation.

Lightroom has a good key word and cataloging system.

Photoshop has over 1400 commands and photographers will only use a very small portion of them

We still jump into P/S for some features only as we are more comfortable there.

Lastly, lightroom is about one half the cost of photoshop!

For a p&s shooter, i love LR than ps.

Its simple, more organize and have all the basic editing i ever need.

Right now, i only use ps's remove dust/noise feature for removing backscatter.

Other than that, i use LR..

it is kinda hard to compare Lightroom and photoshop as they are two programs meant for different things and have evolved to meet different needs.

Lightroom is fantastic for work flow management but there are others out there that are great too. I don't use aperture so can't comment on it but most people who use it seem to rate it highly but for some reason i have it in my head that it is a nikon thing.. no idea why.. I know a few pro's that use Photo Mechanic and seem to like a lot. The editing abilities in Lightroom are not meant to be advanced, but are great for letting you get a good idea of what things could be and personally i use them to see how different crops might look, different filters etc. and it is also good for helping re-sizing for printing etc.. and also helps you create instant backup when you import new stuff which have definitely been a god send on a few occasions!

Photoshop is simply an amazingly powerful editing program and most users will rarely use the full range of what it can offer, but i think most people would agree that for photographers they are best used in combination with each other and not an either / or.

Anyways, that just my thought.. bored on a sunday evening so apologies!

I find that unless I have to do some serious masking, I use Lightroom almost exclusively. It has tremendous bang for the buck, compared to Photoshop. (Don't get me wrong, I love Photoshop, but if you are using it for Underwater shots only you are only skimming its features and it is expensive, even for those that shoot stock, etc.) They are different, and great to work with integrated. I have noticed some issues with the latest version of Lightroom: if you heavily edit (for example, backscatter removal combined with graduated filters) it can seriously slow down or freeze. Hopefully this will be addressed in the next version.

Cheers,

Marli

Marli

Version 3.6 was announced yesterday - http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5308 - it says it fixes some bugs plus the usual new camera models etc

Hi there,

I used Photoshop Elements Ver. 6 for the last three years.... and only got Lightroom 3 this year...(slow to embrace the norms.... I know)

For RAW processing its a brill. programme...and actually I now use it all the time...its so much better and faster for catalogue...and quick processing...which I much prefer.

Having to spend long periods of time messing with a photo in elements is not my thing.

In short , I adore Lightroom....andI regret I didnt get this super programme earlier....but .......am very happy to have elements and lightroom together, cause elements gives you a bit more editing facilities if you need them.

If I was you...I would say..def. get Lightroom..it will compliment and marry to your elements version 9 really nice!...you wont regret it.

:-)

I am another Elements user ready to upgrade. I'm putting some of my work into print, and Elements doesn't support conversion to CMYK.

Can anyone tell me if Lightroom will allow this? Conversion to CMYK can unleash some vile colour shifts, so I would prefer to do my own colour-correcting before going to print.

Mercifully, I can buy this software with the educational discount so the price issue isn't huge...

I tend to use Lightroom. It is great for cataloging the pictures and for the fast corrections. If I have something tricky to do they I use PS.... PS and LR combined rock:)...

Can anyone tell me if Lightroom will allow this? Conversion to CMYK can unleash some vile colour shifts, so I would prefer to do my own colour-correcting before going to print.

Are you certain you need CMYK work? Did your print shop recommend it? Are you magazine publishing?

I get wonderful prints by making certain I use a calibrated monitor, sending work to a pro print shop and using metallic paper.

Not much else that needs to be said - LR is great - I am so happy I got it! Go for it you you wont be disappointed.

I have both LR and PS and tend to use LR for 99+% of my photos. I second what everyone else has said - essentially, LR is the best choice for a single software application for photographers.

I'd like to add one more note: although LR contains basically the same features as PS, I find LR *much* easier to use, in that the controls can be manipulated much more easily. It is much easier to crop and retain the same aspect ratio, and its spot removal tool is light years ahead of PS's (the brush can be resized with a turn of the mouse wheel or by clicking and dragging on the target itself, the sample area can also be dragged to an optimal spot). I find that not only to I save a lot of time using LR over PS, but I get superior results as well.

-Gina

Are you certain you need CMYK work? Did your print shop recommend it? Are you magazine publishing?

I get wonderful prints by making certain I use a calibrated monitor, sending work to a pro print shop and using metallic paper.

I have published some calendars and notecards and am selling them (oddly well) in dive shops. I figure a little business will let me right trips off on my taxes. I am doubtful that it will ever be a profitable business, but I might as well milk it as long as Revenue Canada will let me...

I actually work in the print industry (so I get really good prices!). We could certainly do the conversion to CMYK in-house. On small digital runs, the RGB files convert automatically, but that's when the colour shift occurs... Offset jobs need to be converted to CMYK before anything else happens.

I can always get our art dept to tweak them at proofing, but it's simpler to do it myself. None of our artists have the foggiest idea what stuff underwater looks like.

I did a bit of searching and looks like LR does not really support CMYK. Photoshop does support it.

Is CMYK that important?

for me that is something that is done after, by the printer(?) and even for reasonable magazine and brochure prints my calibrated monitor and LR do me just fine. I tried Photoshop and really it was too much of a tool for me - amazing but too much. although i still feel like i would like to have the full version.... and use both.... but the D400 is going to be out soon......