If you have photoshop, why even use light room?

[Derrel]

I like to ask: If you have LR, why even use PS?

I think Photoshop, almost ANY version dating back to Version 2.5, is better for spotting and cloning of blemishes and doing clone- and patching or content-aware fill type work than Lightroom. Lightroom is not that well-designed as a "spotting" application. Lightroom's workflow and layout is just better than Bridge as well. I find Lightroom just better designed than PS for most basic global editing and touch-up tasks.

 

[Derrel]

it's an organizer but you can do lots of thing there... It's not that much user friendly but with a few tutorials you can make it friendly and get to know everything there is...

I apply info template while I'm importing the pictures, tagging, rejecting, staring, pdf contact sheets and much more

editing starts in ACR

No extra steps needed. Its a great organizer, you can tag, sort, rate, etc. Too each their own though

Bridge works the same way.

Bridge lets us tag, sort, rate, etc, too. The major difference between Bridge and LR is that Bridge is a browser, while LR is a database manager.

I have always found that the major difference is that Bridge sucks, and Lightroom is easy to use and efficient...

 

[JacaRanda]

This should really help anyone with more questions that perhaps have not been answered here already. (me thinks most have)

Adobe Lightroom 5 vs Photoshop CC: which software should you choose? | Digital Camera World

 

[astroNikon]

I have always found that the major difference is that Bridge sucks, and Lightroom is easy to use and efficient...

yeah, but what do you really think ??
:lmao:

 

[mmaria]

I'm interested to hear your workflow with acr and Photoshop. Aperture has been giving me tons of trouble lately. I was going to just put up with it until I can get Lightroom, but if ACR could solve my issues perhaps it would be worth a shot!

I can pm you if you'd rather not derail the thread.

well... I think you should ask guys for their workflow, because mine is wrong obviously LR is the way to go!

and I also know nothing about Aperture...

you can ask me where ever you want, here or pm

 

[sscarmack]

If you have some time and want to learn lightroom, here is a great overview video

 

[keyseddie]

I read all 5 pages. It's obvious a lot of you folks know more about PS and lightroom than I. I know the things I think I need to know in PS to get me to my destination. I bought lightroom 4 a couple years ago and thought it intuitive enough, but except for organization, i couldn't see that it did anything photoshop couldn't, so I went back to the way I do it and it seems nobody else does it this way. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur. After a shoot of any magnitude, I download to iPhoto. Then easily trash what I don't want, assign 3 or 4 stars to the most promising, and export the original file, always raw, I haven't shot a jpeg in years, one by one at my leisure to PS camera raw. I don't have many jobs anymore so I just save what I need for a slideshow and the very few that I know will sell. I try to get it right in camera so I don't need to batch process anything. My question is, I'm I doing it the easiest way? Or would it be better to get more familiar with lightroom, which I own?

 

[KmH]

Is Lightroom destructive like Photoshop?

(Sorry If this was mentioned and I missed it.)

no. the actual file is not manipulated in any way. It just display the image data in a different manner based on your slider settings. It stores those settings in a separate file it refers back to when you open that image up.

you must save a new file out when you want to do something with it.

Photoshop Camera Raw and Lightrooms Develop module are essentially the same software - ACR.

Photoshop has additional non-destructive editing abikity beyond Camera Raw/Develop module by using Photoshop's Adjustment Layers.

 

[KmH]

The bottom line is, if you want a complete photograph editing capability you will want BOTH - LR and Photoshop - and would then use tools, features and functions from both in your workflow.

now, you said something interesting. Why do I need LR if I have Bridge and ACR? What can LR do and ACR can't?

LR's Develop module IS ACR, though there are some minor differences.
for instance - LR has several crop guides you can use that Camera Raw does not have.
Camera Raw's RGB display shows RGB values as 0-255 under the left end of the histpogram display,.and the pixel sample size can be changed.
LR displays RGB values as %'s out over the photo being sampled
LR has 6 other Modules, but a lot of the functions in those other modules are available in Bridge.

 

[KmH]

I have always found that the major difference is that Bridge sucks, and Lightroom is easy to use and efficient...

You may be an exception, but I have found few people that know how to use Bridge - effectively or ineffectively.
I routinely encounter long time Photoshop users that don't know Bridge or Camera Raw were included with their version(s) of Photoshop.

 

[Scatterbrained]

I read all 5 pages. It's obvious a lot of you folks know more about PS and lightroom than I. I know the things I think I need to know in PS to get me to my destination. I bought lightroom 4 a couple years ago and thought it intuitive enough, but except for organization, i couldn't see that it did anything photoshop couldn't, so I went back to the way I do it and it seems nobody else does it this way. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur. After a shoot of any magnitude, I download to iPhoto. Then easily trash what I don't want, assign 3 or 4 stars to the most promising, and export the original file, always raw, I haven't shot a jpeg in years, one by one at my leisure to PS camera raw. I don't have many jobs anymore so I just save what I need for a slideshow and the very few that I know will sell. I try to get it right in camera so I don't need to batch process anything. My question is, I'm I doing it the easiest way? Or would it be better to get more familiar with lightroom, which I own?

Well, right now you're using iPhoto to do what the import and library modules of Lr do.

Me personally, I import via Lr. While in the import module I will do my first cull of images. I will then select the drive they are going into and create the folder or subfolder for the images, with the appropriate label (this is all done from within Lr). This way I have my own desired folder structure (as I'm sure we all do) and I'm only importing the images I know I want to keep. It just doesn't make sense to bounce between two different bits of software to do what can be accomplished in one. From Lr I can open the images in Ps just as you would from ACR, going back and forth between the two.

 

[keyseddie]

I read all 5 pages. It's obvious a lot of you folks know more about PS and lightroom than I. I know the things I think I need to know in PS to get me to my destination. I bought lightroom 4 a couple years ago and thought it intuitive enough, but except for organization, i couldn't see that it did anything photoshop couldn't, so I went back to the way I do it and it seems nobody else does it this way. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur. After a shoot of any magnitude, I download to iPhoto. Then easily trash what I don't want, assign 3 or 4 stars to the most promising, and export the original file, always raw, I haven't shot a jpeg in years, one by one at my leisure to PS camera raw. I don't have many jobs anymore so I just save what I need for a slideshow and the very few that I know will sell. I try to get it right in camera so I don't need to batch process anything. My question is, I'm I doing it the easiest way? Or would it be better to get more familiar with lightroom, which I own?

Well, right now you're using iPhoto to do what the import and library modules of Lr do.

Me personally, I import via Lr. While in the import module I will do my first cull of images. I will then select the drive they are going into and create the folder or subfolder for the images, with the appropriate label (this is all done from within Lr). This way I have my own desired folder structure (as I'm sure we all do) and I'm only importing the images I know I want to keep. It just doesn't make sense to bounce between two different bits of software to do what can be accomplished in one. From Lr I can open the images in Ps just as you would from ACR, going back and forth between the two.

Thanks, Scatterbrained. I think I'm grasping it. You are saying to import to LR, where I can open from there directly to PS, correct? Directly to camera raw, I hope. So that would save me time it appears. Perhaps I should learn Lr. Is LR 4 sufficient? Thanks again.

 

[JacaRanda]

I would say Lightroom 4 is more than sufficient especially since you have PS already. There may be very little reason to work with ACR because most of it as Keith has mentioned is in the LR develop module.

 

[Scatterbrained]

I read all 5 pages. It's obvious a lot of you folks know more about PS and lightroom than I. I know the things I think I need to know in PS to get me to my destination. I bought lightroom 4 a couple years ago and thought it intuitive enough, but except for organization, i couldn't see that it did anything photoshop couldn't, so I went back to the way I do it and it seems nobody else does it this way. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur. After a shoot of any magnitude, I download to iPhoto. Then easily trash what I don't want, assign 3 or 4 stars to the most promising, and export the original file, always raw, I haven't shot a jpeg in years, one by one at my leisure to PS camera raw. I don't have many jobs anymore so I just save what I need for a slideshow and the very few that I know will sell. I try to get it right in camera so I don't need to batch process anything. My question is, I'm I doing it the easiest way? Or would it be better to get more familiar with lightroom, which I own?

Well, right now you're using iPhoto to do what the import and library modules of Lr do.

Me personally, I import via Lr. While in the import module I will do my first cull of images. I will then select the drive they are going into and create the folder or subfolder for the images, with the appropriate label (this is all done from within Lr). This way I have my own desired folder structure (as I'm sure we all do) and I'm only importing the images I know I want to keep. It just doesn't make sense to bounce between two different bits of software to do what can be accomplished in one. From Lr I can open the images in Ps just as you would from ACR, going back and forth between the two.

Thanks, Scatterbrained. I think I'm grasping it. You are saying to import to LR, where I can open from there directly to PS, correct? Directly to camera raw, I hope. So that would save me time it appears. Perhaps I should learn Lr. Is LR 4 sufficient? Thanks again.

Lr and ACR are the same on the processing end. They use the same raw conversion engine. Lr is a bit easier to use than ACR/Bridge however. In Lr it's a simple as; Right click>edit in>Open in Ps. If you have a version of Lr that is of the same generation as your version of Ps then it will open in Ps just as if you were going right from ACR (because you are), if your Lr is newer than your version of Ps it will ask if you want to convert to TIFF first (you do). Once done in Ps saving the image brings it right back into Lr. Easy.

 

[keyseddie]

Got it. Thanks.