Lightroom 6 or Photoshop - Please help

sec · May 5, 2016

I've been wanting to improve my photo editing for some time now. All I have at the moment is the basic photo editing that came on my laptop. The more I read about each one the more confused I get. I have been leaning heavily toward Lightoom based solely on the price difference.

What photo editing software do you use, and what made you choose it over something else? What would you recommend I use if the decision was yours? My computer skills are basic at best so I am looking for something user friendly. I am not a professional and never will be, but I want my photos to look as good as possible. Something worthy of printing and framing. I shoot jpeg with a Canon 6D. I have never shot RAW mostly because I don't understand the system and don't think my editing ability is worth the trouble and extra work. But I guess that's where the point of this post comes in.

weepete · May 5, 2016

I use both lightroom and photoshop, though the vast majority of my photo editing is done in Lightroom. It's pretty good and easy to use, so I'd say get that if only want one.

Where Photoshop really excels is in more complex editing, graphic design and photo manipulation. So stuff like extensive cloning. I have used it before to remove people and cars from scenes I've shot. Lightroom is fine to patch small areas, like dust spots etc but lacks the ability to rebuild an area of an image.

Nowadays Adobe offer a subscription package for photogaphers at $10 per month for both Lightroom and Photoshop, though you can still buy a standalone version of Lightroom if you don't want a subscription.

Watchful · May 5, 2016

I have used most of the software out there and really like paintshop pro, gimp(with a Photoshop UI) and paint.net the best and use all about equally for various functions. I also use several others including pixia, phirrera, and others. Gimp and paint.net are both free and can be added to with your own plugins, scripts and functions or those written and shared by others so they are more powerful than the paid proprietary software.

Ysarex · May 5, 2016

You have a good high-end camera capable of professional work and you've been wanting to improve your editing for some time now. I think those two factors mean it's time for you to go to the camera and set it to save CR2 raw files. Nothing else you can do trying to repair camera JPEGs will even come close to improving your end results.

It will be a big change but folks here can help and it will be worth it. Considering your camera and what you just said tells me you're ready.

While you start to learn there's no need to spend money. Save that for later. Your camera came with software on a CD, but all you have to do is go to Canon's website and you can download the most recent version free of charge. Canon cameras are supplied by Canon with a copy of DPP (Digital Photo Professional). You can start there. Eventually you may want to add other raw processing software when you have a better understanding. Lightroom is a popular choice but there are lots of other options at varying price points and with varying capabilities. Start to learn with the software that came with your camera and then once you have a better idea what's possible you can extend your software tools.

Let me show you two photos that explain why you should consider this change.

Above you see the JPEG that came from my camera, in this case a Canon 5d. The photo belongs in a trashcan as the highlights in the sky are blown out. Blown out highlights can't be repaired because the data is missing. You can't fix something that isn't there. I knew that would happen but I set the camera exposure to record the much darker area in the foreground which is after all the subject of the photo. As far as the camera JPEG processor was concerned this photo was a classic rock and hard place choice. I could have reduced exposure so the sky would not blow out but then I wouldn't have enough exposure on the darker subject in the foreground. Shooting this scene and saving a camera JPEG forces me to chose between bad option one or bad option two. There's no camera JPEG option that isn't bad.

But I saved a raw CR2 file in which the highlights in the sky are not blown. Make sure that sinks in. What happened to damage the JPEG above and blow out the highlights in the sky was done by the camera software that created that JPEG. That damage is not present in the raw file. And so I was able to process the raw file by hand and get the photo that I wanted. Below is the photo that I took. It's from the exact same raw file as the photo above. Above processed by the camera and below processed by me. My version has color and detail in the sky.

What you need to understand about this photo: 1. It could not have been produced by the camera JPEG software and 2. Any JPEG the camera would create could not be repaired to produce this photo. The photo I took was only possible because I saved the raw CR2 file and processed it myself.

You'll encounter comments that raw processing is too involved and takes too much time and you'll wind up chained to your computer and never have time to take photos again. There's truth to all of that but you've already made the first move. You're asking about editing your photos and improving the results. The way to make JPEG shooting take less time is to accept the JPEGs the way the camera delivers them and do the best you can to coax decent results from the camera -- stay away from the computer. As soon as you say "edit" you're headed to the computer and I promise you that it takes longer and requires considerably more skill to repair a camera JPEG than it does to just process a raw file from the start. And your repair work on the JPEG will be inferior to the photo processed from the raw file. So I recommend you take the easy route and throw that switch in your camera -- it's in the menu under Quality --> RAW. Then download a copy of DPP and come back here when you have questions.

Joe

ronlane · May 5, 2016

Adobe has been so nice to Photographers and now you don't have to decide between LR or PS, you can have both with all the latest, greatest updates as soon as they are released all for $9.99 a month in the US.

In my opinion this is the only way to go.

KenC · May 5, 2016

I second what Joe said. You can get a very nice image out of DPP or many other raw converters. Once you learn a few simple things, it will usually be far better than what you can get from jpg.

You also have the option of shooting raw+jpg and starting to play around with the raw file those times when you are disappointed by the jpg. That way you aren't forced to convert from raw for every image you want to process, although I'm pretty sure just going through DPP with the default settings would produce something as least as good as the jpg.

sec · May 6, 2016

Thanks to everybody who offered their opinion. I am going to try DPP first if I can get it to download. Been trying for the last hour with no luck. I can get it to open if the disc is in the computer, but for some reason it won't download.

At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, is a CR2 a regular RAW file or is it something different?

If I shoot in RAW + JPEG how much more space will this take up on my card? On a normal vacation I usually end up with around 2000-3000 photos. Usually on one card.

Can the branch in the photo below be removed in DPP or Lightroom or is that a Photoshop issue? It is very distracting.

KmH · May 6, 2016

There are no "regular" Raw files.
There are over 100 different Raw file types.
CR2 is a proprietary Canon Raw file type.
Note it is Raw, not RAW, because Raw is not an acronym like JPEG is - Joint Photography Experts Group.

Being a Nikon users I've never used DPP for editing, but I would use Photoshop instead of Lightroom to remove (clone out) the branch.

Dean_Gretsch · May 6, 2016

sec said:
Thanks to everybody who offered their opinion. I am going to try DPP first if I can get it to download. Been trying for the last hour with no luck. I can get it to open if the disc is in the computer, but for some reason it won't download.

At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, is a CR2 a regular RAW file or is it something different?

If I shoot in RAW + JPEG how much more space will this take up on my card? On a normal vacation I usually end up with around 2000-3000 photos. Usually on one card.

Can the branch in the photo below be removed in DPP or Lightroom or is that a Photoshop issue? It is very distracting.

If you are like me, you delete many more than you keep. Shooting in RAW+JPEG will double the amount of wasted space on your cards and your computer. I shoot in RAW only and edit the files I like to jpeg so they can be uploaded to sites like this forum.

chuasam · May 7, 2016

Editing is always done in Lightroom.
Photoshop is for retouching.

KmH · May 8, 2016

Lightroom's Develop module and Photoshop's plug-in - Camera Raw - are the same software - Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
There are some minor differences between Camera Raw and LR's Develop module but they are slight.

A bonus using Camera Raw is that Camera Raw can be hosted by both Bridge (included with Photoshop or the Photography Program subscription) and by Photoshop. In other words you can have two Camera Raw windows open and each can batch process 2 different groups of photos.
Lightroom can't do that.

Photoshop Bridge is a under utilized Photoshop tool. Bridge has time saving batch/automated features many Photoshop users don't know about.

weepete · May 10, 2016

You could remove that in lightroom given the background is a plain black, it should be pretty easy using lightroom's clone tool though you may need to be a bit careful around the edges of the beast. It's not quite as easy as using photoshop to do it but is definately possible.

Lightroom does a fine job at patching areas, but if your background was a little more complex that that shot it would be a photoshop only job.

waday · May 10, 2016

sec said:
Thanks to everybody who offered their opinion. I am going to try DPP first if I can get it to download. Been trying for the last hour with no luck. I can get it to open if the disc is in the computer, but for some reason it won't download.

At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, is a CR2 a regular RAW file or is it something different?

If I shoot in RAW + JPEG how much more space will this take up on my card? On a normal vacation I usually end up with around 2000-3000 photos. Usually on one card.

Can the branch in the photo below be removed in DPP or Lightroom or is that a Photoshop issue? It is very distracting.

With a black background like that, who needs Photoshop or Lightroom when you can do it in MS Paint? :smile:

Ysarex · May 10, 2016

Try this then with LR or (dear lord!) MS paint:

There are right tools for the job. Parametric raw converters do the bare minimum spot removal. For most photography that's enough, but heavy lifting takes the right tool, otherwise all you get is a sore back.

Joe

P.S. Above photo taken by one of my students, Elizabeth C., I did the editing for a class demo. I have permission to use the photo.

sec · May 15, 2016

Thanks everybody. Finally able to get DDP downloaded last night. Haven't had a chance to really play around with it yet but my initial impression is it's not user friendly. Hopefully when I get a chance to spend some time with it I will change my mind. I have a couple of weeks off the first of June. Hoping to have a lot of time for it then.

Never thought about using paint to remove the branch. Thanks. Fortunately the background of mangrove trees in shadow was very dark. When I cropped the shot it came out almost black.