Adobe Lightroom

[KevinPutman]

What would the benefits be of getting this program?
I currently have Adobe Creative Suite CS5, Design Premium.

So what are comparisons/differences between the 2 programs,
and should I get lightroom?
(I can do pretty much anything in Photoshop.)

 

[o hey tyler]

Lightroom and PS CS5 have the same RAW image editor, which is enough for most people (myself included). I have PS CS3, but because of my workflow and Lightroom's ease of use, I prefer Lightroom. However, if I need to do any labor intensive editing I will go to photoshop.

The largest difference between the two is that lightroom is mostly for organizing files automatically for you upon import. Photoshop will not do that for you. This is why Lightroom is better (I feel) for high volume editing, coupled with the ability to set your Camera RAW settings and save them as a preset that you can apply to the entire photo shoot.

 

[KmH]

Lightroom's main function is image database management. For editing, Lightroom uses essentially the same ACR 6 that Photoshop Camera Raw uses for editing.

Photoshops Bridge is just a browser, but when used properly will be more than sufficient for most amateur needs.

How good Lightroom is at searching and finding images in an image database is dependent on the quality of the prep work done to establish the database.

Adobe intended Lightroom as a suppliment to Photoshop CSx for photographers that routinely make A LOT of images, thus having a large image database to manage.

Many neophytets buy Lightroom because it is not as expensive as CSx, but then primarily only use the secondary editing function, never needing, or learning how to use the primary database management function.

 

[RedWylder]

Many neophytets buy Lightroom because it is not as expensive as CSx, but then primarily only use the secondary editing function, never needing, or learning how to use the primary database management function.

That's me! How do I go about learning Lightroom's other abilities? Are there tutorials somewhere?

 

[KmH]

The largest difference between the two is that lightroom is mostly for organizing files automatically for you upon import. Photoshop will not do that for you. This is why Lightroom is better (I feel) for high volume editing, coupled with the ability to set your Camera RAW settings and save them as a preset that you can apply to the entire photo shoot.

o hey tyler may not know that Photoshop Bridge can do pretty much the same file organizing as Lightroom and that Bridge is tightly integrated with Camera Raw to do batch processing.

In fact, Camera Raw can be hosted by either Bridge, or by Photoshop, so you can have Bridge doing some batch processing in Camera Raw while you do other editing in Photoshop.

 

[JWellman]

That's me! How do I go about learning Lightroom's other abilities? Are there tutorials somewhere?

Lightroom 3 - Book for Digital Photographers

Kevin,
If I were you I would save my 300 bucks and put it towards a camera.

 

[KmH]

Many neophytets buy Lightroom because it is not as expensive as CSx, but then primarily only use the secondary editing function, never needing, or learning how to use the primary database management function.

That's me! How do I go about learning Lightroom's other abilities? Are there tutorials somewhere?

Since Camera Raw and Lightroom use the same edit rendering engine - ACR 6 - you can learn how to use ACR 6 with this book Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and to learn the basics of how to prepare and manage digital assets with Lightroom, Bridge, and Expressions Media get The DAM Book

or you can spend the time to find, organize, and fiddle around with 200 or so video/written tutorials to get the same information.

 

[o hey tyler]

They didn't ask about Bridge. They asked about Photoshop and Lightroom. If they had asked about Bridge, I wouldn't have answered. Because I don't use it.

 

[KmH]

When you buy Photoshop, even CS3, you also get Bridge and Camera Raw, but I'll edit my previous post.

But the fact you don't use Bridge is not uncommon among Photoshop owners. Many Photoshop owners don't use Camera Raw either, but then buy Lightroom to have the same edit rendering engine they already have. Of course that is likely not the situation in your case as Lightroom 2 uses ACR 5 and Lightroom 3 uses ACR 6. Photoshop CS3's Camera Raw uses ACR 4.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Many neophytets buy Lightroom because it is not as expensive as CSx, but then primarily only use the secondary editing function, never needing, or learning how to use the primary database management function.

That's me! How do I go about learning Lightroom's other abilities? Are there tutorials somewhere?

For myself, it's just about tagging images, so that when you have a need for specific image from two years ago, you can search the various tags you used to find it. Your tags should be specific and generic. You could search 'flower' or 'purple' or specifically 'petunia'. Tagging can be a little time consuming, but its well worth it in the end.

 

[FranDaMan]

I have both CS5 and lightroom 3.3.
I prefer working in lightroom for the most of my PP. I don't know, it just feels easier to work with.

 

[KevinPutman]

That's me! How do I go about learning Lightroom's other abilities? Are there tutorials somewhere?

Lightroom 3 - Book for Digital Photographers

Kevin,
If I were you I would save my 300 bucks and put it towards a camera.

Say I were given the opportunity to get Lightroom for free,
yay or nay?

 

[lyonsroar]

^that's the only reason I have it...:mrgreen:

I do all my big editing in LR and then switch to CS5 for defect removal, etc.

 

[kundalini]

Say I were given the opportunity to get Lightroom for free,
yay or nay?

Smells like pirating. Nay.

Opinion drops significantly if this is true.


I use LR3 to globally set WB and camera/lens profiles, but mostly to organize my library. I prefer to edit in ACR, then CS5 for tweaks to final output file.

 

[KmH]

Say I were given the opportunity to get Lightroom for free,
yay or nay?

There is no legal way to get Lightroom for free, so I vote nay.

You are on a forum where for many, copyright and copyright infringement (the theft of intellectual property) are a hot button issue, because they derive their income, in whole or in part, from their intellectual property.

Forum members that advocate for or publicly condone the theft of intellectual property get promoted to my User CP - Ignore List and have a lot of ground to make up before they would again earn any respect at all from me.

Fortunately, my ignore list here at TPF is sparsely populated, but it is populated.