First time with Lightroom 3 any advice?

[Smeethan]

I'm thinking about purchasing Lightroom 3 soon and have been messing around with the free trial for the past few hours. Here is an example of a photo I did some quick edits to. If you guys could tell me what you think that would be a big help as I am trying to learn the program before I make the purchase and learning from other people is the best way for me.

Original


IMG_1561 by Shmeethan, on Flickr


Final


IMG_1561 by Shmeethan, on Flickr


Any comments on LR from experienced users? I'm interested to hear how it is compared to other programs.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Lightroom is awesome. Google the beta 4 and get more free time with it before buying.

 

[Nikon_Josh]

Great program, it can't do as much as photoshop can. But it is much more fun to use than photoshop is. It is highly user friendly and can do most of the stuff you will ever need a photo editing program to do, photoshop elements is only used now for more complex work.

 

[KmH]

Lightroom's main function is image catalog management, not image editing. As far as editing, Lightroom and Camera Raw both use the same plug-in - Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
Camera Raw is included in CS5 and a truncted version of Camera Raw is included in Elements.

Lightroom is designed to be a compliment to CS5, not a replacement for CS5. Essentially you need both Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS5

If you don't routinely make a lot of sellable photos, I would recommend you consider Photoshop Elements 10 instead.

Adobe loves that so many people that don't need it, buy Lightroom. It sells much better than they ever expected, and they chuckle all the way to the bank.

 

[Nikon_Josh]

Lightroom's main function is image catalog management, not image editing. As far as editing, Lightroom and Camera Raw both use the same plug-in - Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
Camera Raw is included in CS5 and a truncted version of Camera Raw is included in Elements.

Lightroom is designed to be a compliment to CS5, not a replacement for CS5. Essentially you need both Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS5

If you don't routinely make a lot of sellable photos, I would recommend you consider Photoshop Elements 10 instead.

Adobe loves that so many people that don't need it, buy Lightroom. It sells much better than they ever expected, and they chuckle all the way to the bank.

Nice Try Keith!

Lightroom offers some fantastic basic editing options, IT IS MUCH MORE than a catalog management program in my personal opinion. Yes I understand, that is the main function of Lightroom. But as we both know, alot of PRO's nowadays are using Lightroom for 90 per cent of editing tasks. Photoshop is used for more complex editing processes, this is where Lightroom falls short. But generally speaking, I do not wish to do complex work on every photo I take. For all the simple edits you need to do, Lightroom is more than adequate.

 

[CMfromIL]

To the OP, I d/l Lightroom 4 (Beta) from Adobe. It's got a free beta period until March 31st. I like it in the limited amount of time that I've used it. It does a very nice job with taking out grain (my primary concern) while shooting indoor sports in poorly lit gyms at high ISO 6400+.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Lightroom's main function is image catalog management, not image editing. As far as editing, Lightroom and Camera Raw both use the same plug-in - Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).
Camera Raw is included in CS5 and a truncted version of Camera Raw is included in Elements.

Lightroom is designed to be a compliment to CS5, not a replacement for CS5. Essentially you need both Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS5

If you don't routinely make a lot of sellable photos, I would recommend you consider Photoshop Elements 10 instead.

Adobe loves that so many people that don't need it, buy Lightroom. It sells much better than they ever expected, and they chuckle all the way to the bank.

Nice Try Keith!

Lightroom offers some fantastic basic editing options, IT IS MUCH MORE than a catalog management program in my personal opinion. Yes I understand, that is the main function of Lightroom. But as we both know, alot of PRO's nowadays are using Lightroom for 90 per cent of editing tasks. Photoshop is used for more complex editing processes, this is where Lightroom falls short. But generally speaking, I do not wish to do complex work on every photo I take. For all the simple edits you need to do, Lightroom is more than adequate.

I think the pro's hide the mad power of Lightroom features (print/web/develop) and play it down to keep others in the dark. 10% of my photos go on to photoshop (if that many). And the studio owners around here tell me the same. Cataloging is one of thousands of Lightroom features.

 

[DragonHeart]

I love LR 3. Debating the upgrade to 4 when its released (I don't do Betas).

 

[MonicaBH]

I'm by no means a professional, or even a good amateur, but I love LR3. I DLd the free trial, then purchased it when Adobe had it 50% off. I'm now using the free LR4 Beta.

I find it to be fairly straightforward, and if I'm stumped or need help, I youtube tutorials. For the little photography I do, I strive to produce an image that requires very little editing to make it a print or frame worthy photograph. I think I can accomplish that with LR just fine.

Also, I have little to no patience to deal with the complexities of PS.

 

[PDP]

Lightroom (as the name implies) has basically much of the functionality that was available to darkroom users in the good (?) old days of film photography.