If you have photoshop, why even use light room?

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I use photoshop for both work(design) and photo editing, therefore I don't bother with light room and don't have any experience with it.
I was watching this video where he uses photos of different exposures and combine the desired parts, which I do too with photoshop. What I am a bit confused is, if he has photoshop, why even start in light room? Photoshop has Adobe RAW plug-in that works just like how it is in light room(as shown in the video), meaning that everything he did in light room can be done in photoshop. So why the trouble of using both programs?

I am not doubting the capabilities of light room, just confused over his choice of work flow. Is there something that I've missed?

 
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I didn't watch the video, because I don't want to sit through 22 minutes (although, I AM curious as to how he's dealing with multiple exposures in LR... I didn't even know you could do that. :lol: ), BUT...

I use both LR and photoshop.

I dunno what that dude's deal is, but I can tell you how *I'm* using it.

First off... Lightroom is a FABULOUS way of keeping your photos organized. (But what about Bridge?!) I had Bridge open for about 10 minutes one time and decided I hated it. I don't even remember why. I just remember it being less user friendly than LR as far as organization is concerned. Maybe it's better now, but who knows.

My personal workflow... I have a different catalog for EACH. SHOOT. Every single shoot I do gets it's own catalog. It helps things stay uncluttered, since I know that no matter how I have things sorted, filtered, or grouped, I'm ONLY ever going to see that session.

On top of that you have ACR in PS, yes, but LR makes batch editing easier.

So I can take a photo from the first scene, adjust it to my desired settings... and then sync those settings across all the other photos in that scene with the same lighting. Then I flip through them real quick to make sure no tweaking is needed and TA-DA! I've done about one RAW file worth of work to like 10 images all at once.

Now *personally*... I don't like to do any heavy editing in LR. I know people who use pretty much ONLY LR. And then I know people who are like me who start lightly in LR and then pull into Photoshop.

So I adjust WB, contrast, exposure, and do some sharpening, etc. in LR, but that's about it. Any retouching or stylistic edits I do in PS.

But what's cool is that I can export the basic edits from LR directly into photoshop, and once I save the .psd file, it creates a copy of it in LR for me so I don't have to reimport the new .psd file.

When I'm ready to export everything to JPEG, I can batch export my .psd files from LR. I can batch resize, batch sharpen, whatever I want to do.

So really, LR has editing capabilities, yes, but with an emphasis on organization and cataloging.

Batch key-wording... Keyword filtering... Batch Metadata editing... I honestly don't even use it to the extent that I *could* but I'm starting to more and more.
 
I use both. I find the import and catalog features of LR much easier to use than Bridge. I also prefer the raw conversion in LR over CS, just easier and more logically laid out to me. Ido my basic edit in LR, edit in CS and bring it back to final touch in LR. Crazy? I don't know, pretty much self taught so I could be doing it all wrong!
 
I use both. But lately I have broken out the photoshop the most. I like the speed of lightroom though. The power of photoshop is just entoxicating and convinces me to use it more often. I also find that photoshop is a more valuable skill to have so I try to perfect my photoshop skills.

P.S. I also watch Sergei Ramelli and love the tutorials he does. I especially like his hotel room retouch where he does the professional hotel room shot.
 
OP, thanks for asking this, I was also so curious about that same thing.

I use CS6 and of course, I start in Bridge, ACR and then PS.

but... I've never used Lightroom, I've just seen it in tutorials.
 
LR is great if your workflow involved tons of photos to PP. That is something CS is lacking. As for me I don't have that many photos to PP and I don't like the cataloging system of LR (imaging changing your PC or moving images from external drive or exporting and you have tons of 'catalogues' it is going to be a nightmare) so I stick to just CS.
 
My workflow is similar to that of e.rose. I just like the way Lightroom does certain things and the way Photoshop does other things. I have tried only using one program to do all my photo editing but I always end up going back to using both.
 
LR is great if your workflow involved tons of photos to PP. That is something CS is lacking. As for me I don't have that many photos to PP and I don't like the cataloging system of LR (imaging changing your PC or moving images from external drive or exporting and you have tons of 'catalogues' it is going to be a nightmare) so I stick to just CS.

actually I keep my photos on an external drive.
But If I take my laptop with me I store photos locally. To move photos to and from a local to/from external is easy . just use the "move" feature or drag and drop (not an individual file, but an entire days worth of shots).

I've also had a computer crash, and my new computer and fresh install of LR just connected right up to the catalog (I had a backup of the catalog files) and I kept going without a hiccup.

The photos are loaded in a catalog based on date. Then you create your own catalogs above it. I create groupings of catalogs such as River/Nature, PhotoShoots, Astro, Misc, Water, Buildings, People etc and have sub catalogs in those based on date_name.
Nicely organized. I'm sure there's better ways but so far it's pretty easy.

Exporting is a breeze too ... one or many of your own selection.
 
At first I thought LR was totally non-intuitive. Then I tried other software and they were all based on workflow and all kinda looked the same. Even Nikon's software looks the same. So I stuck with LR and learned how to use it ... slowly but surely. Now it's a breeze.
 
As others have said Lightroom has its strength in cataloging and easy batch processing of your RAW photos. You can quickly import - select - organise - batch process the RAW and get most of your work done in the easy to use Lightroom interface. From there you can jump into photoshop if you want to use plugins or specific more complex editing methods; but lightroom covers most of the general basic ground.

Yes you can use Photoshop to do most of this as well; but the Lightroom interface is more steamlined and easier to use for most.
 
Cataloging and culling example.

If I have 500 pictures from a day of shooting, I import into a folder by date with appropriate tags.
In Library grid mode select all, then give them 2 stars.
Then I set filter to view only those greater than or equal to 2
I go through them individually hitting 1 for each picture I want to delete and it disappears from view.
For potentially good pictures, I hit 3 or 4
After finishing the pass through, I set filter to allow only =1 and review them to make certain I didn't mark anything for deletion that I really want to keep.
Then select all the 1's in library grid mode and delete
 
I'm sure its been said, but its too early and I don't feel like reading haha.


I edit all my photos in Lightroom and only use photoshop if I need to modify or manipulate an image, whether thats masking, blending, changing specific colors etc.


But Lightroom is 90% of my workflow.
 
I guess I would understand only if I try Lightroom, because everything said here I do in Bridge and ACR...
 
I guess I would understand only if I try Lightroom, because everything said here I do in Bridge and ACR...

Can you edit in Bridge, or is it just an organizer?
 
I like to ask: If you have LR, why even use PS?
 

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