Lightroom 3

[Blake.Oney]

No questions here. Just voicing that I was dumb to write it off after trying it for all of about 10 minutes. I installed it, hated the whole import and library thing, and *thought* it was exactly the same as ACR. I was wrong. It mostly is exactly like ACR, but my god the noise reduction in LR is amazing. It's like a whole new world of high ISO availability to me. I still don't like the library set up and stuff, but I think I can figure out how to make work a way I will like it. just ranting. That is all.

 

[TiCoyote]

You know, I went through exactly the same thing. Hated the import/library process. Learned to use Elements. Went back to LR3. Now it's my go-to editor.

 

[MissCream]

I only use Lightroom 3... I found it was an acquired taste and now I love the library/import because all of the pictures are there which I find way more convenient.

 

[KmH]

With Lighroom, though you can see a picture, it might not actually be there.

 

[RauschPhotography]

Lightroom's such a lifesaver. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it! Obviously there's some things that LR just can't do--intensive skin retouching (not even with the brush preset) and graphic design still better left to CS5.

 

[ghache]

Lightroom's such a lifesaver. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it! Obviously there's some things that LR just can't do--intensive skin retouching (not even with the brush preset) and graphic design still better left to CS5.

It will do some minor skin smoothing,

you can use the clarity brush tool and set it to - then you brush the areaas you wanna smooth.

 

[mwcfarms]

I use Lightroom 3 and PSE8 for finishing and major skin retouching. There are Lightroom forums apparently that I was just informed of yesterday by pblarge. Let me see if I can find the link. Never know when you might need it.

http://www.lightroomforums.net/

 

[michaelleggero]

this subject is done to death but once you learn software it's hard to change to something else.. i keep trying to learn aperture but lightroom is just so natural to me i keep going back to it.. the only thing i miss in lightroom that aperture has is the edge detection

Mike Leggero

http://www.michaelleggero.com

 

[RauschPhotography]

Lightroom's such a lifesaver. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it! Obviously there's some things that LR just can't do--intensive skin retouching (not even with the brush preset) and graphic design still better left to CS5.

It will do some minor skin smoothing,

you can use the clarity brush tool and set it to - then you brush the areaas you wanna smooth.

Yep, I agree completely. Sometimes depending on the situation you need to retouch in CS5, though. The clarity and skin softening brush are wonderful, but can only do so much...

 

[Blake.Oney]

I'm a graphic design major. I have the full graphic design version of CS4.

 

[brianT]

For skin retouching in Lightroom3 there's an effects tool called 'Soften Skin'.

1. Apply an Adjustment Brush
2. In the box with exposure, brightness, contrast, etc... Under 'Effect' click 'Custom' and a pop-up menu will appear. Near the bottom there's an effect called Soften Skin. There's also one called Teeth Whitening.

Those are good tools for portraits I guess.

Like the OP I can't stand Lightroom's Import/Library system. Where's the edited adjustment data saved to?... I guess it's saved in the lightroom directory? If you want to give someone an edited RAW file or move one to another computer I'm not sure how to do that...

Some of the features of Lightroom are really great. I particularily like the perspective correction (keystoning), and the lens corrections can be useful.