/begin Novel
(lots of this was copied from another post on a similar topic a couple months ago, some is new stuff too):
I was the biggest Cs5/Photomatix/Bridge/ACR junky ever, just 2 months ago. That was me in a nutshell. I just got LR 4.1 maybe a couple months ago. I am absolutely floored by how awesome it is. So much so, that I feel like an idiot for not getting it earlier.
I haven't been this enthusiastic about a piece of photography software, probably EVER. This includes my beginnings with CS5. This includes Nik Software's awesome CS5 plugin's. This includes OnOne's plugin Suite. This includes the Topaz filter plugins I've used. Nothing gets used nearly 10% of the time that Lightroom does.
I was using a clunky folder system and adobe bridge for my workflow. I would overlook so many shots because this was just not adequate or efficient workflow. Every time you go into Bridge, you are loading a FILE DIRECTORY, not a CATALOG. There's a huge difference. For one, Bridge is much slower. I constantly have the need to browse hundreds of RAW files, and bridge is just not fast or smart enough.
With a CS5/bridge workflow I was opening 3-5 SEPERATE PROGRAMS TO PROCESS ONE IMAGE. Workflow
KILLER!
- Adobe Bridge
- ACR module
- CS5
- CS5 plugins
- CS5 plugins
Each of these programs have different modules, different keyboard shortcuts, different interfaces, to accomplish the processing of a single photo.
Now in Lightroom, you're able to navigate around smoothly in the SAME interface, bouncing between your "catalog" where all your files are easily accessible, and "develop" where you process one or multiple photos. It's simplified the process substantially.
Lightroom is made by photographers, for photographers. Bridge is a file browser. Bridge is NOT specifically made for photos, it's a MEDIA directory.
My experiences so far (in a matter of only a few months of use)
- I created 5 facebook albums in the course of about 2 hours. I easily sifted through 2,000 RAW files in the process. I published the files to the Facebook by connecting LR directly to it. I can create albums in no time, straight from LR. Better yet, I've made my export settings on the publish to downsize all the pictures in the album to 960px (max upload size before facebook's ****ty resizer kicks in) and add medium sharpening for screen viewing. This optimizes the look of my photos on FB, and it's all INTEGRATED directly into LR. Imagine how long that would take if you manually resized an album of 50 pictures for web viewing. Sucky! I have better things to do with my time. But LR does it for me, so WIN! Lightroom integrates with tons of other websites too for FAST, HASSLE-FREE publishing.
- I went back through over 5,000 raw files and found literally 100 shots that I had completely missed because my workflow sucked
- Non-destructive editing-- everything I do in lightroom is kept in history in LR and never touches the original CR2 file. I can make 50 adjustments to an image, come back to it a year later, and revert back to any point and time through my editing. I can go back after making a crop to an image and re-crop it differently. It's non-destructive, so ANY change I make to a file, I can undo. any changes I've made to the photo, even days later. Simply amazing!
- Huge previews. I can set lightroom to give me HUGE previews optimized for my screen. This really helps me tell RIGHT AWAY which shots are sharp and which shots SUCK! Before, it was just a waiting game and a guessing game if the photo was in focus/sharp with the surprisingly inadequate bridge loupe tool. Not only that, I have full size previews rendering on one of my monitors so I can see the image BIG without clicking on it (Lightroom advantage).
- Live previews, as you make changes you can see the photo at a reasonable resolution.
- SHADOWS and HIGHLIGHTS sliders are seriously giving me +3 and -3 DR out of a single RAW. Adobe has really perfected their algorithms and done away with Recovery (made highlights muddy), fill light (flattened and took away contrast) and replaced them with MUCH BETTER tools. It really helps you get the MAXIMUM dynamic range out of a single file which is extremely useful. (CS6 has the same ACR apparently, but CS5 has the old one).
- Instead of opening 3 programs to handle one file (Cs5, bridge, ACR) almost everything is handled in LR in a very user friendly and smooth interface.
- I am only using cs5 for probably 1/20 images. That's how good LR is at creating the final product.
I mean, honestly, is it really necessary to do pixel-level editing on every photo? Especially when most of mine will just be viewed at small-medium sizes on the web. LR really takes care of the bulk of editing needs. It's sole purpose of existence is to make organizing and working on photos easier for the photographer who shoots RAW.
For layering, masking, and advanced editing I'll still use CS5.
There's only 100 more reasons why Lightroom is better than bridge/any other tool out there for organizing:
--
100 ways lightroom kicks Bridge's Ass!
(these videos were made for version 3.6 I believe, 4.1 is just all that and a bag of chips)
Also, make sure you optimize LR for your system. I significantly increased my maximum allowed cache and preview viewing size and it really improved my experience
--
10 Tips to Improve Lightroom’s Speed and Performance Without Additional Hardware
/end Novel
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