photoshop vs lightroom

[stickman.walks]

Admittedly, about a month ago, I was using iPhoto to edit thru my photos. Not professional photos, but just the stuff I was walking around shooting and it does fill my needs rather quickly and easily.


I recently purchased Lightroom 3 and my parents got me the latest version of Photoshop. I`m not sure that I need both, let alone where to start to dive in to switching from iPhoto to either of these more powerful, useful tools.


I currently have all my raw filed photos stored in a Raw Folder (3 copies of it).


What I am really wondering is which of these two programs should I use - Photoshop AND Lightroom, or one over the other. The thing I like about Photoshop, to be honest, is that it`s not a database program, so when I make changes to an image, I can easily store it right back in the Raw Folder with all my raw files.


To keep the highest possible quality of photo from raw to Photoshop, what version of file should I saw to? In iPhoto I was going from raw to tiff.


With Lightroom, I don`t know what my choices are because there are sets, and libraries and other names that start to sound confusing, but it seems similar in a way to iPhoto in that you can edit and store libraries.


Just not sure best file type to keep best imaging. I do have some jpeg files, too. Guessing those just stay as jpeg and no reason to change them to anything else.

 

[jaomul]

From using these (and I am far from very experienced and am subject to correction by those who know better) both are great Raw options. Lightroom does all its editing without changing your file (even jpegs). You then can export your edit out of lightroom to a destination folder of choice, with the changes you made on the exported file. Lightroom is more a basic editor, and when I say this I mean it has the basic (but extremely powerful and vast) editing options for exposure, wb and colour/b+w converter with many more. Photoshop has most of these to but also has thousands of creative options to turn your photos into something completely different.
I would say that Lightroom is a photographers software, photoshop is a photographer/artistic software, both are great. Lightroom I would say is easier to use and has a fantasic noise reduction option, that allowed me make some experimental ISO 12800 shots very usable.

 

[dakkon76]

I'm by no means an advanced user, but I prefer to do most everything I can in LR3, and then open my files up in PS for cloning and airbrushing skin. I like the cloning tool and the "smart healing" tool in PS much better than I like the cloning tool in LR3. You can also create your own vignette in PS in case you want one that's not quite uniform, for things like Lomo processing. Lots of other styles that you may want to experiement with will require a program like PS, because you won't be able to do all of the different layer adjustments that you can in PS. So, yes- keep both.

 

[Tomasko]

Lightroom has more powerful organizing capabilities while photoshop is better for editing and such.

 

[JG_Coleman]

Lightroom and PhotoShop are, in many ways, designed to work together very well. So, to answer your question of which software you should use, I would recommend using both.

For my own purposes, I spend 95% of my time in Lightroom. Lightroom gives you the most powerful capabilities for organizing and managing your photography library. You can sort different shoots or different subjects into any structure of folders or sub-folders you desire, all of which are directly accessible within Lightroom. Lightroom also provides the ability to easily add keywords and other IPTC and EXIF data to your photographs, as well as searching photographs based upon this data.

On the post-processing end of things, Lightroom provides most of the "essential" editing tools for most types of photography. That is to say, you have control over white balance, exposure, brightness, contrast, blacks, highlight recovery, hue and saturation, clarity, curves, split-toning, distortion correction and noise reduction, sharpening, vignetting, and more that I can't remember off the top of my head. You also have access to tools such as graduated filter, a local adjustment brush, and the ability to crop or rotate photographs. All of these edits can be applied to photographs "non-destructively", meaning that at any time you could, for instance, decide you don't like how you've edited a photo and simply go back to the original data in its completely unmodified state with only the click of a single preset. You can conveniently "export" a final, edited photograph at any time, and all of your edits will be applied in the exported file.

So, depending on any given photographers style or preferences for editing, many people only rarely ever need to leave Lightroom to completely post-process their photographs. From the moment they import their photos into Lightroom SOOC... to the moment they've finished developing their photographs... to the instant they are exporting them to JPEG for printing, they may never have to use another program.

However, some people want more advanced editing capabilities. As advanced as Lightroom's capabilities are, PhotoShop is considerably more powerful editor by leaps and bounds. That is why PhotoShop automatically integrates into Lightroom. Thus, if you're developing a photograph in Lightroom and decide you want to do some PhotoShop work on a given shot, you can choose to have Lightroom open the photograph in PhotoShop for you... and, when you're done editing in PhotoShop, Lightroom will automatically re-import the edited photograph back into its own library so that you can continue to manage all of your photographs without leaving Lightroom.

Both of these pieces of software are very powerful, and my description of Lightroom shouldn't be understood as some kind of "comprehensive" overview of the application. If you want to know all the ins-and-outs of each application, there is plenty of material to read that will tell you everything you want to know. I'm just trying to help you with the issue of which software you should use... and my recommendation is both.

 

[KmH]

Photoshop CS5's Camera Raw edit rendering engine is ACR 6 (Adobe Camera Raw 6). Lightroom 3's Develope module is essentially the same ACR 6.
Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5

Photoshop CS5's Bridge can also be used to manage, keyword, rate, and add EXIF and IPTC metadata. Bridge however is a browser, not a database manager.
Adobe designed Bridge for use with most of Adobe's software suite.

Unless you need the database management main function of Lightroom, you just have 2 copies of ACR 6.

No image files are stored in Lightroom. Lightroom just knows the path to the files. Lightroom can only open/work with, 1 catalog at a time, which is why it is recommended that ALL your images be kept in a single catalog file that is organized into sub-files (Collections).
Putting images into multiple catalogs negates Lightroom's biggest advantage, database searches.

Many people don't understand how files need to be handled for use with Lightroom's database manager, and move them outside the catalog without updating Lightroom. Consequently Lightroom no longer knows the path to those files and people panic thinking the files are gone.

The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers

 

[spacefuzz]

It helps to think of lightroom and photoshop as two very different programs with different intents because they are!

Photoshop is designed to handle all of your editing, from mundane to hardcore. layers, plug ins, luminence, all sorts of fun things.

Lightroom is at its core an organizational library for your images. They packaged their existing adobe camera raw into it (because they had it so why not) for convenience. Its meant for quick touch ups and broad edits. Occasionally I will use it for stand alone editing, but thats perhaps 2% of the time.

If you want a way to organize files into folders and then perform all of your edits in just photoshop you could try adobe bridge. Its really just a file structure and lacks all of the search and organizational features of lightroom.

 

[cgipson1]

Highly recommend this to anyone starting to use Lightroom...

Amazon.com: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter) (9780321700919): Scott Kelby: Books

 

[JG_Coleman]

For my own purposes, I spend 95% of my time in Lightroom.

Occasionally I will use it for stand alone editing, but thats perhaps 2% of the time.

@OP:

Looks like you've already encountered the confusion that goes along with choosing how to handle your post-processing! Here I am, telling you that I use Lightroom for 95% of my post-processing, and here's SpaceFuzz using Lightroom for only about 2% of edits.

So, what you may not have realized when you asked this question is that there's no sure-fire answer to whether or not you are best off using Lightroom, PhotoShop, or both. Every photographer has a different routine for post-processing their images, and between any two given photographers, that procedure may vary widely.

People that use PhotoShop for most of their editing generally are baffled at how anyone could possibly use the comparatively "caveman-oriented" editing controls of Lightroom to do final development of a photograph. While people that use Lightroom for most of their editing scratch their head in disbelief at how somebody could possibly find a need to lay a dozen layers on top of each photograph before they are finally satisfied with any of their images.

The bare-bones reality is both types of photographers are capable of producing excellent images... what differentiates them is just the means by which they are comfortable arriving at their final product. Some people begin their approach of post-processing from the standpoint of: "I am capable of exceptional levels of complex editing. How much of this will I ultimately need from PhotoShop?" Others begin their approach from the standpoint of "How simple can my post-processing be, while still achieving the look that I desire?"

The former tend to go straight to PhotoShop because they begin with the idea that every photograph probably requires advanced and detailed processing... once in PhotoShop, they make the call as to just how much is really needed for any given image. The latter tends to spend more time in Lightroom because they begin with the idea that most photographs do not require extensive, exceptionally-detailed editing... once they begin development tweaks in Lightroom, they may decide to send the photograph over to PhotoShop to engage in more advanced edits if it becomes clear that it's necessary.

You'll really need to experiment with these applications to determine where you stand between these two poles. Both methods can be very effective, as long as it's the method that works for you.

I will say, as someone who is quite satisfied with the development options offered by Lightroom, that I would disagree with the posters on this thread that implore you to understand that Lightroom is "only" an organizational catalog. It is not... it is much more. It is undoubtedly built upon the foundation of managing your catalog of images, but it has evolved to offer very powerful editing options which, despite not being nearly as advanced as PhotoShop, are certainly advanced enough to handle a great deal of post-processing. Typically, I only open PhotoShop to occasionally use Nik plug-ins, merge panos, or in the rare instances where I want to manually blend some exposures. Outside of that, I rarely find a need to leave Lightroom.

 

[VisionsbyDuke]

I'm getting back into photography after about a decade's lapse. Things are certainly different to say the least, but I find this forum and the other poster's opinions very helpful.

I've been considering the same choice...go with Photoshop or go with Lightroom. From what I can tell, my uses will be fairly simple. I'm planning on picking up a NikSoftware pack, so I can use the Silver Efex and HDR plugins, but I'm not sure if there are differences in how the NikSoftware functions based on if you use Lightroom or Photoshop.

And, hello to all the others around here. Looking forward to learning a lot and sharing my experiences with everyone.