Software

[Raian-san]

Like some people have said, get both since you have the discount. Lightroom makes life so much better to manage all the photos. Now if you don't take tons of photos at a time...lightroom might not be right for you but seriously, most of my edit is in lightroom and photoshot to do major edit if I have to. I say just get both because I can't live without lightroom and photoshop.

 

[jaomul]

They are both great but Photoshop has so many extras over lightroom. If you only want a photgraph editor without the extra "artistic" functions lightroom is simpler yet very powerful and has in my opinion a better noise reduction facility, but photoshop has countless other editing functions. If i could only have one it would be photoshop, and though your a student I would try to dig a little deeper and get both at that bargain price.

 

[MTVision]

They are both great but Photoshop has so many extras over lightroom. If you only want a photgraph editor without the extra "artistic" functions lightroom is simpler yet very powerful and has in my opinion a better noise reduction facility, but photoshop has countless other editing functions. If i could only have one it would be photoshop, and though your a student I would try to dig a little deeper and get both at that bargain price.

Photoshop's camera raw is the exact same thing at Lightroom so the noise reduction is the same. Photoshop has noise reduction in the filter(?) drop down menu which I have never used but camera raws noise reduction is awesome.

So basically Lightroom can't have a better noise reduction since photoshop has the same.

 

[jaomul]

They are both great but Photoshop has so many extras over lightroom. If you only want a photgraph editor without the extra "artistic" functions lightroom is simpler yet very powerful and has in my opinion a better noise reduction facility, but photoshop has countless other editing functions. If i could only have one it would be photoshop, and though your a student I would try to dig a little deeper and get both at that bargain price.

Photoshop's camera raw is the exact same thing at Lightroom so the noise reduction is the same. Photoshop has noise reduction in the filter(?) drop down menu which I have never used but camera raws noise reduction is awesome.

So basically Lightroom can't have a better noise reduction since photoshop has the same.

You are probably right but I can get better results from lightroom, so imho, either through ease of use or because lightroom has something photoshop doesn't I think lightrooms noise reduction is better

 

[Marc32]

If we are into noise reduction now, how does Photoshop/Lightroom/Elements compare to Topaz Labs DeNoise for noise reduction? I always thought Topaz was the best and could be used as a plug in for just about any major editing program.

 

[KmH]

I always thought Imagenomics Noiseware Pro was the best noise reduction application.

 

[MLeeK]

They are both great but Photoshop has so many extras over lightroom. If you only want a photgraph editor without the extra "artistic" functions lightroom is simpler yet very powerful and has in my opinion a better noise reduction facility, but photoshop has countless other editing functions. If i could only have one it would be photoshop, and though your a student I would try to dig a little deeper and get both at that bargain price.

Photoshop's camera raw is the exact same thing at Lightroom so the noise reduction is the same. Photoshop has noise reduction in the filter(?) drop down menu which I have never used but camera raws noise reduction is awesome.

So basically Lightroom can't have a better noise reduction since photoshop has the same.

You are probably right but I can get better results from lightroom, so imho, either through ease of use or because lightroom has something photoshop doesn't I think lightrooms noise reduction is better

Completely not true. They are the exact same program. Exact same noise reduction-unless you haven't updated your version of adobe camera raw.

 

[MTVision]

Completely not true. They are the exact same program. Exact same noise reduction-unless you haven't updated your version of adobe camera raw.

Thank you!

 

[MLeeK]

I always thought Imagenomics Noiseware Pro was the best noise reduction application.

You definitely could be right there. I know there are a lot of great plug ins to remove noise. Is that the Imagenomic one? I have heard great things about it. I know the Imagenomic Portraiture plug in is absolutely wonderful.

 

[joealcantar]

Yep like the idea of getting them both, will kick yourself later if you don't. Portraiture is a cool one to have as well, they also have a bundle that may be worth looking into at those prices.
-
Shoot well, Joe

 

[MattS2K]

Photoshop's camera raw is the exact same thing at Lightroom so the noise reduction is the same. Photoshop has noise reduction in the filter(?) drop down menu which I have never used but camera raws noise reduction is awesome.

So basically Lightroom can't have a better noise reduction since photoshop has the same.

You are probably right but I can get better results from lightroom, so imho, either through ease of use or because lightroom has something photoshop doesn't I think lightrooms noise reduction is better

Completely not true. They are the exact same program. Exact same noise reduction-unless you haven't updated your version of adobe camera raw.

Not wishing to start a side-argument here, but the above statement is slightly inaccurate and shows some misunderstanding.


They are not the same program, although I understand they are based on the same raw processing engine.


Whilst this may seem pedantic, it is potentially an important distinction. Essentially an 'engine' is just a piece of code which is designed to provide a series of services to anything that has the access to use it. Although 'engine' is a relatively new term, it just describes something programmers have been doing since the coding stoneage. Typically each service or function within an engine will require one or more inputs which will be processed by the engine to produce one or more outputs. The quality of the output will always depend upon the quality of the inputs. This means that the results from any engine will almost always be dependant on the calling code - in this case lightroom or ACR - and if there is any difference between the inputs they provide for any given circumstance, the results will likely be different. A silly example would be if one of them had a bug which altered one of the input values: in that case the output would be different even though the same engine is being used to process it.


I have no knowledge of the Adobe code and I suspect that they do in fact both provide exactly the same inputs to the engine if the same options are selected in either of the apps. My point is that none of us actually knows for sure (unless we have access to the actual release code) and also to challenge the assumption that two programs that utilise the same engine will always perform in exactly the same way.


Its also relevant to acknowledge that the engine is hidden from the end user by the user interface (lightroom v ACR) and therefore it is likely that an individual may find one UI easier to work with and therefore may find that they get better results from one rather than the other, which was a possibility suggested in jaomul's post.


Anyway, back on-topic, my suggestion for the OP would be to get both lightroom and Photoshop if possible. They work very well together.

 

[MLeeK]

OK. Tell that to the trainer from Adobe that I told me it was exactly the same at PhotoShop World last year! I tend to believe him.

 

[MattS2K]

OK. Tell that to the trainer from Adobe that I told me it was exactly the same at PhotoShop World last year! I tend to believe him.

Well if he told you Lightroom and ACR are the same program I would suggest he was an imposter... ;-)

I suspect he told you they use the same engine which I didn't question. I even went so far as to agree that in this case probably the results are exactly the same:

I have no knowledge of the Adobe code and I suspect that they do in fact both provide exactly the same inputs to the engine if the same options are selected in either of the apps. My point is that none of us actually knows for sure (unless we have access to the actual release code) and also to challenge the assumption that two programs that utilise the same engine will always perform in exactly the same way.

To be honest I was just trying to correct a fairly common misunderstanding that just because 2 programs share some code they will utilise it in the same way and therefore always get the results. 'they will utilise it in the same way' is an assumption which will not always be true and therefore the second part will not always be true either. It was a point about software in general that was intended to be helpful rather than argumentative. I should have remembered that it rarely comes across that way on the Internet.

The more relevant point that I should have concentrated on was jaomul's comment that I have mangled (and added bold to) below:

"either through ease of use or ...<lets not go there>... I think [one of the apps] noise reduction is better"

This does raise an important point as the different user interfaces may suit some users better than others and therefore it is true to say that even if the inputs and outputs are identical, some users may be able to get better results with one or other program simply because the design suits them better. This is not necessarily a matter of right or wrong design but a matter of differences between users and individual preferences.

 

[MTVision]

Camera raw in bridge, camera raw in photoshop and lightroom develop module(?) are all the same. They have the same exact sliders in the same order. So I'm not sure how Lightrooms slider can be easier to use than Photoshop's camera raw. Same slider, same place, does the same thing.....

 

[MTVision]

Well if he told you Lightroom and ACR are the same program I would suggest he was an imposter... ;-)

I suspect he told you they use the same engine which I didn't question. I even went so far as to agree that in this case probably the results are exactly the same:

To be honest I was just trying to correct a fairly common misunderstanding that just because 2 programs share some code they will utilise it in the same way and therefore always get the results. 'they will utilise it in the same way' is an assumption which will not always be true and therefore the second part will not always be true either. It was a point about software in general that was intended to be helpful rather than argumentative. I should have remembered that it rarely comes across that way on the Internet.

The more relevant point that I should have concentrated on was jaomul's comment that I have mangled (and added bold to) below:

"either through ease of use or ...<lets not go there>... I think [one of the apps] noise reduction is better"

This does raise an important point as the different user interfaces may suit some users better than others and therefore it is true to say that even if the inputs and outputs are identical, some users may be able to get better results with one or other program simply because the design suits them better. This is not necessarily a matter of right or wrong design but a matter of differences between users and individual preferences.

Oh wait I forgot - lightroom has a black background and ACR has a gray background.