Why should I buy Lightroom?

[mrodgers]

lol...you guys think i stole..The company i used to work for updates it regularly and i get the old stuff...they got cs4 i get cs3...etc.

Still illegal if they "updated" as the original license would still be part of the license for the update.....

With Lightroom, my problem trying it out was that noise reduction and sharpening didn't seem to do anything to my images. Exposure controls were nice, but anything past whitebalance and exposure, I could see no difference. IMO, Photoshop is needed as a companion because of the sharpening bit. LR is nice for cataloging and exposure/whitebalance, then export to Photoshop for final development is necessary. I only tried the old version of LR though and not LR2.

 

[MikeBcos]

Thanks again for the replies. As far as I can tell there isn't much in Lightroom that isn't in the Bridge/Raw combo, the main one is the catalogue, that I can live without.

I guess I have the advantage I am a graphic designer and I use the Adobe Suite daily, I know how to make it do what I want in the most efficient way possible.

Bridge is a very powerful program but it is very easy to get lost in its menus, Lightroom is simplified and aimed specifically at photographers but it really doesn't seem to have anything in it that I have to have.

 

[chrisburke]

I've found that all software leaves traces of itself in the registry when you uninstall and even those traces will slow a system down.

if your a mac user, download AppZapper

it deletes all the files associated with a application. so no registry files or anything (its a GREAT APP)

if your a windows user.. I don't know if there is an equivalent.