Would you recommend Light Room?

[Mo.]

Hello you wonderful kittens.
I have a question for you all. Right now I own Photoshop CS5 and I was wondering if I should get Light Room too. If so why should I and what are the benefits/differences to Photoshop. I've used Photoshop for quite a while now so I know what I'm doing on it.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

I use it every day.

Download a free copy and see if its for you. Be careful, its addictive.

 

[DiskoJoe]

maybe you should read what lightroom is since you already have cs5

 

[Big Mike]

Lightroom is awesome and works very well in conjunction with PS. It doesn't really do anything that you can't with PS, it's just easier and 'better' when dealing with lots of photos.

 

[Joey_Ricard]

I have both LR and CS -

Although I have both and use both (more so CS), I would probably favor CS even it were for just basic photo editing if I had to choose.
I guess because I have always used PS since the earliest version, it's just instinct to go to it even for just something simple.

After having PS (CS), I doubt you'd get LR and say WOW......(you may even ask yourself why you even got LR)

 

[bhop]

I use photoshop. I downloaded the Lightroom trial and didn't really see any benefits over what PS already does.

 

[LuckySe7en]

I use Lightroom and I love it. I tried CS5 for 30days and loved it too. I just didnt get enough time to learn it very well.

 

[Vtec44]

I use Lightroom for mass editing like color sync, white balance, and exposure adjustment related stuff. I use Photoshop for individual editing like removing blemishes and other imperfections.

 

[Mach0]

It's easier for many things such as color, white balance, etc. I use cs5 too and you can open the image fromLR in PS and once you do your major edits in ps, it will show again in Lightroom. It will keep things organized for you. Lightroom is good for its organization and simplicity of certain things but ps can do it too. I like Lightroom though for keeping things organized and cataloguing .

 

[Raian-san]

Lightroom is a time saver when you have mass photos to edit. I do %90 of my editing in lightroom, export it and only use CS5 to do heavy editing, removing blemishes and other imperfections on some photos like Vtec44 said.

 

[CCericola]

If you shoot events or weddings (I beleive) it is invaluable when used in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop. If you are a business owner it helps keep your sessions consistant and organized. Lightroom and Photoshop were creatied to work together not replace each other. I can edit a 1000+ shot wedding in 2 hours with lightroom, then I will go into photoshop and do more intensive editing if needed. The best thing to do is download the demo and see how it can improve your workflow. Because that is what is was designed to do. If it doesn't then Lightroom is not for you and you have not wasted any money.

 

[KmH]

I use Lightroom and I love it. I tried CS5 for 30days and loved it too. I just didnt get enough time to learn it very well.

People use Photoshop in ways it's designers never imageined it could be used.

Photoshop CS5's Camera Raw and Lightroom 3's Develope module use the same edit rendering engine ACR 6.

In other words, if you have CS5 you already have the editing function part of Lightroom.

Plus Bridge, which is included with CS5, can do a lot of the organizational and folder management functions Lightroom can do, like keywording and rating images.

Camera Raw and Bridge can also be used to batch edit lots of photos made wih the same lighting.

Lightroom's primary function is image database management.

 

[woodyracing]

I'm on day 4 of the 30 day trial of lightroom and I'm really digging it. Honestly, I was wanting to hate it because it just seemed like photoshop extra-lite with some organization tools but I've gotten really addicted to it. The main thing I like is how easy it makes it to import images and specifically *new* images on an SD card that I've already important previous photos from, it sees which photos I've already transferred and deselects them in the import window. Before I used lightroom, I would just open the SD card in windows explorer, use the thumbnails to tell where the new images start, copy them into a folder on my computer, then browse the photos in windows photo viewer until I found my favorites and would open them in photoshop one at a time (I'm new to this so I'm not doing events or anything, there are usually only a few "keepers" per day). Point is, it has really come in handy for me and I would definitely recommend it.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Yeah, Lightroom does minor editing and major organizing.

It has new soft proofing abilities, trillions of print templates, BW templates, its web module (with both flash and html and trillions of canned gallery templates), and a host of other things the others "can do" that Lightroom does so much better.

Many don't bother to learn it. I have a lot more to learn using it =)

I'm a big fan of adobe, and Lightroom paired with CS5 I couldn't be happier with a software package.

 

[gerardo2068]

Many people forget what the purpose of Lightroom in first place

They try to push it to the side because they have PS already and assume that PS do everything that Lightroom does and more which is true but LR has its place.

Lightroom its good. Many purple seems to compare Lr and PS on the editing side of it. They compare the RAW editing and basic organization. But Lightroom main feature it's organization.

As far as I know, you can't save space or stack photos in bridge while doing virtual copy of photos.

With virtual copy in Lightroom u can track different edits of the same file.

You can do smart collection and other very good organization stuff

With Lightroom 4 there even more reasons to own it along with PS

If you have many photos ( pretty much everybody) LR it's a great way to organized them.

In LR 4 there's Maps and Books. Many people are looking forward to it.