Lightroom and/or/vs Photoshop

[KentDub]

I've been an avid user of Photoshop for many, many years. I've never bothered to checkout lightroom. Just wondering what people use it for -- and if it provides any "can't live without' features you can't get with bridge/photoshop.

So please tell me -- What do you all use Lightroom for?

[Colin Southern]

I don't use it either, but I understand that it's major strength is in it's powerful image management foundation. Think "Wedding Photography" with 1000+ images.

[Bill44]

I use Lightroom for just about all my work, including the wedding I did on the weekend. Only once in the past 5 months have I had to resort to The Gimp for something that Lightroom couldn't easily do.

One of the strengths of Lightroom is its Database type of file system. For storage and retrieval of shots it is superb, plus it is non destructive of the original file, it just stores the changes without changing the original.

In my opinion Lightroom would suit a great number of photographers, Photoshop would suit the Artistic style of photographer, and Lightroom + Photoshop would suit Rich photographers.

Also consider the fact that Lightroom is about half the price of Photoshop and I feel it does about 95% of the job at least, with the added bonus of the magic file system.

IMHO many people who have jumped straight into Photoshop would not have bought it if they had bought Lightroom first.

[Colin Southern]

Lightroom + Photoshop would suit Rich photographers.

Also consider the fact that Lightroom is about half the price of Photoshop and I feel it does about 95% of the job at least, with the added bonus of the magic file system.

I thought "Rich Photographer" was an oxymoron?

[Bill44]

I thought "Rich Photographer" was an oxymoron?

Yes definitely, I was having a senior moment.

[KentDub]

So... How does it manage files differently than Bridge? I can't find many pitfalls with it...

[Colin Southern]

So... How does it manage files differently than Bridge? I can't find many pitfalls with it...

Hopefully some of the LR boys an articulate this better than I can (shouldn't be hard), but in my mind it's a bit like a manual transmission -v- an automatic transmittion: both do the same job, but they do it differently. Bridge appears to be "batch oriented" whereas LP is more "database oriented".

Being a landscape photographer, Bridge suits me well - very easy to display anything from a few dozen to a few hundred shots - and then narrow it down to the handful that I want to process (which I then process in Photoshop), but in - for example - a wedding situation, you'd be in a power of trouble if you only had 4 keepers from 400 shots; So it's a bit of a junxtaposition (sp?) the LR oriented photographer weeds out the relatively few images that we doesn't want, and processes the rest (or at least the majority) - and with several hundred images to process, it's just not efficient to do them in Photoshop. Sure, Photoshop will process them very nicely in terms of quality, but I suspect a good LR exponent will be 3 or 4 times as quick - and in a world where time is money, that's a BIG saving.

As I say - I don't use LR because it's not suitable for what I do - but my wedding shooting collegues do (they usued to use Bridge) and they tell me that the difference is "night and day" - not even close. That seems to be the general consensus that I've read pretty much everywhere.

[KentDub]

Well I decided to checkout lightroom to see what all the rave is about... Got it installed. Imported my library -- only jpgs and psds came through... Turns out it dosn't support the Canon 5dMkII.... Worthless software.

And before you suggest it, no, I'm not going to convert my library to DNG.

Adobe compatibility: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/l...ats.html#canon

[Alis]

Hi KenDub,

I use LR mostly for transferring my pictures, quick review/inspection and sometimes a quick PP. It works perfectly fine with 5D MKII as I use it everyday. Actually not a long time after the new 5D came out, they released the plug in and since then I have been using it without any problem.

Not sure what you are doing wrong that can not get all your files. I would double check the Preferences.

Alis

[KentDub]

Found out that I had 2.0 and there was a patch up to 2.5... seemed to fix the issue... The "raw" controls seem to work different than they do from bridge/acr. I find myself jacking the exposure way up on most of my shots (they look nicer though, no color cast and better contrast)... I would have though that they both use the same internal engine?

If I "develop" images in LR then view them in bridge will I see the changes?

[Colin Southern]

If I "develop" images in LR then view them in bridge will I see the changes?

Since LR writes the changes as XML - and so does Bridge - then I would expect the changes to be reflected in Bridge.

And before you suggest it, no, I'm not going to convert my library to DNG.

You must really like those sidecar files

[KentDub]

I developed a bunch of photos in LR and I have to say, not having to open ACR is nice - I also like the multiple options for before/after previews. I was disappointed though when I went back to bridge that none of my changes where there. I'll have to hunt around in the options to see if there is something I have to turn on. There are some things I really like about LR, mostly it is quicker to get to the raw settings, and have more controls on one "page" (rather than a bunch of tabs). I would only stick to it if I could find a way to tightly integrate it with my existing bridge/photoshop workflow.

[I Simonius]

I've been an avid user of Photoshop for many, many years. I've never bothered to checkout lightroom. Just wondering what people use it for -- and if it provides any "can't live without' features you can't get with bridge/photoshop.

So please tell me -- What do you all use Lightroom for?

I just use LR for the same corrections that I'd do in ACR and image management i.e. as a browser

for local adjustments it is far to slow and clumsy to be of any practical use

[GillR]

You must really like those sidecar files

Sidecar files aren't compulsory
You can also instruct Lightroom to write the changes to XMP.

If your workflow, like mine, uses LR & PS but NOT Bridge, then set the catalogue preferences (as in the link above) to not automatically write changes to xmp. Which, IIRC, is the default setting and is possibly why the changes Kent makes in LR aren't being recognised in Bridge.

I do very little batch processing but a lot of selection and weeding and I find LR really easy & quick to use for either.

[Colin Southern]

Sidecar files aren't compulsory

If you don't use DNG and you don't want sidecar files then the only alternative with ACR is to have Photoshop white them to it's own internal database which I can personally guarantee that NOBODY would EVER backup So the first time they have a disk crash - the database gets corrupt - they change systems etc they'lose EVERY ACR edit that they'd ever done

At the risk of flogging a dead horse, DNG just side-steps all of these issues so elegantly.

[GillR]

Ah! Now I see I misunderstood your earlier comment, Colin! (Yet another senior moment on my part )

I interpreted that comment as a "complaint" (for want of a better word) about LR producing xmp files - which is why I pointed out that they're not necessary - but it seems you were simply saying that DNG files are preferred because there is never any need for xmp files and weren't making a reference to LR at all. Sorry for the confuzzlement.

As far as my own workflow and PC habits are concerned, I use backup software (incremental backups every day & a fresh, complete backup at least once a quarter) to image my PC to an external drive as well as weekly copies of all my files - RAW, tiffs, docs, the lot - on a second external drive. That practice saved my bacon a few months ago when - after over 12 years and 4 PCs - I had a disk fail for the first time.

[Colin Southern]

[QUOTE=GillR;23496]Ah! Now I see I misunderstood your earlier comment, Colin! (Yet another senior moment on my part )

No worries

As far as my own workflow and PC habits are concerned, I use backup software (incremental backups every day & a fresh, complete backup at least once a quarter) to image my PC to an external drive as well as weekly copies of all my files - RAW, tiffs, docs, the lot - on a second external drive. That practice saved my bacon a few months ago when - after over 12 years and 4 PCs - I had a disk fail for the first time.

Good to hear. Don't forget though that for incremental backups - to be able to fully recover - you need to have your original full backup and ALL the other incremental backups available (and they ALL thave to work). If ANY one of those backups are no longer available then you risk losing data

Personally I run a RAID 1 mirror for my data - backup to external HDD every month (in theory!) and write my professional & commercial images to 2 DVDs (one on site, one off site).