schimmey Posted August 8, 2014 Share #1 Posted August 8, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) Good evening everyone, Well I have finally made the transition to a digital body after 10 years with an M7. I have been reading through various forum posts and surprised at the number of people who use Light Room as opposed to Photoshop. Is there a reason for this? I used LR a number of years ago but stopped using it because I did not like the idea of not having a digital file of the final photo. I have been using PS but admittedly think I am not making the most of it (I am still trying to figure out plug-ins for different lenses). Anyway... I just wanted to see what other forum members thought. Thanks, Paul 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 8, 2014 Posted August 8, 2014 Hi schimmey, Take a look here Am I missing something... LR or PS?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted August 8, 2014 Share #2 Posted August 8, 2014 Why should'nt you be able to save the final result in Lightroom? What do you mean by plugins for lenses? 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wda Posted August 8, 2014 Share #3 Posted August 8, 2014 LR's popularity has much to do with its inclusion with the purchase of most new Leica cameras. I have used it since its first release, before Leica included the software licence. LR gathers worthwhile improvements with every upgrade. As to your reason for stopping using LR, that doesn't make sense to me. If you proceed to exporting your processed image, that will become a derivative copy of the master file. For those pictures unprocessed in the library, they remain as masters until you decide which to process. You might partly process many files; but your instructions are linked to the master file for future use. All of my files are backed up twice to external HDDs. So I have multiple copies of my masters and as many derivatives as I choose. The big advantage of LR is that is non-destructive. A set of instructions is generated to inform subsequent exports to a destination of your choice. I hope that helps you. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
masjah Posted August 8, 2014 Share #4 Posted August 8, 2014 I use the latest PS Elements. I can see the advantages of LR. However, the latest LR will not run on 64 bit Windows Vista, and it's not at all easy to get hold of the immediately preceding version. (The alternative option provided by Leica for M purchasers if you're still running Vista is a hopelessly outdated version.) I really don't want to go through the nightmare of upgrading my OS and all the drivers, and I don't want to junk an otherwise perfectly good and sufficiently powerful machine, assuming it's compatible with W7 or W8. . 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jankap Posted August 8, 2014 Share #5 Posted August 8, 2014 (edited) What do you mean by plugins for lenses? See Leicarumors.com The data (profile) of the coming Summicron-S 2/100 ASPH are in LR already. --- I use Mac-computers with Time Machine. No problems with updating of LR or OS. But perhaps Mac Cloud would be a still better solution. To process programs, that need Windows, I use Wine and on second notebook I have installed Bootcamp. More or less a mess, Windows eats time. Jan Edited August 8, 2014 by jan_kappetijn 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted August 8, 2014 Share #6 Posted August 8, 2014 LR will do most things photogs need. Still it does not satisfy me. If you print images, desire perfection and have a color managed flow, I find PS easier. If your pics just end up on the computer, anything is good enough. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkP Posted August 9, 2014 Share #7 Posted August 9, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) LR will do most things photogs need. Still it does not satisfy me. If you print images, desire perfection and have a color managed flow, I find PS easier. If your pics just end up on the computer, anything is good enough. +1 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyoung Posted August 9, 2014 Share #8 Posted August 9, 2014 I have been using photoshop for 15 years or more, ideal for manipulating scanned images etc. But for coping with a digital camera image Lightroom gives many more possibilities to correct the deficiencies of camera or lens and to cope with perspective issues which in a film process had to be done with a technical camera. The methodology of manipulating the output while maintaining the integrity of the original image is also much like a darkroom process, hence 'lightroom' I presume. That's leaving out the library possibilities for organising your images, which I must admit I haven't tried yet! Gerry 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted August 9, 2014 Share #9 Posted August 9, 2014 LR will do most things photogs need. Still it does not satisfy me. If you print images, desire perfection and have a color managed flow, I find PS easier. If your pics just end up on the computer, anything is good enough. +2 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted August 9, 2014 Share #10 Posted August 9, 2014 I have been using photoshop for 15 years or more, ideal for manipulating scanned images etc.But for coping with a digital camera image Lightroom gives many more possibilities to correct the deficiencies of camera or lens and to cope with perspective issues which in a film process had to be done with a technical camera. The methodology of manipulating the output while maintaining the integrity of the original image is also much like a darkroom process, hence 'lightroom' I presume. That's leaving out the library possibilities for organising your images, which I must admit I haven't tried yet! Gerry :confused:Actually LR is a scaled-down photoshop with a different UI. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
batmobile Posted August 9, 2014 Share #11 Posted August 9, 2014 I far prefer the UI of LR and can do everything I need to with it, aside from stitching, for which I usel Elements. LR can feel like working on an image in the darkroom in some ways. PS is nothing like that and feels like doing technical work on a computer to me... not much different to working in Excel! The UI matters a lot to me considering the time spent 'interfacing'. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NZDavid Posted August 10, 2014 Share #12 Posted August 10, 2014 You don't have to stick to one program. I like Graphic Converter for basic resizing and cropping and modest adjustments and LR for other tweaking such as white balance, fill flash, exposure. The user interface of LR is annoying but that's par for the course for so much software. GC is very comprehensive and also super value if you have a Mac. (Lemke Software: Image Editing, Slideshow, Browser, Batch Conversion, Metadata and more on your Mac). And of course iPhoto is very handy for sorting into slideshows and resizing quickly for email. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orient XI Posted August 10, 2014 Share #13 Posted August 10, 2014 . All of my files are backed up twice to external HDDs. So I have multiple copies of my masters and as many derivatives as I choose. The big advantage of LR is that is non-destructive. A set of instructions is generated to inform subsequent exports to a destination of your choice. I hope that helps you. A wise, nay essential, precaution. I have found for no apparent reason LR4 loses both masters and copies and gives the error message "file not found" for both. Further, loading files from a DVD generally guarantees this error. On a more positive note this has saved me money because I am never going to subscribe to any of their cloud based products. I have railed against their file handling system in other posts as this is a yet another reason to avoid LR. If, when it does behave, it didn't do a such great job on the files, it would have been deleted from my hard drive long since. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
250swb Posted August 10, 2014 Share #14 Posted August 10, 2014 LR can feel like working on an image in the darkroom in some ways. PS is nothing like that and feels like doing technical work on a computer to me... not much different to working in Excel! The UI matters a lot to me considering the time spent 'interfacing'. You are fairly new to this sort of thing then? LR has taken many years to get even close to the traditional tools available in PS that mimic darkroom practice. Meanwhile many people have been dodging and burning using PS for years, and just as with LR, you don't need to learn all of PS, just the bits that are interesting. Steve 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanyasi Posted August 11, 2014 Share #15 Posted August 11, 2014 I have not compared featured by feature, but LR essentially is ACR ( development module) and a much better Library Module than Bridge. For many photographers, this will be enough. If you are interested in slideshows and photo books, LR may make more sense than Photoshop. However, Photoshop has many additional features, including masks, layers, and blending modes. If you are going to end up in Photoshop as part of your workflow, I would skip LR. I used to start in LR, and then do fine adjustments in Photoshop, but that workflow didn't make sense to me anymore, so I dropped LR and now use Photo Mechanic as my "Library" tool. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocalHero1953 Posted August 12, 2014 Share #16 Posted August 12, 2014 (edited) To the OP: the first thing you need to learn when posting a question such as yours is that these are matters of religious faith, not rational choice, and the replies you get should be read accordingly I.e. try to discern the issues of fact that you can actually verify (not assertions that can be discovered to be wrong, or are simply matters of opinion) and and then make your own decision. This is a perennial debate on every internet photography forum, and usually ends up in flame wars, members storming off a huff and threads locked (this would never happen on LUF). Edit: and I should have added that none of my comments apply to previous posters. They are meant purely as a cautionary warning! Edited August 12, 2014 by LocalHero1953 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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