PHOTOSHOP v. LIGHTROOM

[ian moore]

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Having spent the last four years mastering Photoshop,I have now purchased a Sony Laptop which contains Lightroom 2 64 bit.

 

Can anyone tell me the benefits of Lightroom over Photoshop?

 

Is it worthwhile going through the learning process with Lightroom?

 

 

 

Ian

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[Guido]

Two completely different beasts. Photoshop is a pixel massaging tool which allows you to go to great lengths in refining an individual image.

 

Lightroom's key strength is asset management - viewing, sorting, categorizing entire collections of images, then performing certain processing steps on subsets or individual images. Batch printing and exporting of resized images for the web is also very convenient. Lightroom has all of the important global adjustment features (exposure, curves, color balance, noise, etc.) and some local adjustment and masking capabilities, but local editing isn't really its core competence.

 

That said, integration between the two products is very good - you can easily select images in Lightroom and edit them directly in Photoshop, and the end result will be reflected in Lightroom. So for me, the decision has been not to consider one product instead of the other, but rather benefit from the seamless combination of both.

[sanyasi]

I use both. LR is definitely better at managing collections of photos than PS. And PS is better at manipulating pixels. However, I would not underestimate LR in that regard. You can achieve a lot of digital development with LR. For many people, LR is a much easier gateway into the digital darkroom, particularly if they aren't interested in large scale manipulation of their photos, but simply want to adjust exposure, saturation, and about a dozen other attributes. I would also say some of the plug-ins and other development programs, when used with LR, surpass PS in terms of ease of use. The NIK tools come to mind.

 

LR 3 does have perspective controls, but I much prefer the ones in PS. I agree, opening a photo in PS from LR is very easy.

 

Jack Siegel

September 2, 2010

[Jeff S]

Having spent the last four years mastering Photoshop......

 

Is it worthwhile going through the learning process with Lightroom?

 

 

Well, it certainly won't take 4 years....more like a few weeks for the basics if you have a guide such as the Scott Kelby book (or Martin Evening book), and of course longer to become more proficient.

 

As others say, your thread is better titled PS and LR, rather than PS versus LR. The books show how easy it is to go from LR to PS if needed...and most often it isn't needed.

 

Plus, I agree that LR 3 is the way to go. The trial is free.

 

Jeff

[AbbeyFoto]

One thing that surprised me with LR was the absence of Invert which I needed for some scans. This alone pushed me to reinvesting in an upgrade to PS. So I agree with the proposition is likely to be both.

 

Chris

[dcoombs]

... The NIK tools come to mind....

 

Jack Siegel

September 2, 2010

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what are the NIK tools? I just bought LR3 and so am in the learning phase. Is NIK a useful add on?

 

Thanks in advance, Doug

[Jeff S]

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You'll find various threads using the forum search box.

 

I use LR3 and PS without the plug-ins...others swear by them. You can download a trial version.

 

Jeff

[57andrew]

I have just started using LR as a download when I purchased (or rather my wife gave me) an M9. Before that I used Bridge / PS CS4. I find LR pretty straightforward having used Scott Kelby's book as a learning tool - and I then export to PS for anything else I feel I need over and above LR. They complement one another but I am a convert to LR from Bridge for management. Good luck.

[sanyasi]

Pardon my ignorance, but what are the NIK tools? I just bought LR3 and so am in the learning phase. Is NIK a useful add on?

 

Thanks in advance, Doug

 

NIK makes a suite of plug-ins. One that others on the list have mentioned is Silver Effects Pro, which is for black and white photography. It is a rather comprehensive application when it comes to black and white digital processing. Another is Viveza, which is more of a photo editing tool. It has many of the same capabilities as LR in terms of color and light adjustments. There are also sharpening, filtering, noise reduction, and other tools. I imagine all the effects that can be achieved with these tools can be achieved with Photoshop, but the NIK tools are much easier to work with, at least that is my experience. As I have said before, Photoshop strikes me as a product that is great for full-time graphic designers who have tablets that permit them to draw masks and who want to work at the pixel level. That really isn't my thing.

 

At this point, I am not sure I would buy the sharpening or noise reduction tools because of improvements in LR3, at least with respect to noise reduction. However, like other companies, NIK sells a bundle, and at $300 US I bought the bundle. While the bundle is more expensive, you basically are paying for two or so products and getting an entire series of products.

 

NIK provides fully functional demos. Before buying, I would take advantage of the trial offer.

 

Good luck

 

Jack Siegel

September 4, 2010

[JMacD]

Using a medical analogy:

 

Lightroom is going to the clinic, Photoshop is for surgery.

 

After mastering Photoshop, if one can ever say that, I found Lightroom difficult to learn until I studied a tutorial. I highly recommend you invest an extra $49 in an excellent L-L video tutorial to speed up the learning curve.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/lr3-toc_07.pdf

Download a sample for free. The whole tutorial is 7 hours and if you go a bit at a time is pretty fast moving. Once you have more than 1000 digital images, you will appreciate LR even more. I am beyond 50,000.

 

I would reccommend a beginning digital photographer start with LR, and add Photoshop later. Easier investment too. But for my work it is not either/or, it is both as others have said.

[Jeff S]

Using a medical analogy:

 

Lightroom is going to the clinic, Photoshop is for surgery.

 

After mastering Photoshop, if one can ever say that, I found Lightroom difficult to learn until I studied a tutorial.

 

I think both do surgery just fine; PS is for more intricate and specialized surgical procedures.

 

I found LR to be quite intuitive (much more so than PS)...no tutorials needed; just the Kelby (and Evening) book(s) as a starting point. The books are also much easier to refer back to when needed.

 

Different strokes...

 

Jeff

[ptarmigan]

Ian

 

I too have used PS for years and have found it pretty good though I only use a fraction of the features/capabilities of the product. Without wishing to just repeat the hyperbole spouted by Adobe, LR has been specifically designed for photographers, which PS has not. So it's more intuitive and the control space far more logical to use. Most of the controls a 'tog' will need are easily found is LR - that's most and not all. Some image manipulation goodies aren't available in LR - layers, content aware cloning, to name but two - and I also like PS actions. Since starting to use LR3 this year I find I use it 90% of the time in preference to PS.

 

Oh and there's the catalogue which is way better than using Bridge.

[Paul Verrips]

I downloaded the trailversion LR3 and started to do some tutorials from Adobe TV which teaches me in a quick way to use the basics of LR3.within 5 weeks i will do a one day workshop LR3. I'm trying to be prepared to switch from Nikon Capture NX to LR3 so i can shoot DNG with the M9 (as soon as it's delivered). Never liked Photoshop......

 

LR will be fine to me.

[sblutter]

I use both (current versions) all the time - they are different

 

The new raw processor, as I'm sure has been noted, makes the M9 work properly in low light - finally - even pushed to 3200 in an emergency

 

Am still getting to know the new tools in CS5 - haven't needed them yet

 

+1 for Nik stuff - well worth it

[michael_b_elmer]

Having spent the last four years mastering Photoshop,I have now purchased a Sony Laptop which contains Lightroom 2 64 bit.

 

Can anyone tell me the benefits of Lightroom over Photoshop?

 

Is it worthwhile going through the learning process with Lightroom?

 

 

 

Ian

 

Like others, I recommend LR 3 64 bit which IMHO is a great improvcement over LR2 (32 and 64 bit). The import function is LR's weakness - but apart from that it is quite intuitive. NIK's best plug ins (esp. Viveza) are now also available in 64 bit versions for LR 3.

 

I also have PS CS 5 but I must admit that I find less and less use for it - although you can still do many things in PS CS5 that you cannot do in LR3.

 

I used Capture One Pro a lot back in the M8 days and even in the early M9 days - but now, i rarely use that programme either, since LR3 fulfills my needs and is 64 bit. LR3 could, however, be much improved by making importing pictures as simple as in C1.

[Jeff S]

The import function is LR's weakness - but apart from that it is quite intuitive.

 

How so? All I do is put my card in the reader and hit the import button (after perhaps adding some keywords). Can't imagine anything easier. But, you must be adding some steps, or perhaps are using complex filing, which I avoid with one catalogue.

 

Oh, and to import a photo from my desktop, I merely drag it to the LR icon on the Mac and LR automatically brings up the import screen. Can't get more simple.

 

Jeff

[tdtaylor]

The 2.5 version of LR import was not great, but I agree with Jeff, in LR3 it couldn't be easier.