Another Lightroom/Adobe discussion

[bags27]

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On another thread (on LIM's half case grip), I mentioned my challenges with LR and Mark Lyka (love your pseudo-last name!) agreed. I was about to respond but thought it would get lost in the title of that thread.

 

I'm asking those with more experience to help out here. I began using LR last week after some free YouTube lessons. This is very good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bECi0ZQAB34&index=1&list=PLllFqBuTM0WKjdQXb5XXKEMQmjseqic1J&t=0s

 

and now have Kelby's book. A couple of months ago, I got elements on sale and am struggling with its most challenging possibilities: I need to get a book on it.

 

What I'm thinking I understand about Adobe is the following:

LR has good, fast tools, for post-processing but is substantially a file management and workflow system.

Photoshop is the place to do extremely complex pixel-level manipulation and creations

Elements is effectively a photoshop-lite program allowing for multiple layering (like photoshop, but which does not seem possible in LR).

 

I have not worked through Kelby yet, but I'm sensing that, yes, there are ways of manipulating parts of a file in LR so that it approximates some of the outcome of photoshop or elements, and that it is a faster way for most of us to work.

 

But my first--very ignorant--take on LR is that the available tools that most of us use, while good, are not exceptional. That free applications like snapseed on your phone can do approximately the same. Right, LR has the Q's lens profile and that might help marginally for dng files, but that:

1. to create a real delta between LR and (say) snapseed, you need to apply LR's most advanced features

2. you are substantially paying for LRs file management system.

 

I'd love to hear what those with more than one week's experience in LR have to say. :-)

 

 

[wda]

I do most of my processing and all of my file management in Lightroom and have done so since Version 1. I use PS 5 mainly for accessing Nik filters and layers. Invest in plenty of study time including Julienne Kost.

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[Le Chef]

I would wholeheartedly support the idea of watching Julianne Kost’s training videos for Lightroom. They are very helpful and logically laid out to help you learn how to get the just rewards of using LR.

[HighlandK]

I have long been a Photoshop user with previous versions and now CC. For a long time I thought Photoshop, ACR and Bridge were all I needed. I am a keen amateur and do not make money out of photography (my wife says I spend too much!). I could not get my head round the way LR handled files and this put me off it completely. However, I took the plunge and also bought Martin Evening's excellent book. I am absolutely sold on LR and only go to Photoshop when I need to use layers and other more advanced editing. What I really have come to like about LR is the ability to do all the editing of RAWs that I could do in ACR/Photoshop within the same program. In Photoshop you edit a RAW in ACR and then take it into Photoshop having moved out of ACR. To get back to the RAW edit you have to reload into ACR from Bridge. In LR you always have the RAW in whatever state you last left it in and can then export in whatever format according to your needs. I also like the concept of collections. In Photoshop I seemed to find myself creating collections by copying and thus duplicating files into new folders. Collections in LR is so much more economical of disc space since you are always editing the original and not a copy no matter which collection it is in. While I can see that for a pro LR offers a lot that I don't use in terms of file management I do find it works well for me and better than Bridge. As a RAW shooter I find LR meets 90% of my needs better than Bridge/Photoshop/ACR and Photoshop fulfils the remaining 10%.

Edited March 4, 2018 by HighlandK

[LocalHero1953]

I have used LR since v3, and PS since the joint subscription model came in. I used PS Elements sporadically before LR. I have occasionally used Snapseed on an ipad, and later on android phones.

 

I found LR quick and intuitive to pick up; I know others have not found the same, and I think this was because I found LR mirrored the functionality and terminology of the traditional darkroom (exposure, white point, contrast, sharpening etc), which I found familiar. I used Julianne Kost's videos to fill in the gaps. I still find that I can do 90% of what I want to do in LR, and use PS for the smarter stuff. I found PS unintuitive (again, others take a different view), and have had to be more methodical in using videos and, especially, Martin Evening's book (more serious and less joky than Kelby - that's my preference) to learn about layers, masking and blending. I found Snapseed easy and intuitive for quick and dirty editing for posting to social media from a phone or ipad, but not in the same league as the Adobe products for functionality. I haven't touched Elements for years, but then its major limitations were its inability to deal with raw files and 16 bit colour.

 

LR's strengths are that it can do most of what a typical photographer wants to do with their images most of the time, in one package. It has a catalogue, a raw converter, an image editor and can use add-ins to access PS and the Nik modules etc. Its weaknesses are that you will get other apps that their adherents say are better than LR at anyone of these functions, but IMO none come near it for doing them all fairly well.

 

LR's editing tools are eating into the capabilities of PS. The latest local adjustment tools which can be conditionally applied according to colour and luminance ranges start to do what you previously needed PS layers and blending modes for - they've got a long way to go, but you can see how Adobe is trying to develop LR.

 

LR's challenge is avoiding becoming slow buggy bloatware, which it has been at times in recent years. The latest Classic version appears to me to be nimbler, and better at RAM management.

Edited March 4, 2018 by LocalHero1953

[Leica Guy]

I would wholeheartedly support the idea of watching Julianne Kost’s training videos for Lightroom. They are very helpful and logically laid out to help you learn how to get the just rewards of using LR.

+1.

[jaapv]

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The thing about editing programs is that the user interface must fit the user. I am an advanced Photoshop user, but I don't like using Lightroom at all. For me it lacks control. I would recommend downloading trials of a couple of other editors and find out which one suits best.

ON1 comes to mind, you won't need to leave their website for tutorials, and as they work with adjustable presets and proper editing, it is an easy program to grow into. The same goes for Luminar.

[Jeff S]

Besides Kost videos and books by Kelby and Evening, I recommend Jeff Schewe’s two books, The Digital Negative and The Digital Print.

 

Workflows are a matter of personal taste and experience. One tends to like what they spend time to learn. I use LR for editing and file management, and ImagePrint 10 as a LR external editor for final printing. My use of Photoshop has diminished greatly over the years as LR tools have matured. I recently switched from standalone LR (perpetual license) to LR Classic. It’s now faster, with access to more tools.

 

Trials are free. Whatever suits you.

 

Jeff

[bags27]

Besides Kost videos and books by Kelby and Evening, I recommend Jeff Schewe’s two books, The Digital Negative and The Digital Print.

 

Workflows are a matter of personal taste and experience. One tends to like what they spend time to learn. I use LR for editing and file management, and ImagePrint 10 as a LR external editor for final printing. My use of Photoshop has diminished greatly over the years as LR tools have matured. I recently switched from standalone LR (perpetual license) to LR Classic. It’s now faster, with access to more tools.

 

Trials are free. Whatever suits you.

 

Jeff

Thanks for this. So, you've purchased the LR 6.0 with no prospects of updates? It has tempted me, as in a bit more than a year, it pays for itself, so very little risk. thanks.

[Jeff S]

Thanks for this. So, you've purchased the LR 6.0 with no prospects of updates? It has tempted me, as in a bit more than a year, it pays for itself, so very little risk. thanks.

No, I had been using the standalone LR iterations (through 6.14), but now subscribe to LR Classic, which includes all new updates. The names are confusing, but LR Classic is one of the subscription options ($9.99 per mo.) but mirrors LR standalone interface and controls, unlike the new LR CC model.

 

I don’t use any cloud storage, preferring to maintain my own files. If and when Adobe forces cloud based storage, I’m out.

 

Jeff

Edited March 5, 2018 by Jeff S

[Mike_HNL]

I have long been a Photoshop user with previous versions and now CC. For a long time I thought Photoshop, ACR and Bridge were all I needed. I am a keen amateur and do not make money out of photography (my wife says I spend too much!). I could not get my head round the way LR handled files and this put me off it completely. However, I took the plunge and also bought Martin Evening's excellent book. I am absolutely sold on LR and only go to Photoshop when I need to use layers and other more advanced editing. What I really have come to like about LR is the ability to do all the editing of RAWs that I could do in ACR/Photoshop within the same program. In Photoshop you edit a RAW in ACR and then take it into Photoshop having moved out of ACR. To get back to the RAW edit you have to reload into ACR from Bridge. In LR you always have the RAW in whatever state you last left it in and can then export in whatever format according to your needs. I also like the concept of collections. In Photoshop I seemed to find myself creating collections by copying and thus duplicating files into new folders. Collections in LR is so much more economical of disc space since you are always editing the original and not a copy no matter which collection it is in. While I can see that for a pro LR offers a lot that I don't use in terms of file management I do find it works well for me and better than Bridge. As a RAW shooter I find LR meets 90% of my needs better than Bridge/Photoshop/ACR and Photoshop fulfils the remaining 10%.

Well said. I almost never find the need to leave LR for PS. I've been a FB user for about six or seven years and still find myself learning to do new things with it. It has so many features that you'll learn to combine in your own unique ways. Stick with it and your efforts will be rewarded.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[plasticman]

No, I had been using the standalone LR iterations (through 6.14), but now subscribe to LR Classic, which includes all new updates. The names are confusing, but LR Classic is one of the subscription options ($9.99 per mo.) but mirrors LR standalone interface and controls, unlike the new LR CC model.

 

I don’t use any cloud storage, preferring to maintain my own files. If and when Adobe forces cloud based storage, I’m out.

 

Jeff

I'm pretty sure that 'LR Classic' will be abandonware within a year or two (at most).

 

Adobe have never been keen to maintain parallel development projects, and introducing this half-way house for people who'd been on the perpetual license (something they promised to keep for 'ever') was simply a way to soften the blow when they decided to switch everyone to the much more profitable subscription model.

 

I guarantee you're gonna find your version slipping behind in new updates, and then gradually being 'forgotten' and hard to find on Adobe's website, before being terminated in favor of the new 'slimline' LR CC. 

 

If I were you, I'd start planning what software you're gonna switch to sooner rather than later.

[Jeff S]

 

I'm pretty sure that 'LR Classic' will be abandonware within a year or two (at most).

 

Adobe have never been keen to maintain parallel development projects, and introducing this half-way house for people who'd been on the perpetual license (something they promised to keep for 'ever') was simply a way to soften the blow when they decided to switch everyone to the much more profitable subscription model.

 

I guarantee you're gonna find your version slipping behind in new updates, and then gradually being 'forgotten' and hard to find on Adobe's website, before being terminated in favor of the new 'slimline' LR CC.

 

If I were you, I'd start planning what software you're gonna switch to sooner rather than later.

I’m way ahead of you, and was already prepared for the end of the perpetual license version, which I addressed here long ago.

 

Jeff

[Exodies]

What’s needed for a “perpetual licence” model to stay alive? Even if you don’t change the software’s features you are going to have a perpetual maintenance task keeping up with the OS. The major new features which might induce people to upgrade (your only source of revenue) have become very rare. Cloud storage (with backup built in!) is so much more convenient than having your own discs.

I don’t see a subscription LR classic becoming orphanware but once all rent phobic LR users have jumped to Acme Photo Editer and Acme then have no more income - this will become an orphan.

[LocalHero1953]

 

I'm pretty sure that 'LR Classic' will be abandonware within a year or two (at most).

 

Adobe have never been keen to maintain parallel development projects, and introducing this half-way house for people who'd been on the perpetual license (something they promised to keep for 'ever') was simply a way to soften the blow when they decided to switch everyone to the much more profitable subscription model.

 

I guarantee you're gonna find your version slipping behind in new updates, and then gradually being 'forgotten' and hard to find on Adobe's website, before being terminated in favor of the new 'slimline' LR CC. 

 

If I were you, I'd start planning what software you're gonna switch to sooner rather than later.

 

For clarity, do you mean that you expect the subscription desktop version of LR to be ended? Because that is what Lightroom Classic (strictly Lightroom Classic CC) is. I believe the standalone version of LR (Lightroom 6) is still available if you know where to find it, and I could see Adobe ending that option. But given that Lightroom CC (the cloud-based app) is still limited in functionality (though catching up), I'd be surprised if Adobe ended Lightroom Classic soon. 

 

My guess is that, even if/when Adobe upped the functionality of Lightroom CC to match that of Lightroom Classic CC, far fewer people would follow LR to the cloud than were willing to move to a subscription model.

 

Edit: I can see one aspect that might make Lightroom CC attractive compared to Classic CC in future. Editing on Adobe's servers opens up the possibility of tools and rendering that require much more processing power than a desktop can offer. It will be interesting to see if Adobe take advantage of it.

Edited March 5, 2018 by LocalHero1953

[Exodies]

<snip>

Edit: I can see one aspect that might make Lightroom CC attractive compared to Classic CC in future. Editing on Adobe's servers opens up the possibility of tools and rendering that require much more processing power than a desktop can offer. It will be interesting to see if Adobe take advantage of it.

They already do with their image search which does away with the need for keywords.

[plasticman]

For clarity, do you mean that you expect the subscription desktop version of LR to be ended? Because that is what Lightroom Classic (strictly Lightroom Classic CC) is. I believe the standalone version of LR (Lightroom 6) is still available if you know where to find it, and I could see Adobe ending that option. But given that Lightroom CC (the cloud-based app) is still limited in functionality (though catching up), I'd be surprised if Adobe ended Lightroom Classic soon...

 

 

Yes, the stupid naming by Adobe is very confusing - I think it's an intentional ploy to muddy the water even further for new users.

 

Just to be clear: I totally expect the Creative Cloud (subscription) version of Lightroom Classic to disappear within a couple, possibly three years. It may take longer, but within the next few years, the Classic version will, at the very least, be waiting longer for new features to be added, and soon after that Adobe will begin orphaning the software altogether.

 

The whole market is shrinking for software like Lightroom, and growing for software like Snapseed. Adobe has already shown which direction they want to go.

 

PS: naturally they may allow people to keep buying the software - I mean active development.

Edited March 5, 2018 by plasticman

[bullmoon]

It would be hard for me to imagine our business without Lightroom Classic.  It is really the core of our workflow.  We shoot hundreds of raw files every day and process them through Lightroom and only use Photoshop for the heavy lifting: sky replacement, removing complicated distractions, layer work, etc.  And there's no way with current internet speeds (we have Xfinity's 300/30) that we could imagine doing any of this over the cloud - it is enough of a challenge using storage servers and our local network. The raw files are 25MB and any resulting hi-res tiffs are around 400MB.  Hundreds and thousands of these over the cloud is a no go.  I imagine someday this will change as gigabit or higher WANs become commonplace, but it's a ways down the road.

 

Ligthroom has become incredibly powerful over the years - once not much to learn and still easy to do the easy bits, it now has some depth that requires some training or years of use to get the most from it.  That said, I'm always keeping an eye on its competitors looking to capitalize on the defectors who don't like being trapped into the subscription model; I wound have never thought of Snapseed as one of them, but maybe they are or will be: NIK makes great tools as does DXO.

[Richardgb]

Like many, I use LR (in my case standalone version 6.14) for initial processing of RAW files and export as a 16-bit TIF file (a 24MB dng results in a roughly 90MB TIF). I find PS Elements covers practically all of any post-LR work I need (typically titling and occasionally more complicated layers) - perhaps I'm close to my darkroom roots.

 

Some work I can do on both but there are differences in ease of manipulation and speed. For example, spot / flaw removal (cloning in Elements) can be quicker and more accurate in LR but too many can slow it right down. Given that I do most work in LR and only the later stages in Elements, I haven't found its 8-bit working any hindrance.

 

All my files and back-ups are stored locally on various external hard-drives. I could up- and download to / from the cloud, but my internet connection speed would make this very tedious and, frankly, I wouldn't trust it enough to do away entirely with local copies.

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[jmahto]

It would be hard for me to imagine our business without Lightroom Classic.  It is really the core of our workflow.  We shoot hundreds of raw files every day and process them through Lightroom and only use Photoshop for the heavy lifting: sky replacement, removing complicated distractions, layer work, etc.  And there's no way with current internet speeds (we have Xfinity's 300/30) that we could imagine doing any of this over the cloud - it is enough of a challenge using storage servers and our local network. The raw files are 25MB and any resulting hi-res tiffs are around 400MB.  Hundreds and thousands of these over the cloud is a no go.  I imagine someday this will change as gigabit or higher WANs become commonplace, but it's a ways down the road.

 

Ligthroom has become incredibly powerful over the years - once not much to learn and still easy to do the easy bits, it now has some depth that requires some training or years of use to get the most from it.  That said, I'm always keeping an eye on its competitors looking to capitalize on the defectors who don't like being trapped into the subscription model; I wound have never thought of Snapseed as one of them, but maybe they are or will be: NIK makes great tools as does DXO.

Agree. I don't see how the same processing can be done on cloud. I guess the target audience for CC (not classic) is different. For new users with smaller files and less processing needs. I see my local server using huge memory and CPU resources processing files with Classic CC. I can't imagine how it can be done on Adobe's server in the cloud.

 

I used to be non-subscription LR user (from LR3 to LR5) and only this year went on to subscription model with Classic. I always wondered what will happen to all my RAW edits after Adobe shuts down LR. Has anyone thought about it? Do you export the entire catalog pictures as TIFFs as backup?