I'm on my second version of Lightroom and my fourth version of
PhotoShop. So far I've done little but open Lightroom up a few times to
give it a quick look. But I use PhotoShop at least once a week and
sometimes for days on end.
The thing that I do not like about Lightroom (and probably what draws
other people to it) is that it wants to "manage" my images. I have my
own system of image management which is rather minimalist but suits me fine.
I find that PhotoShop really does all that I require and, since
Lightroom isn't a full-blown editor it doesn't do all that I require.
Someone mentioned automation in handling images as a Lightroom strength
which is something I don't understand, probably because I haven't
pursued Lightroom enough to understand all it can do. But all of the
automation that I think I need can also be found in PhotoShop and
Bridge. The only automation I think I need is processing similarly
exposed images in ACR as a group. Bridge allows selecting the similar
images and then passes them as a group to ACR. I adjust one image,
select the rest and tell ACR to apply the same changes to all. I then
step through the modified images and make small tweaks for those that
have a similar but not identical exposure.
After I'm done with those things that ACR can do I'm left with PhotoShop
and everything I do at that point is very specific to each individual
image. I don't see how automation can help.
One of these days I'll dig into Lightroom futher but I've been saying
that for the last couple of years since I first got Lightroom 1. Now I
have CS5 and Lightroom 3.2 but I still don't understand it very well. I
suspect that my propensity to do serious editing on lots of images means
that Lightroom doesn't really hold much for me.
But you need to hear from a serious Lightroom user. But I suspect
you'll find that, like Nathan, they are averse to editing much beyond
exposure corrections. I wonder if, for them, it's really much more than
a means to pass images into ACR.
Chuck Norcutt
On 5/24/2011 4:44 PM, Walters, Martin wrote:
> As a benefit of my flash course, I'm entitled to student reductions of
> some Adobe software. In particular, both Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5
> are available at significant discounts. I already have PS Elements 8,
> so my question concerns the relative merits and use (casual in my case)
> of these three software. As my images are scans from film, things like
> RAW processing are not a priority.
>
> PS Elements does a good many things, though I gather its significant
> limitations (I'm sure there are others) include the lack of layers and
> adjustable curves. PS proper is at the other end of the scale and
> likely overkill for me, without serious study and use.
>
> My real question is where Lightroom fits in the picture (pun intended)?
> I've been through the info on the Adobe website, and I'm still at a bit
> of a loss what to make of it. It would appear to offer significant
> editing capacities, which are undescribed but presumably less than PS
> ("it works seamlessly with PS", or something like that). It's also not
> clear whether it offers greater or just different editing capacities to
> PSE. Lightroom seems to emphasize workflow issues like managing and
> distributing images, as much as it does editing.
>
> There are list members who use Lightroom and PS (maybe separately or
> together), I'd be grateful to hear their comments on the relative
> merits/limitations of the software.
>
> On topic: the images are made with an OM!
>
> Martin
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