lightroom 5 or photoshop

They both do different things.
I use PS CS6 for everything, including raw editing, a lot of people use lightroom for that part.
Personal preference for me to use PS.
 
Depends what you want.. Just for development then Lightroom, if you want layers and adjustment masks them probably photoshop.
 
As said above it depends what you want it for. I use LR for fine tweaking of colours and adjustments. Then I normally pass them through PS after if there are any defects that need removing or if I'm blending multiple Exposures, that and being a complete muppet by turning animals into fruit lol.
 
I started out with Photoshop years ago and learned by using you tube videos. Its a great program for all sorts of editing. From RAW development all the way through to serious image manipulation, Photoshop IS the best program available for this. HOWEVER I now use Lightroom for 95% of my work flow only moving to Photoshop for more serious editing that Lightroom can't do. For example working with separate layers and blending images together.

Lightroom is great for editing RAW files and batch processing, You need to embrace the library of Lightroom or else you will be fighting it. I will always recommend Lightroom as this usually does all that most photographers will ever need.

You tube is a great learning tool for both programs so I suggest that perhaps you look through a few videos first to see what is best applicable to your requirements. I suspect however you will end up with a copy of lightroom.
 
Lightroom was developed for photographers but it's more than just an editing program. It is a library and backup for your photographs. If set up correctly it will also back up your photographs to another location (ie external drive). It is a workflow system library, developing and publishing tool.

Also unlike Photoshop it is non destructive. This works by not actually editing the file but applying all the edits into a little file that accompanies the image file. Then when you export the image (you don't save the photo in Lightroom, you export it to whatever format you want the file to be) all the edits are applied to the photograph, and the file is exported as a JPEG, Tiff or whatever. Your original file still sits in Lightroom unless you wish to delete it.

As said above Photoshop has a lot more shall we say 'heavy duty' editing tools. But one is not a replacement for the other quite the opposite as Adobe have designed them to work seamlessly together (nearly) and many people like myself use both. A lot of people will prefer photoshop because it was out there before Lightroom was developed and most people used this first.
Photoshop can be non destructive if you are careful on how you carry out your editing.

You can edit most of what you need in Lightroom, it's probably more the case which one you buy first LR or PS.
These and other program's will edit all digital photo file formats that come out of digital camera today. Most people will shoot in RAW as it gives you a lot of latitude in post processing.
As stated above YouTube is a great learning resource for both of these program's.

Hope this helps
Steve
 
69Bonni said:
It is a library and backup for your photographs. If set up correctly it will also back up your photographs to another location (ie external drive).
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Another good point about Lightroom I forgot about. I have mine set to save everything into multiple external SSD drives as well as onto the PC. That way I have everything backed up and I have done no extra work to copy all the files over into different folders.
 
Just a footnote 'if' you go down the Lightroom route, my recommendation is that you watch or read up on setting up Lightroom correctly. It makes a big difference setting it up correctly from the word go (don't ask I'll only lie).

If you have a fair number photographs already, if you don't set it up correctly you stand a good chance of getting in a right mess, trust me I know:(.

Scott Kelby has a good book but there are many on the subject and many videos

Enjoy, there's always something new to learn!
 
I have just started in the fascinating world of photography and at the moment I am only using lightroom 5.3, I find it quite simplified in its layout so it suits me at the minute.
I also have an old version of paintshop X5 but have never put in on my laptop, is it any good?
 
I use LR 5.3 and several versions of PS. I dont subscribe to "HAVE" to having the latest versions of everything unless theres a good reason..
In PS they remove or change some of the tools so quite often people have more than one version installed (yes you can have more than one installation on your computer).
I'm not sure about Paintshop Graham but i'm sure someone will know!
 
I used the Canon DPP software together with Adobe Bridge and Photoshop CS5 up until last week.
However I am seriously debating the Adobe offer of Lightroom 5 + Photoshop CC for £8.78/ month.
This works out at around £105 for 12 months as against buying Lightroom for around £80 ( I cant get the student /teacher edition) and using my existing CS5.
I have downloaded the Adobe package and I have to say I am impressed with the editing tools in Lightroom but I have yet to fully appreciate the other bits in the program.
You can always download the 30 day trial and see how you get on, but like Steve says do your reading before you set it up, the catalogue bit is not particularly intuitive
 
I used to use Bridge and Photoshop for everything. Now I use Lightroom for 95+% of what I do. It's an incredible program and even more so when you consider the price. import, batch edit, single edit, compare, tag, rate, develop, virtual copies, non destructive editing, exporting, watermarks, web module, geotagging, etc. I love it.

My hope is that they give the Web module a bit more love in the next version as The Turning Gate plugins are doing all the heavy lifting in that module for me and I'm sure if Adobe put some effort in things could be even better.
 
DBT85 said:
I used to use Bridge and Photoshop for everything. Now I use Lightroom for 95+% of what I do. It's an incredible program and even more so when you consider the price. import, batch edit, single edit, compare, tag, rate, develop, virtual copies, non destructive editing, exporting, watermarks, web module, geotagging, etc. I love it.

My hope is that they give the Web module a bit more love in the next version as The Turning Gate plugins are doing all the heavy lifting in that module for me and I'm sure if Adobe put some effort in things could be even better.
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I don't want to highjack the thread but are you using it as standalone with your existing version of photoshop or are you using the CC package?
 
troutfisher said:
I don't want to highjack the thread but are you using it as standalone with your existing version of photoshop or are you using the CC package?
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Standalone with an old Photoshop at the moment. I'm sorely tempted by the CC offer as £105 for a year of both is a good deal as far as I'm concerned. I'm just not sure what they'll be like in 12 months when the contract expires and if they'll jack that price up and basically leave everyone with either no Lightroom, going back to their old versions (where I'm not sure if the catalogues will work), or stumping up for a standalone.

If there was some kind of guarantee that they won't hike the price by more than say 10% I'd have leaped on it when I saw it a few weeks back.
 
DBT85 said:
Standalone with an old Photoshop at the moment. I'm sorely tempted by the CC offer as £105 for a year of both is a good deal as far as I'm concerned. I'm just not sure what they'll be like in 12 months when the contract expires and if they'll jack that price up and basically leave everyone with either no Lightroom, going back to their old versions (where I'm not sure if the catalogues will work), or stumping up for a standalone.

If there was some kind of guarantee that they won't hike the price by more than say 10% I'd have leaped on it when I saw it a few weeks back.
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Thanks for that you are in the same boat as me, optimistically I cant see the price going up too much but I guess we will get an idea when the offer finishes
 
also don't forget elements - which does everything an amateur (and many proffesionals) will need from photoshop at a fraction of the cost of CS (also CS is now only available via cloud)

Personally I use LR for Raw conversion, and Elephants for nearly everrything else ( Theres also free stuff like GIMP and Irfanview to consider)
 
big soft moose said:
also don't forget elements - which does everything an amateur (and many proffesionals) will need from photoshop at a fraction of the cost of CS (also CS is now only available via cloud)

Personally I use LR for Raw conversion, and Elephants for nearly everrything else ( Theres also free stuff like GIMP and Irfanview to consider)
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Elements has quite the most horrible user interface I have ever experienced, and in the past I've always preferred PaintShopPro, which also has the benefit of much better 16-bit image support than Elements.

BTW, CS is not "only available via cloud" - I bought the stand-alone edition only yesterday.
 
Brian G said:
Elements has quite the most horrible user interface I have ever experienced, and in the past I've always preferred PaintShopPro, which also has the benefit of much better 16-bit image support than Elements.

BTW, CS is not "only available via cloud" - I bought the stand-alone edition only yesterday.
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The elements interface is virtually the same as CS (if you have an upto date copy of course), and CS is only available via cloud - see http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/cs6.html

Our newest release — including Photoshop® CC and Illustrator® CC — is available only in Adobe® Creative Cloud
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If you bought a stand alone copy yesterday it must be an older version
 
big soft moose said:
The elements interface is virtually the same as CS (if you have an upto date copy of course), and CS is only available via cloud - see http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/cs6.html

If you bought a stand alone copy yesterday it must be an older version
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I suggest you look more carefully, 5 items down this page you can buy the full, stand alone, perpetually licensed edition of Photoshop CS6.
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/ca...software_sl_creativesuite6.html?promoid=KJDPM
The version I have is 13.0.1 x64, although I didn't get it directly from Adobe.
The User Interface is something I'm going to have to get used to, but CS seems a little nicer than Elements, plus of course, unlike Elements it has full 16-bit image support.

I understand Adobe have apparently indicated that they will be making the stand alone version of CS available for the foreseeable future.
In fact, on the page you linked to, it clearly says "While Adobe Creative Suite® 6 products will continue to be available for purchase, Adobe has no plans for future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products."
 
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Why not get a trial of both and see? I used Photoshop for a long time before I started Photography and used to use the RAW editor in it (I cant remember what its called). I then tried Lightroom and just couldnt get on with it at all.
I got a new camera and I needed to update Photoshop for the RAW thing to support it so just used (my newer version of) Lightroom to edit instead, ever since ive never used Photoshop again!
I have both and will always used both but I cant see ill be using Photoshop to edit RAW files again. I only really use Photoshop to make finer adjustments if im going to print a shot and somethings bugging me in it but otherwise my photos never go into Photoshop.
 
I prefer lightroom for printing and tonal ajustments and photoshop for touching up
 
I'm currently using LR5 and Photoshop Elements 11 at the moment. Both are very capable and compliment each other quote well I think.
 
I use Photoshop CS 5 would not even consider Light Room, why would I CS 5 does everything and anything I'd every need

still, it's your choice

Les ;)
 
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