Lightroom or Bridge?

FiestaRed

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Mike
Edit My Images
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My current workflow is shoot in RAW, import into Bridge, tweak to suit and then make any other adjustments in CS4.

In a lot of the threads I read on here, people seem to mention using Lightroom more often than not. Would I gain anything by switching to Lightroom, are there more "tweaks" available there, what are the differences?
 
Hi.
I haven't yet got lightroom. I use Bridge and ACR. Apart from a cooler interface, I'm also wondering what the 'real' benefits are. Hopefully I'll get Lightroom soon and find out. I'd be interested to see what people think, too.
 
Thought I was in the minority using Bridge and PS, looks like I'm not so much on my own.
 
I'm also wondering what the 'real' benefits are.

SPEED! Lightroom will speed up your processing hugely! It also catalogues your pictures so you can find them - for regular processing it will do 99% of what you'd be doing in PS but in a fraction of the time. NO waiting for pictures to load - process ONE image copy and paste the settings into the rest - tweak and done!
 
Lightroom is great and as has been said really speeds up developing time from Raw. The presets are great and the amount of things that can be tweeked is just unreal. The filing sytem is simple and everyhting can be found really easily, TBH now I rarely need to use PS if I actually want to edit the actual picture i.e. in portraits blemish removal.
 
lightroom seems far simpler to me. It imports, it catalogues, so versatile too. does most things that i used to use photoshop for but it's quicker and simpler. Lots of plugins to help with work-flow, uploading to flickr etc.

andy
 
Anyone advise on the latest version available, I've seen 2.4 advertised?
 
I am running an online, real-time overview session on Lightroom 2.5 this Friday at 7:00 GMT for an hour. This is what I plan to cover...

20100520-qdkj789c6de8qdqcqqsd9b5c1x.jpg


By all means join in... and see what all the talk regarding Lightroom is all about.

Here's the link.
 
Thanks for all the help.
 
If you want to give it a shot why not get the beta for v3?

That way you get a hands on, no cost and can see if it works for you, sure it will run out soon but why not?
 
lr is amazing, I find it easier than acr for editing

i find the keywording and smart collections so much better than bridge

in general its immense
 
Bridge ACR and CS4 are my tools as for light room to me it looks like a cut down mix of the three, I also do not like how it do not show the folders like bridge..
It is really surprising how much people who don't use applications seem to know about them.

Lightroom is not a cut down version of Bridge and CS4, nothing like in fact. As a starter for 10, Lightroom is totally 100% non-destructive in its editing, CS4 usually isn't.

Oh, and don't be so daft, of course you can show the folders & structure in Lightroom if you want to. Please don't make erroneous comments when you don't know the right answers, it is misleading.
 
Thanks again for all the help.

I now have Lightroom 2.7 and at first glance it certainly looks impressive. All I need to do now is read all about it and learn what goes where.
 
I use lightroom 2.7 for quick development of RAW files and PS CS3 / elements for editing photos :)
 
I use Bridge + ACR and I think it's sufficient for anyone not willing to pirate or fork out for Lightroom.

I prefer Bridge simply because it uses the directory structure I am used to, so that when I go out of Bridge I find my images catalogued and stored just the way I want them, in and out of Bridge.
 
As Musicman ointed out; the comment about folder / directory view in LR is available.
However, when you import photos into your lightroom catalog, it defaults to sorting by date.

You can import into just one folder, and I have the "root" of my catalog as a directory on my hard drive and categorise every photo shoot in its own directory. The structure in LR mirrors the file structure on my HDD so it's easy to find your way around :)

I've never understood the philosophy of organising by date...
 
Downloaded Lightroom beta.
Great software.
I will be buying it in full.
 
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