LIGHTROOM VS PS

[samagroma]

Hi guys,
Can you tell what is better for raw processing: PS5 or Lightroom 4?
Cheers

 

[swanseamale47]

It depends on your defination of better, Lightroom has a better workflow for processing large numbers of raw images, they both essentially* share the same "engine under the hood" however if your only processing the odd image here and there importing and exporting into lightroom can be a pain in the arse.
(*Lightroom 4 is using a slightly newer/better version of the camera raw than photoshop so should in theory be better, with CS6 due out soon that they'll be using the same processsing)
For me if it's one or two pics I'll use photoshop, if it's more I'll normally use lightroom.
Photoshop can do a lot more after the raw processing than lightroom as it has layer cut/paste etc etc.

 

[Craikeybaby]

For raw processing they use the same engine (actually LR4 is currently one version ahead of CS5). However the workflow in Lightroom is better.

 

[ljphil78]

I think I must edit 99% of my photos in Lightroom and only use Photoshop for major editing, large areas of cloning selective colouring (although I recently found out how to do this in Lightroom) I just find the workflow so much easier in LR as all the tools are designed for photo editing as opposed to PS which so many non-photo tools its easy to get lost

 

[samagroma]

Many thanks for all your answers.
I am using PS5 now and I like it. The only problem is that I don't know how to automate certain things as I process usually 10 to 50 raw images at one time and I have to open them and save separately which takes a lot of time. Is it possible to open them all at the same time and after processing save all in jpg format with one click? If it is not possible I will have to try Lightroom...
I also have a question concerning plugins as I am looking for a good sharpening plugin. Can you recommend any? I tried a few but I didn't like the results so for sharpening I am using just faststone image viewer . As a matter of fact in PS5 I use only imagenomic noiseware professional plugin which is excellent and fast.
Thanks again

 

[ljphil78]

have you tried the free trial of LR4, I think theyve brought the price right down as well now

 

[swanseamale47]

have you tried the free trial of LR4, I think theyve brought the price right down as well now

Be advised LR 4 needs a decent spec computer to run well on, it also needs vista sp3 or win 7 to work.

 

[redhed17]

If you highlight all the images you want to process in Bridge, you can then choose to open them all at once in the Camera Raw program. All the opened images will be in a strip down the left hand side of the interface. When you start editing one of the images, you can choose to 'Select All' or additional individual images in the list, and once additional images are chosen, the 'Synchronise' button becomes active. At this point you can choose which aspects of the editing to synchronise, all the edited settings, or just White Balance or Exposure, or a range of different settings. :shrug:

Once you finished editing, if all the images are selected you can save them all at once with whatever format settings you've chosen.

 

[Morph3ous]

The thing to remember is that Lightroom and Photoshop are supposed to work together, not one or the other. LR is for managing, light editing, and exporting your images, whereas Photoshop is for serious editing. I use LR for 95% of my photo editing, and only really go into PS when I need to do something out of the ordinary like cloning, multiple layers etc.

The good thing about LR is that all the 'changes' you make to the photos are non destructive. They're not actually made until you export the file, whereas PS is physical pixel editing and is destructive. Once its changed, its changed.

Many thanks for all your answers.
The only problem is that I don't know how to automate certain things as I process usually 10 to 50 raw images at one time and I have to open them and save separately which takes a lot of time. Is it possible to open them all at the same time and after processing save all in jpg format with one click? If it is not possible I will have to try Lightroom...

You need to batch process them.

Here's a tutorial: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7425a.html

 

[samagroma]

Yes, yesterday I downloaded it and I must say I like it. The only problem is that I am used to process raw photos in PS and now I have to learn how to operate the LR. I feel like I will have to use both of them.
Cheers

have you tried the free trial of LR4, I think theyve brought the price right down as well now

 

[samagroma]

Be advised LR 4 needs a decent spec computer to run well on, it also needs vista sp3 or win 7 to work.

I have a very good computer and excellent LCD screen so LR works very well.
Thanks

 

[samagroma]

If you mean PS could you please explain what did you mean suggesting that I should "process in Bridge"?
Many thanks

If you highlight all the images you want to process in Bridge, you can then choose to open them all at once in the Camera Raw program. All the opened images will be in a strip down the left hand side of the interface. When you start editing one of the images, you can choose to 'Select All' or additional individual images in the list, and once additional images are chosen, the 'Synchronise' button becomes active. At this point you can choose which aspects of the editing to synchronise, all the edited settings, or just White Balance or Exposure, or a range of different settings. :shrug:

Once you finished editing, if all the images are selected you can save them all at once with whatever format settings you've chosen.

 

[samagroma]

It is very important to know that in LR processing is nondestructive!
You motivated me to use it more often.
Could you please instruct me also in what format should I save photos processed in LR? By now I always saved them as jps? If I save a processed in LR photo as jpg would it still be nondestructive?
Cheers

The thing to remember is that Lightroom and Photoshop are supposed to work together, not one or the other. LR is for managing, light editing, and exporting your images, whereas Photoshop is for serious editing. I use LR for 95% of my photo editing, and only really go into PS when I need to do something out of the ordinary like cloning, multiple layers etc.

The good thing about LR is that all the 'changes' you make to the photos are non destructive. They're not actually made until you export the file, whereas PS is physical pixel editing and is destructive. Once its changed, its changed.



You need to batch process them.

Here's a tutorial: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7425a.html

 

[Noah_]

The thing to remember is that Lightroom and Photoshop are supposed to work together, not one or the other. LR is for managing, light editing, and exporting your images, whereas Photoshop is for serious editing.

I think too many forget this. It's called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom & they're made to work together. I use Photoshop to do my retouching & Lightroom to catalogue & organise the photographs.

 

[redhed17]

If you mean PS could you please explain what did you mean suggesting that I should "process in Bridge"?
Many thanks

Sorry, maybe I should have said 'open Bridge and highlight the images you want to process in Camera Raw'. In Bridge there is a round button in the toolbar which allows you to open any highlighted images in Camera Raw. It is also the easiest way to highlight a Jpeg to process in Camera Raw too.

The thing to remember is that Lightroom and Photoshop are supposed to work together, not one or the other. LR is for managing, light editing, and exporting your images, whereas Photoshop is for serious editing. I use LR for 95% of my photo editing, and only really go into PS when I need to do something out of the ordinary like cloning, multiple layers etc.

If you have Photoshop, then if it is just Raw processing you want to do, then I don't feel there is the need to have LightRoom. The processing options up until the release of LR4 have been the same between CS* and LR*. There has been a change in function and renaming of some of the options in LR4 which will probably copied when CS6 is released with a new version of Camera Raw.

LightRoom does have other web publishing and tethering features which Photoshop doesn't have, but if you don't use them, then I see no great need for having LR if you have Photoshop. If you have the money and make use of both then of course that's fine, whatever works for you.

The good thing about LR is that all the 'changes' you make to the photos are non destructive. They're not actually made until you export the file, whereas PS is physical pixel editing and is destructive. Once its changed, its changed.

Most, if not all Raw editors are non destructive.

 

[Morph3ous]

Could you please instruct me also in what format should I save photos processed in LR? By now I always saved them as jps? If I save a processed in LR photo as jpg would it still be nondestructive?
Cheers

Unless you're planning on sending the finished image to someone, or uploading it to a website that doesn't form part of LR's Plugin Manager, then there's no reason to do anything with the RAW file.

The original RAW files will 'technically' remain untouched, however LR will always display the 'edited' version. So you don't need to 'save it' as you would with PS. It's only when you want to send the photo to somewhere else (website, email, USB stick, CD etc etc) that you'll need to export it into whatever format you like, but most likely JPEG. It'll then create a copy of the original RAW with all the changes you made.

Also, when you choose to further edit a LR file in PS, it asks you if you want to edit the original, a copy of the original, or a copy of the original with any LR changes you've made. (i.e. White Balance, exposure, cropping, saturation etc) By always choosing the 3rd option (assuming you've made LR changes) you'll forever retain an untouched copy of the original RAW file, so it doesn't matter if you accidently save it in PS after making unrecoverable changes. (I.e. before getting LR, I once saved my only copy of a JPEG file with a watermark right across the centre. Completely ruined it!)
It does however, mean you'll be using up hard drive space with each copy you make.

Hope this helps.

 

[Morph3ous]

Most, if not all Raw editors is non destructive.

I was referring to editing in Photoshop, not Camera Raw.

 

[irelanst]

The good thing about LR is that all the 'changes' you make to the photos are non destructive. They're not actually made until you export the file, whereas PS is physical pixel editing and is destructive. Once its changed, its changed.

Photoshop doesn't make any changes to the RAW, when you open a RAW in PS (via ACR or Lightroom) you cannot write the changes to that file, you need to save as a new PSD (or other format) file.

Using a decent layer structure will ensure that any work you do on the PSD will be non-destructive (layers / snapshots / smart objects etc.), It really isn’t good practise to work on the background layer, the first thing I do when I open a new image in PS is Ctrl J. You can even edit JPEG's non-destructively if you want!

I personally think far too much emphasis is placed on the ‘non-destructive editing’ it’s pretty easy (and probably good practise) to make a copy of any file and work on that whilst keeping the original in a read only folder, regardless of file format or application.

So you don't need to 'save it' as you would with PS. It's only when you want to send the photo to somewhere else (website, email, USB stick, CD etc etc) that you'll need to export it into whatever format you like, but most likely JPEG. It'll then create a copy of the original RAW with all the changes you made.

Sorry, but I think the last sentence is confusing. The bit before is fine, but the "copy of the original RAW" statement is wrong and misleading - the RAW file isn't copied, a new file is created with your develop and export settings applied.

Also, when you choose to further edit a LR file in PS, it asks you if you want to edit the original, a copy of the original, or a copy of the original with any LR changes you've made. (i.e. White Balance, exposure, cropping, saturation etc) By always choosing the 3rd option (assuming you've made LR changes) you'll forever retain an untouched copy of the original RAW file

Any of the options will leave the original RAW unedited. In each case if you make any changes in PS that you want to keep you need to save the files as a PSD (for example) and assuming you have the box ticked will appear in the stack with the original in LR. LR will now treat that file as ‘an original’ which is separate to the RAW file.

If you subsequently want to edit this file you need to select "edit the original" to preserve the layers, if you select the third option (with LR changes) PS will create a new PSD file with the image as a background layer, you will lose the layer structure (in that copy only, the original will still have the layers).

 

[samagroma]

Many thanks Guys for all the information. I see that the best solution would probably be to use both editors. I will not give up on PS as I've been using it for a long time but for some reasons I like LR too. I want to learn more about editing because I plan to buy 5D mkII with 100mm 2.8 L macro lens and Samyang 14mm and have a lot of fun this summer . This combo is been my dream for a long time.

 

[samagroma]

Thanks, and I've decided to follow your example, but anyway it would be easier to be able to do everything in one editor.

I think too many forget this. It's called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom & they're made to work together. I use Photoshop to do my retouching & Lightroom to catalogue & organise the photographs.

 

[samagroma]

I also have a question concerning sharpening the raw photos. Could you tell me what technique do you use? I've tried to sharpen in camera raw and using different plugins but I didn't like the results so for sharpening (only jpg) I am using a very simple and free editor called 'faststone image viewer' .

 

[arad85]

Could you tell me what technique do you use?

In LR I generally zoom the image to 100%, move the Sharpening Amount slider to about 50 and then whilst holding the Alt key down, move the masking slider until I get a good balance of sharpness.

 

[Craikeybaby]

Thanks, and I've decided to follow your example, but anyway it would be easier to be able to do everything in one editor.

If all you are using Lightroom for is organising, it's a bit of a waste, as Photoshop comes with Bridge, which is a powerful cataloging tool.

 

[garryknight]

I personally think far too much emphasis is placed on the ‘non-destructive editing’ it’s pretty easy (and probably good practise) to make a copy of any file and work on that whilst keeping the original in a read only folder, regardless of file format or application.

Good point. But it's not just so that you can start again. It's so that you can go back to an earlier point in the process and start from there. Or even create several post-processing 'branches' by judicious use of the show/hide layer icon, to see what works best.

 

[swanseamale47]

Photoshop doesn't make any changes to the RAW, when you open a RAW in PS (via ACR or Lightroom) you cannot write the changes to that file, you need to save as a new PSD (or other format) file.

Using a decent layer structure will ensure that any work you do on the PSD will be non-destructive (layers / snapshots / smart objects etc.), It really isn’t good practise to work on the background layer, the first thing I do when I open a new image in PS is Ctrl J. You can even edit JPEG's non-destructively if you want!

I personally think far too much emphasis is placed on the ‘non-destructive editing’ it’s pretty easy (and probably good practise) to make a copy of any file and work on that whilst keeping the original in a read only folder, regardless of file format or application.

Sorry, but I think the last sentence is confusing. The bit before is fine, but the "copy of the original RAW" statement is wrong and misleading - the RAW file isn't copied, a new file is created with your develop and export settings applied.

Any of the options will leave the original RAW unedited. In each case if you make any changes in PS that you want to keep you need to save the files as a PSD (for example) and assuming you have the box ticked will appear in the stack with the original in LR. LR will now treat that file as ‘an original’ which is separate to the RAW file.

If you subsequently want to edit this file you need to select "edit the original" to preserve the layers, if you select the third option (with LR changes) PS will create a new PSD file with the image as a background layer, you will lose the layer structure (in that copy only, the original will still have the layers).

Couldn't agree more.

 

[samagroma]

If all you are using Lightroom for is organising, it's a bit of a waste, as Photoshop comes with Bridge, which is a powerful cataloging tool.

Thank you mate so much for the info about bridge. That is so important to me!
Now I can open and process as many raw photos as I want simultaneously!

 

[samagroma]

In LR I generally zoom the image to 100%, move the Sharpening Amount slider to about 50 and then whilst holding the Alt key down, move the masking slider until I get a good balance of sharpness.

Cheers