Photoshop or Lightroom?

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Danny133

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Daniel
Edit My Images
Yes
I have both.

But which is best - Well obviously CS5 as its about £500 but which is best to edit photos on.

Nothing spectacular just a simple good photo editing program which can do the things i need etc ..

Lightroom is easy to add watermarks which is important for me too ..

So would lightroom do enough for me and what CS5 would? Im not using it for graphic design ..

I have Aperture 3 but hate it.
 
Two very different uses TBH. Until recently I was PS all the way, but then I got the trial copy of LR and it was a revelation.
If you dont frequently do a lot of editing, then LR. The one thing LR cant do very well is clone big things out. Its fine for face blemishes and such, but if you have say a person with a tree behind them, its really not easy to do in LR.

If all you do is sharpen, exposure, levels etc, then LR is by far superior and very fast to do. The cataloging is also very usefull.
I have both, so I have the best of both worlds. I do all my simple editing in LR, then export to CS5 if it needs heavy editing.
 
Just a visual demo of what I meant about the cloning etc as I didnt explain very well.

I had this image


_DSC8827 by TCR4x4, on Flickr


I wanted to get rid of the buildings amd trees in the background. LR' cannot do this.
So I did the main processing in LR, then exported to PS and got rid of them.


Mustang by TCR4x4, on Flickr
 
perfect!

think im a LR convert then .. obv unless i need to make **** vanish etc etc

i liked its simplicity and things but guessed it lacked weight.

I shall do as you do :)

Thanks
 
I found Lightroom hard to understand.......... and work for that matter
 
Take the time to learn it. There are some good vids on Youtube. Its more powerful than it looks. Try and download some free presets aswell. It can give you some great starting points to get different effects.

Im totaly converted to it, its made my workflow so much better, and I can delete the crap images on import easily, so my library is just the good stuff without a load of craop clogging it up.

When I imported all my files, there were something like 14,000 pictures. Ive whittled it down to about 4,000 decent ones after deleting all the duplicates and crap.

I also love that it never destroys your original Raw file, so you can do as many different edits as you like and still have the original to go back to at any time.
 
say i have 50 raw files .. can i process them all at once and batch watermark?
 
Yep. As long as you want them all processed the same. You can even do it straight on import.
 
Danny133 said:
say i have 50 raw files .. can i process them all at once and batch watermark?
Click to expand...

yes, and much more besides...

Unless you're an avid user of layers in Photoshop you'll probably find Lightroom editing more than sufficient, and its file management/cataloging functions are very good.
 
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Why not download a trial of both of them FREE from Adobe and see which one you prefer?

I use LR almost exclusively, apart from giving images a final once over before going to print or to a client on a CD, and if any extensive cloning or serious editing requiring layers needs doing... I use PS maybe 5-10% of the time I'm editing in total.
 
I'm sold with Lightroom for now. I'm finding it relatively easy (Ish) to understand with alot of poking in the right direction!

Just a 'noob's' view... :)
 
I have cs4, my main reason for having the creative suite is I do a lot of graphic design as part of my wife greetings card hobby as well as my photo editing so it kills two birds with one stone.

If I needed a package purely for basic photo editing I would probably get lightroom or elements.
 
Strange as it may seem to some - photoshop was not designed for editing digital photos! I had v 1 around 1982 - and it is/was a graphics programme! Lightroom was designed for editing - and cataloging digital pictures - and is simply the best there is. Yes - you still need PS - or elements - now and then - but if you are shooting as you should be then LR will do 99% of your processing - and catalogue your images too - which means you can search on any item in meta data and lots of other ways too. LR all the way.
 
I've been using LR since V1.0 was released and now I'm up to V3.3. I've tried Photoshop a few times but always given up on it as I find it to be extremely unintuitive to use and irritating as a result. It's the only piece of software I've ever used where I have to repeatedly hunt down help and tutorials to accomplish anything. I don't even have it installed any more. Lightroom I love. It's good enough for my needs, which include general photography, the occasional wedding and a bit of studio work. I find Lightroom fast and intuitive to use and vey flexible for organising, comparing and editing photos individually or in batches.

Non destructive editing of both raw and JPEG files is a nice touch and there is no need to arse about converting between 16 and 8 bit and deciding where and how to save your edits. Lightroom saves as you go along and your files remain pristine in their original state.
 
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6 months ago I didn't think I'd ever use anything but photoshop, then I tried lightroom 3 and I've barely opened photoshop since. It's brilliant for 99% of editing, the side by side before and after view is especially useful, and the flickr upload.
 
I think software is more than a 'which is best' question. You have to try it and use the one you are most comfortable with.
Take two friends and I, we use the software mainly for photo editing. Two of us use PS and the other has changed to using Lightroom 99% of the time. As much as my friend tries to convert us to Lightroom two of us prefer to use PS.
 
I'll second those who say Lightroom all the way.

Personally I find the cataloguing aspect of LR confusing, and cloning can be difficult, but for everything else, its the tops. It makes editing and processing digital images FUN.:cool:

For removing larger areas I open the files up in Photoshop CS2, but maybe Elements would be sufficient?
 
jerry12953 said:
I'll second those who say Lightroom all the way.

Personally I find the cataloguing aspect of LR confusing,
Click to expand...

Really? In what way? Not having a go, just wondering. I found it very easy to get to grips with.
 
and one of the most useful features of Lightroom too.
 
I find LR3 much easier than PS,makes it more pleasurable to use.:):thumbs:
 
TCR4x4 said:
Really? In what way? Not having a go, just wondering. I found it very easy to get to grips with.
Click to expand...

I can't remember now what I found difficult. Either I worked it out or found work-arounds for the problems I was having.

It may have been to do with stacks, collections, folders, and catalogues

The biggest problem I have had with it is the name of my external hard-drive changing for no apparent reason and making all the files on it inaccessible. Tookm me ages and expert help to sort that one out.

The second-time it happened I knew what to do.
 
I use photoshop professionally as part of my job and before discovering lightroom used to use it also to tweak photos.

Lightroom is a very useful tool as it is a clever all in one package that I used to use numerous scripts and add ons in PS for.

TCR is correct though, LR doesn't allow you to manipulate images to the lengths of removing bits, masking, overlaying etc etc and for that I would recommend Photoshop Elements at around £60ish additional to Lightroom.
 
different software for similar purpose.

LR - mass editing in a fast and good way (renaming,editing,arranging,importing,exporting,..._
Ps - where Lr get's stock and cant go foreword (mass cloning,healing,designing of albums,complicated actions, very complicated image editing,.. )
 
Definitely use both. Everything I shoot goes through Lightroom for exposure, levels, lens calibration, conversions to B+W/Sepia etc. etc.

Any major retouching or editing is done in Photoshop, and they integrate very nicely together as well. Can re-touch an image in Photoshop and have it appear automatically as a .tif alongside the original in Lightroom.
 
95% Lightroom 3
3% Photomatix / Nik software
2% CS3

I always do my best to get everything right straight from the camera so Lightroom is enough for me
 
I have cs5 and lightroom and for basic editing, resizing and watermarks lightroom makes it so much quicker to do. I don't get the lightroom catalogue either TBH and I dont use, I always remove the pictures once i'm done. It does take abit of getting used to but I find that none of the adobe products are very intuitive. My problem is I also use corel draw all day and the terminology are different but they achieve the same thing.
 
If you don't use the LR catalogue your'e missing out a great deal next time you it press F1!
 
I have both, I like photoshop, when I've used lightroom its so much easier I think!
 
I mainly use Aperture for basic editing and Photoshop for anything more challenging. I may give LR another look but I found the interface a bit lacking in comparison to Aperture.
 
I prefer photoshop too, but they're two different applications entirely.

Image catalogue and raw adjustments.....lightroom.

Advanced retouching.....photoshop.

They are not in competition with eachother as far as I see it, but if I chose one over the other I would chose photoshop any day
 
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