Photoshop or Lightroom ?

[Cuddy]

A member of our club gave a talk tonight about the merits of Lightroom, and he found it of more use than Photoshop for his work, i wonder if the forum members agree with him and have opinions as to why.

Still use PS myself, what benefits might i have if i used Lightroom instead, ? i mainly do wildlife photography and any PP used is light and designed to bring my image to as close to what i saw when i took the photograph.

Your experiences and opinions, would be welcome.

 

[OutLore]

A member of our club gave a talk tonight about the merits of Lightroom, and he found it of more use than Photoshop for his work, i wonder if the forum members agree with him and have opinions as to why.

Still use PS myself, what benefits might i have if i used Lightroom instead, ? i mainly do wildlife photography and any PP used is light and designed to bring my image to as close to what i saw when i took the photograph.

Your experiences and opinions, would be welcome.

Depends what you're doing... Lightroom is ok for cataloging, simple development work etc., but PS is for more major image manipulation - in my opinion.

There's some cross-over of course, but each has it's place....

 

[redhed17]

Image processing wise, the Camera Raw plugin for Photoshop is exactly the same as Lightroom, (afaik) just laid out slightly differently. If both are the latest versions. Of course Jpegs and Tiffs can also be processed with ACR.

Photoshop has lots more editing options once the RAW file has been processed and passed through to Photoshop as a Jpeg, Tiff or Smart Object.

Lightroom does other things with managing files and collections which Adobe Bridge doesn't do. Lightroom can also disseminate images to websites and social networks. You can also do Photo books with Lightroom too.

Imho Photoshop with the ACR plugin can do any editing needed. Lightroom is more of a global editor, though it is getting more selective as time goes on with adjustment brushes.

If you have the money, Photoshop does everything.

If you want to edit at pixel level on a budget and don't shoot RAW, or if you do, you can live with a cut down version of ACR, then Elements may be all you need.

A (relatively) budget option would be Lightroom and Elements. (which does 80-90% of what Photoshop can do)

If you want the collection, photo book and social network options then Lightroom is probably the one to have.

Some people have Lightroom and Photoshop for the maximum options. It's a very expensive option though.

 

[GardenersHelper]

I have been using CS2 for several years. I recently decided to start using raw and decided to use Lightroom to load up the raw files as CS2 doesn't know about my Panasonic raw files and I got a copy of Lightroom (version 3) with my camera but had never looked at it.

Out of curiosity I had a little play with Lightroom for processing. To my surprise it turned out to be very much to my liking, both for jpeg files and raw files. I upgraded to version 4, and bought a book about it.

I have been experimenting a lot and my process seems to be settling down to using two stages.

I am using Lightroom for the first half of my PP, selecting images to work on (although I'm still using Faststone some of the time for this), input sharpening and (colour) noise reduction, white balance, cropping, doing any simple cloning/healing and getting the distribution of light and colour how I want it.

The second stage is done in CS2 and involves any more complex cloning and, occasionally, image warping for compositional purposes. I then use CS2, with the Noiseware plugin, for output noise reduction and sharpening, for which I often use layers and masks, which are not available in Lightroom. There are other ways in Lightroom to achieve somewhat similar results, but I have not been able to find a way to get the degree of control, precision, subtlety and accurate visual feedback for the back end process in Lightroom as I do from CS2.

For the parts of the process that I am using Lightroom for, I believe I am getting better (to my eye) and more consistent results than I was with CS2, and I find Lightroom very easy, logical and intuitive to use.

EDIT: Looking back at the top post, I realise I should have mentioned that almost all my stuff is close-ups, of invertebrates and flowers.

 

[EOS_JD]

Image processing wise, the Camera Raw plugin for Photoshop is exactly the same as Lightroom, (afaik) just laid out slightly differently. If both are the latest versions. Of course Jpegs and Tiffs can also be processed with ACR.

Lightroom can also edit JPG, TIF and PSD files

Photoshop has lots more editing options once the RAW file has been processed and passed through to Photoshop as a Jpeg, Tiff or Smart Object.

But if the OP is doing light edits Lr is plenty for most light edits - I don't use Photoshop much any more. Just for the odd few things.

Lightroom does other things with managing files and collections which Adobe Bridge doesn't do. Lightroom can also disseminate images to websites and social networks. You can also do Photo books with Lightroom too.

It's collection and search capabilities are fantastic.

Imho Photoshop with the ACR plugin can do any editing needed. Lightroom is more of a global editor, though it is getting more selective as time goes on with adjustment brushes.

IMHO Lr does everything most people need BUT Photoshop is the king of pixel level editing - Many plugins also work with Lightroom which could lessen the need to use Photoshop at all.

If you have the money, Photoshop does everything.

Apart from organise and catalogue your images.

If you want to edit at pixel level on a budget and don't shoot RAW, or if you do, you can live with a cut down version of ACR, then Elements may be all you need.

Yes elements is useful and I thought it worked with RAW too?

A (relatively) budget option would be Lightroom and Elements. (which does 80-90% of what Photoshop can do)

I agree.

If you want the collection, photo book and social network options then Lightroom is probably the one to have.

It's only with Blurb books I think. I have no use for that function so wasted on me

Some people have Lightroom and Photoshop for the maximum options. It's a very expensive option though.

Student versions of Photoshop is a pretty cheap way to purchase it. You can use them commercially and parents can use it (confirmed directly by Adobe customer care).

But yes still a lot! Why not look at the web/online version at £15 a month for Photoshop. Seems a reasonable deal.

 

[redhed17]

Lightroom can also edit JPG, TIF and PSD files

I thought that went without saying, but with a name like Camera Raw some people may (wrongly) have assumed that it only worked with RAW files which is why I mentioned that specifically. But thanks for the clarification.

But if the OP is doing light edits Lr is plenty for most light edits - I don't use Photoshop much any more. Just for the odd few things.

But you still use Photoshop, which is why I gave Elements or Photoshop as options instead of, or in addition to LR. It depends on how much editing one does whether Photoshop/Elements is needed of course. :shrug:

It's collection and search capabilities are fantastic.

I bow to your superior knowledge. It's not something I've used. :shrug:

IMHO Lr does everything most people need BUT Photoshop is the king of pixel level editing - Many plugins also work with Lightroom which could lessen the need to use Photoshop at all.

Elements is enough for 'most' people imho. But that's just a difference of opinion on the type of user we think about when we talk about 'most' I think.

Apart from organise and catalogue your images.

You're right of course, I got that wrong, but as I said earlier, it's not something I use, but I did say that LR was the option for collections amongst other things. I still think that for image processing and editing only, Photoshop would be all anyone needed, as the RAW processing side of it is the same as LR, but with a lot more editing tools once the image is opened up in Photoshop after ACR processing.

Yes elements is useful and I thought it worked with RAW too?

It does, it has a cut down version of Adobe Camera Raw, which I mentioned.

It's only with Blurb books I think. I have no use for that function so wasted on me

I think you can also save a photo book as a PDF, and print that yourself or by whoever you like.

The collection and organising options would be wasted on me, as would the book making option, as I already have the (free) Blurb Booksmart software installed. Better to have options there which you may not use though, just in case.

 

[swanseamale47]

Look at it this way, lightroom is good at doing a little editing to a lot of images, photoshop is good at doing a lot of editing to a few images.
Both have advantages and disadvantages, photoshop is clumsy at batch editing, while lightroom has poor local ajustments (compared to photoshop) they compliment each other really, LR for the bulk of the editing, and PS for the finer tricky stuff.

 

[Cuddy]

Thanks for all of the replies everyone, it seems there are advantages to both pro grammes, i feel that maybe a combination of elements and lightroom would serve me well and certainly suits my pocket better.

regards all for responding.

 

[Graham00]

It's worth paying the £89 for the adjustment brush alone, i couldn't be without Lightroom now, it even saves merging two exposures through recovering so much detail in foreground - so recoverable in RAW 16bit images.
I've only used the gradient tool once and was quite impressed with it, use Elements 10 for tweaks, cloning, sharpening at the very least.

 

[Cuddy]

It's worth paying the £89 for the adjustment brush alone, i couldn't be without Lightroom now, it even saves merging two exposures through recovering so much detail in foreground - so recoverable in RAW 16bit images.
I've only used the gradient tool once and was quite impressed with it, use Elements 10 for tweaks, cloning, sharpening at the very least.

Thanks Graham, i did like the gradient tool and clarity button on lightroom, need to look at the adjustment brush, cheers for the input.

 

[G12RDH]

Lightroom it is after reading this thread! Its been an expensive november!!