CS5 & ACR v's Lightroom

[Jacs14]

Hi,

Ok so I am finally getting my head around editting a little better; in as much as I have a better understanding of a clean edit. I have been using CS5. I shoot in raw normally, unless shooting sport when I will go jpeg.

So my question, what would the advantages be to add LR to my editting. I hear lots of pro's and cons, but really I suppose what I want to know is, would LR give me a lot more, or would it confuse me more????

[ricktas]

Lightroom started out as DAM software with 'whole of image' editing capabalities. Adobe purchased a company that made 'rawshooter' and used the technology that company had developed to build Lightroom as a Digital Asset Management package (image storage, sorting, tagging) and added a RAW editing component. Since then Lightroom has been developed into a great photo management and software package in its own right.

It can basically do most of what photoshop can do, but PS still has an edge in editing. So it depends on your editing workflow. Lightroom doesn't really give your more than PS, just a different way to do things. Some people find LR the only software they need, others like me, start in LR and then move over to PS to complete the editing.

Certainly if you want to put the time in to learn the capabilities of LR fully, you could find yourself loving to use it, and your use of PS would likely decrease.

You could check out this series of videos of LR instruction (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?107195-Want-to-learn-Lightroom) (long but a great way to learn LR)

[Jacs14]

thanks for that Rick ... I think the main reason for looking at LR4 as well is people have told me that the cataloging, sorting and batch processing will make life easier

[NikonNellie]

My workflow is the same as Rick's.....I start off in Lightroom to get the image how I want it and then I'll always finish it off in PS using certain actions for sharpening, noise reduction,etc. Most of the time I use PS actions to give an image a certain look, e.g Vintage, retro, clean edit but occasionally I'll use a LR Preset but I find these are harder to adjust the way you want them.

[fess67]

I use LR for the cataloging and easy uploads to my Smugmug and Facebook accounts. I do all my processing in CS6. I just enjoy messing with photoshop :)

[ricktas]

thanks for that Rick ... I think the main reason for looking at LR4 as well is people have told me that the cataloging, sorting and batch processing will make life easier

The cataloging elements of LR are very good..as long as you get into a routine of being fastidious. I use the tagging feature a lot, which means I can search for 'Tasmania, beach, rocks, sunrise, bird and find all the photos I have that have a bird in them, taken on a Tasmanian beach at sunrise with rocks in the scene. But it requires YOU to enter all these tags in the first place, so you may find your importing workflow has to change, but the results can be worth it.

[fess67]

I agree with Rick. The workflow to tag them is pretty easy though, unless you have a massive variety of images. For instance, it was a time consuming thing for me returning from Africa as I was able to batch things like 2012, Africa, Zimbabwe but then had to go through thousands of photos putting in Lion, Elephant etc...Worth it in the end when you want to search for photos.

[Kym]

I use LR for all bulk work and as a DAM.
I use PS for specific detailed edits
They are complimentary, not replacement, so using both makes sense.

I would suggest beginners start with LR as it is relatively cheap and can do most basic edits and allows raw conversion.
See: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showlibrary.php?title=New_To_Photography:Workflow_-_Putting_it_all_together