CS4 and Lightroom

[ausguitarman]

Well I'm about to bite the bullet and buy CS4 and or Lightroom.

Never had much luck with these types of programs before but lots of reading and the links Rick posted (thanks mate :food04:) I'm hoping to learn a bit more about them.

My question is: Do I need both CS4 and Lightroom or just one of them?

[etherial]

I read this (http://digital-photography-school.com/lightroom-what-is-it-and-when-should-you-consider-it?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DigitalPhotographySchool+%28Digital+Photography+School%29&utm_content=Google+Reader)the other day, might help answer your question. Also rather than buying now why not try out lightroom 3 beta. Sure its a beta and may have a bug or two but might be worth a look.

[ausguitarman]

Brilliant read for a newb like me. Thank you very much :food04:.

[yarnella]

IMHO you are better off with both Lightroom and CS4. They complement each other.

Lightroom is a great program. It is mainly a cataloging tool but has many fabulous editing features and it never modifies the original image. But I would not want to only have Lightroom.

I have used every version of Photoshop from 5.5 onwards and there are some things that PS just does better and you can easily skip over to CS4 from LR, do some extra editing and come back to LR. Best of both worlds.

[ricktas]

You could function quite well with one or the other. Lightroom has progressed to the point of being able to do some fantastic editing in it. PS has bridge and ACR which both allow you to do quite a lot with your RAW files, in many cases the same feature set as Lightroom.

So you could get either, but agree that they do compliment each other. I think too, that the learning curve is quite steep for both, so if you do get them both, concentrate on learning one at a time, otherwise it may seem all to daunting, if you try and learn them both at once.

[chaz]

I had the same dilemma about 18 months ago, and because i had done a CS3 course and Lightroom was new, so I opted for CS3 (I've not upgraded). I find that Bridge works well enough as a cataloguing/file managing and viewing tool and I spend the bulk of my time working from Bridge and using the CS RAW processor - with the balance of image work in Photoshop. If you want Lightroom for its superior cataloging/file management functions thats one thing, but if you want it to process RAW images I understand that its the same processor thats in CS4, but am not sure whether the functionality and features lists are different? Others who have both might comment on the differences between them in handling RAW. I suppose having both is the best of both worlds, so if $s are no promblem get both, but if you're trying to economise, then CS4 may well give you most of what you need. I recall the promos for Lightroom touting its use for professional photographers with high volumes of images to catalogue and batch process.
cheers

[NextPagePhoto]

Lightroom requires far less of a learning curve than photoshop. I've found Lightroom can handle 90% of my pp needs and with Photomatix for HDR I only need to use photoshop for specialised editing. I'm hopng that I can get to the point where I don't need photoshop at all as I find the Lightroom workflow far quicker and easier.

[rogklee]

I have lightroom and love it to bits. I do 90% of my touch ups there and might touch Photoshop for the higher end pp. also there are some great plug in's for LR too, so saves me touching photoshop again.

[Mircula]

Hello.

I just wanted to post a similar thread when i saw this one....

First of all i am quite new to photography and i am using lightroom since i started about a month ago...Never touched photoshop yet, as it just seem so big and extensive....

What i wanted to post about...

How does your normal workflow look like? What programs do you mainly use? How much time do you spend in photoshop and lightroom and is photoshop really neccessary, if yes, for what?

As i am new to digital photography i am already amazed what is possible with lightroom....and i think too much post processing kind of looses the original image...it should still be a photo, for me... not some unrealistic picture...

Are there any better programs for noise reduction than lightroom?

@ rogklee: what good plugins are there for lightroom?

Sorry for all the questions....i just thought it fits in well with this thread


Thank you.

[kiwi]

Id be tempted now to use LR and Elements

anyhow

I use photoshop to do things like posters, text, and that sort of thing that LR does not support. For me, that's about it these days
LR's NR is lousy, but LR 3 is much better. I would recommend Neat Image, Noise Ninja and Nik Dfine 2.0 as plug ins.
Other LR Plug In's Id recommend is any plug in that integrates LR with you online gallery, flickr etc
LR/Mogrify
LR/Enfuse

There are 100's of presets that you can get for free from all over.

[Mircula]

Cool thanks for that....

Another thing i just saw...There is a lightroom beta 3 out there....

Anybody using it? Is it worth using yet?


Cheers.

[gcflora]

Id be tempted now to use LR and Elements

anyhow

I use photoshop to do things like posters, text, and that sort of thing that LR does not support. For me, that's about it these days
LR's NR is lousy, but LR 3 is much better. I would recommend Neat Image, Noise Ninja and Nik Dfine 2.0 as plug ins.
Other LR Plug In's Id recommend is any plug in that integrates LR with you online gallery, flickr etc
LR/Mogrify
LR/Enfuse

There are 100's of presets that you can get for free from all over.

Darren, do those noise reduction plugins work with LR?

[kiwi]

Craig, I believe Neat Image now does, cant vouch for the others though

I have LR3 Beta and it's good

[Amadeus]

The whole thing is driving me up the wall. I keep switching from Bridge to LR, though I suspect it's cause I don't know how to use LR properly. I have just ordered S Kelby's book (thanks to the recommendations here) and so that should fix me up.

[kiwi]

With these things its easy to try lots of different s/w packages and not be good at any of them.

I bit the bullet a year ago and said to myself I was going to use just one package if I could and it was going to be LR

The book will help, but, there are some very good tuts on youtube too

[gcflora]

I HATED Lightroom at first, Amadeus. Now I don't know how I did without it!

I might look into Neat Image, Darren. I am currently using Noiseware but to be honest I hardly ever use it any more. Do you find LR3(Beta) slow as well? It's a Beta so it most likely has lots of debugging code still in it, but I find it quite significantly more demanding on my CPU

[kiwi]

I haven't really tested it extensively enough to comment with authority, but, it's supposed to be significantly faster than LR2 when finalised

[TOM]

i certainly need both.

[Mircula]

For what do you usually use photoshop?

I never used it and would just like to know when it would come in handy.

Is it just for like major changes in the photo or as well for like say sharpening or things like that, which just improve the photo quality....

Thank you!

[kiwi]

All photos can benefit from some degree of post processing (usually at least adjusting levels, cropping and sharpening) and there are dozens of programs that can do this, photoshop is only one, but probably the best and most used for a number of reasons. It's unfortunately also the hardest to learn well

[TOM]

okay, lr2 is for mass editiing. if you were doing a wedding, especially with digital, it is a real time saver. lr2 is more of a batch editor, although lr2 is a huge leap forward over lr. i have yet to try lr3. i just edited four seperate commercial jobs over the last week, and without lr2 or a similar programme, it would have added maybe 1000% post time using cs4 or similar. but for single images, maybe to prepare for a print, or to do some major editing on, there is no subsititute for photoshop.

another common issue with digital, is dust on the sensor. if you were to take 500 images with an annoying spot on them, a programme like lr2 can assist in removing it quickly to the batch.

[rogklee]

plugins i use are nik silver effects and nik viveza. Also Noise ninja but usually do that as a batch at the end of all my pp. There are a stack more, but i haven't had time to run around looking for them

[Wayno]

Thanks for the heads up.