Silly Confused Question

Darren Troy CDarren Troy C Registered Users Posts: 1,927 Major grins
edited June 23, 2010 in Finishing School
Hopefully, there is no such thing...except for the one that never gets asked because, well, you thought it was too "silly". Probably been rehashed a thousand times over but here's the whole 9yds in a nutshell. I've had LR II on my laptop for as long as I can remember...at least right after it hit the market I believe. 99.9% of my time...no, make that 100% of my time...is spent in CS4. I haven't touched LR II, much less even acknowledged the desktop icon. The laptop was starting to gum-up from tons of RAW files and other utilities and LR II is HUGE in comparison to other programs I had loaded, so I removed it. Now, mind you I have the disk and can reload whenever I deem necessary, but my question is...was I really missing something by never using it? I mean REALLY passing up on something special, that I can't get what I'm already getting from CS4??

:dunno :dunno :dunno :dunno :dunno:dunno
http://DarrenTroyCphotography.com/

Comments

  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,954 moderator
    edited June 23, 2010
    Two things: if you do your own printing, LR has a good print module which many people think is better than PS. I don't use it, but people I respect speak highly of it. The other thing is catalog management. How do you keep track of your pics? Will your method hold up over the years? Having a database is much more convenient and powerful than relying on directory hierarchies or folder and file names. I don't know how many pics you have in your archive, but I have around 20k in my archive at the moment and without a database I would be lost. Mind you, there are other databases out there besides LR, but if you aren't using any, I think you will regret it down the line.
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  • arodneyarodney Registered Users Posts: 2,005 Major grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    Most Lightroom users find the opposite, far less use of Photoshop by a huge margin. When you consider the overhead to open a huge pixel based file, compared to using parametric editing (metadata editing), for those working with many images, LR is simply far more effective. And for those shooting raw, processing the best data for Photoshop to do precise pixel editing again reduces the time spent in Photoshop by a huge amount. Then there is the awesome print module which is worth the price of admission if you make more than a print a day and of course the DAM functionality Richard mentioned. I’ve gone from 100% Photoshop to 20% Photoshop on some images, zero on many others expect for a quick trip to PS for soft proofing.
    Andrew Rodney
    Author "Color Management for Photographers"
    http://www.digitaldog.net/
  • divamumdivamum Registered Users Posts: 9,021 Major grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    It also depends on your camera. For instance, I now have a 7d and, as a CS3 user, can't open those files directly in PS. But if I run them thru LR, I can export them to PS as tiffs (or dng) and work on them that way.

    I find I use LR a lot more for processing - greatly prefer it to Bridge. I then take the photos which need further work (ie retouching, cloning, high pass filters, artistic filters etc etc) and work on those individually in PS. Works for me thumb.gif
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  • arodneyarodney Registered Users Posts: 2,005 Major grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    divamum wrote: »
    It also depends on your camera. For instance, I now have a 7d and, as a CS3 user, can't open those files directly in PS.

    Convert to DNG using the free DNG converter and you can. That said, having the latest version of Lightroom means you have the latest image processing options and features (like the awesome new Lens Corrections, Noise reduction etc).
    Andrew Rodney
    Author "Color Management for Photographers"
    http://www.digitaldog.net/
  • basfltbasflt Registered Users Posts: 1,882 Major grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    photoshop is an EDITOR , to alter photo's
    a lousy one IMO

    lightroom is a PROCESSOR , to correct light and color from RAW
    so we can adjust light and color
    the best there is IMO
    Bas

    /ɯoɔ˙ƃnɯƃnɯs˙ʇlɟsɐq//:dʇʇɥ
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,954 moderator
    edited June 23, 2010
    basflt wrote: »
    photoshop is an EDITOR , to alter photo's
    a lousy one IMO

    lightroom is a PROCESSOR , to correct light and color from RAW
    so we can adjust light and color
    the best there is IMO
    Well, OK, but Photoshop comes with ACR, which uses the same processing engine and except for minor differences, does exactly the same thing for raw conversion. I am guessing that the OP is already using ACR, and is wondering about the other things that he might be missing.
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  • divamumdivamum Registered Users Posts: 9,021 Major grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    arodney wrote: »
    Convert to DNG using the free DNG converter and you can. That said, having the latest version of Lightroom means you have the latest image processing options and features (like the awesome new Lens Corrections, Noise reduction etc).

    Exactly thumb.gif:D
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  • arodneyarodney Registered Users Posts: 2,005 Major grins
    edited June 23, 2010
    Richard wrote: »
    Well, OK, but Photoshop comes with ACR, which uses the same processing engine and except for minor differences, does exactly the same thing for raw conversion.

    It might. Depends on if the copy of PS you have is on parity with Lightroom. When you use the Edit in Photoshop option, its is actually ACR that does the rendering. So you could for example, have version 6.0 of ACR which initially shipped with CS5 but didn’t have lens correction (6.0.1 did). If you use the Edit in Photoshop command, you’ll end up in Photoshop without the lens correction but everything else. Yet if you export from LR, you get Lens Correction. Of course, you can upgrade to 6.0.1 for free. Point is, for many, CS4 is fine for most of their work (although 64 bit on Mac and Content Aware Fill is worth the upgrade). They could spend less by using LR3 with an older version of Photoshop as long as they are aware of the issues with ACR in an older version of Photoshop.
    Andrew Rodney
    Author "Color Management for Photographers"
    http://www.digitaldog.net/
  • RichardRichard Administrators, Vanilla Admin Posts: 19,954 moderator
    edited June 23, 2010
    arodney wrote: »
    It might. Depends on if the copy of PS you have is on parity with Lightroom. When you use the Edit in Photoshop option, its is actually ACR that does the rendering. So you could for example, have version 6.0 of ACR which initially shipped with CS5 but didn’t have lens correction (6.0.1 did). If you use the Edit in Photoshop command, you’ll end up in Photoshop without the lens correction but everything else. Yet if you export from LR, you get Lens Correction. Of course, you can upgrade to 6.0.1 for free. Point is, for many, CS4 is fine for most of their work (although 64 bit on Mac and Content Aware Fill is worth the upgrade). They could spend less by using LR3 with an older version of Photoshop as long as they are aware of the issues with ACR in an older version of Photoshop.
    Yes, the upgrades never end whether you're using LR or PS or both; either way, you have about 18 months before you have to pay for the next level. Sometimes they're worth it, sometimes not. CS4 wasn't compelling to me (coming from CS3) but CS5 and ACR 6 seem to be. Since I have my DAM functions covered and don't print much, LR is superfluous--Bridge manages my workflow just fine. The OP can get the latest and greatest processing goodies by upgrading to CS5 and forgetting about LR altogether if he wants. Or stay on CS4 and get the latest and greatest version of LR. The main point I wanted to make is that as far as raw processing is concerned, you will have the same capabilities in the most current versions of PS/ACR and LR.
    My Pics
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