lightroom vs. photo mechanic?

dogwood

Okay, so I've been using Photo Mechanic to download, tag, and sort my photos. It's blazing fast and the download function alone is worth the cost. One I have my selections, if it's a bulk process deal, I'll use Bridge to do any quick tweaks to the raw files before processing. For studio shoots, I just individually process final files.

But I decided to check out the trial version of Lightroom because I keep hearing positive things about the software. It's slower to display than Photo Mechanic, and honestly, not as intuitive (to me anyway).

Here's my question: anyone here used both Lightroom and Photo Mechanic? Have you replaced the Photo Mechanic part of your workflow with Lightroom? Are there advantages to LR over Photo Mechanic purely for downloading, sorting and tagging files?

Pittspilot

dogwood wrote:

Okay, so I've been using Photo Mechanic to download, tag, and sort my photos. It's blazing fast and the download function alone is worth the cost. One I have my selections, if it's a bulk process deal, I'll use Bridge to do any quick tweaks to the raw files before processing. For studio shoots, I just individually process final files.

But I decided to check out the trial version of Lightroom because I keep hearing positive things about the software. It's slower to display than Photo Mechanic, and honestly, not as intuitive (to me anyway).

Here's my question: anyone here used both Lightroom and Photo Mechanic? Have you replaced the Photo Mechanic part of your workflow with Lightroom? Are there advantages to LR over Photo Mechanic purely for downloading, sorting and tagging files?

I replaced PM with Lightroom when it was in late beta. Primarily, I was trying to reduce the number of different programs I used to manage the whole workflow. Now I use LR for the majority of work, with odd forays into PS when required.

Cheers

dogwood

Pittspilot wrote:

I replaced PM with Lightroom when it was in late beta. Primarily, I was trying to reduce the number of different programs I used to manage the whole workflow. Now I use LR for the majority of work, with odd forays into PS when required.

Cheers

Thanks Pittspilot. Prior to Lightroom, were you using PM then Bridge to process raw files?

Pittspilot

dogwood wrote:

Thanks Pittspilot. Prior to Lightroom, were you using PM then Bridge to process raw files?

I actually hated bridge! As part of my rationalization I committed to use Bridge - I do but still don't like it. :-(

thejohnremus

I never really used bridge because I found it too slow compared to PM which I started using in school for PJ... it's kind of the industry standard.

Well, now, having done work for Adobe I started using LR a lot after some personal tutorials from their developers I love the program and use it to handle all my raw shoots (weddings, private sessions/model stuff, etc).

However, I STILL use PM a lot for simple file navigation and viewing of folders. Part of the reason is habit. Another part of it is that two years of shooting for news publication leaves many many folders of tagged images from anything from riots to sporting events. Those tags of my favorites don't carry over to LR

I don't know if I'll completely convert over to just LR over PM, because I like both programs. And again, if I just need to view a lot of thumbs and be able to view a full res version on the fly... PM is my choice. I don't want to wait for LR to load everything else just to view one folder.

AND, to make my post that much longer... I've started using Capture after working with Nikon on some shows...

So, now I use LR to import and batch process RAW, PM to handle all my JPGs that I haven't organized into my master library - and general viewing. I use PS to any pixel editing and moving of course. And I use NX to fine tune headshots and modeling images - I LOVE their control point technology.

I don't think I'll ever use just one program. Some people can, I just like too many for various reasons

dogwood

thejohnremus wrote:

So, now I use LR to import and batch process RAW, PM to handle all my JPGs that I haven't organized into my master library - and general viewing. I use PS to any pixel editing and moving of course. And I use NX to fine tune headshots and modeling images - I LOVE their control point technology.

I don't think I'll ever use just one program. Some people can, I just like too many for various reasons

Cool-- I appreciate your comments. This seems to be the direction I'm headed too-- LR does have some nice features and is faster than Bridge for quickly editing raw files, but it's slower than PM for general importing and whizzin' through files to check work or find a particular photo. And of course, CS3 has it's pluses too. That's a lot of software to get a file from camera to print!

David_S85

I'm moving this discussion to Finishing School since we're talking about software.

David

arodney

PM and Bridge are far more likely to be compared as they are used for browsing the images. Bridge + ACR gives you the Raw processing power of Lightroom plus LR is a database. Then there are the other modules to do functions (print, slideshows etc). Like posted, I too pretty much hate Bridge. With LR, no need.