Photoshop or Lightroom in editing wedding photos?

PixelBox · January 8, 2013

Hi! Just wondering what software do you use more when editing your wedding photos (Photoshop or lightroom)? Which is faster to process hundreds of photos? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both application?

I always shoot in RAW+JPEG.

Ed911 · January 8, 2013

Lightroom, hands down. It's better suited for bulk photo processing and has the same RAW processing controls as Photoshop, and I think is easier to use, because of the way that the processing control panel is presented in Lightroom versus CS5.

I post process almost all of my wedding images in Lightroom. I only use Photoshop in the event that I want to tweak some body feature, add a special effect, or in the rare instance when I can't quite get exactly what I want in Lightroom.

After saving all the RAW images to a DVD, I import all of my images into Lightroom, cull the losers, create a folder for the winners, and then work on the post processing. I rate all of my favorites with 5 stars as I post process the keepers...4 stars for maybe, and the rest become losers and are culled from the finals.

The winners are exported to a finals file on my desktop, where I then select and work on the ones that I think need some help from Photoshop.

Once I have my finals backed up, I delete my flash cards, and begin the process of getting the images ready for the client, posting to my website and delivering DVD's, etc.

That may sound simple, but it can be fairly labor intensive and time consuming.

Blurmore · January 8, 2013

Less than 1% of my photos see Photoshop. If I need to use layers, or I'm texturizing, or cloning eyes, they get the photoshop, the bulk is done in LR. Shooting RAW + .JPG is great for picking the winners, make sure you have previews set to "embedded and sidecar" to save some computing power in render. Before you actually want to get down to the nitty gritty of editing your winners you are going to want to render out full size previews to save time and frustration with viewing full.

p27rpy · January 8, 2013

I came in to say what has pretty much already been summed up. For sheer quantity, PS doesn't stand a chance vs LR.

Matthew Saville · January 9, 2013

Our studio shoots 5-6 weddings in a single week, during the peak season. At 4-5K images per wedding, that's at least 20,000 images per week, or 80,000 images in a single month.

We process all of those images in Lightroom 4, and no more than 10-20 images per wedding ever go into Photoshop. We cull in Lightroom at a rate of 1-2K images per hour. We then color correct in Lightroom at a rate of 100-300 images per hour. Yeah. And this isn't just giving images a once-over glance and a slight bump to exposure or WB here and there, this is print-ready, fully corrected that we are talking about here.

For more information, check out: http://www.slrlounge.com/store-product/lightroom-4-workshop-collection-includes-the-a-z-tutorials-preset-system-and-workflow-dvd

Take care, and good luck!
=Matt=

bnlearle · January 29, 2013

Lightroom + VSCOfilm for me

Haven't opened up PS since VSCO, in fact. Love leaving PS behind!

TomHarmon · January 30, 2013

Gotta be Lightroom. You'd spend way too much time in photoshop to process hundreds of photos. Thats where lightroom excels.

Shima · February 2, 2013

Definitely agree here that it's lightroom all the way. Photoshop takes wayyyy too long to be efficient these days. Batch editing and culling just isn't the same.

Cambyses · February 8, 2013

For those of you who shoot RAW+JPEG, how do you treat your pics when importing into LR? Do you check the box to let LR treat RAW and JPEG as the same, or uncheck it to import both JPEG and RAW into LR?

I like LR to treat JPEG and RAW as the same as it would be easier to manage (I only see one RAW picture in the Library) and LR is not slowed down unnecessarily.

Now, here is the issue. After import, I usually categorize my shots as picks, rejects, and keepers. Rejects get deleted, and the RAW's for picks get to be saved and processed. But keepers are those for which I don't want to spend any processing time. For keeprs, I like to delete RAW's (to save disk space) but would still like to keep JPEG's. And this is where I would have an issue. Since I have not imported JPEG's separately into LR, I won't be able to delete RAW's and keep JPEG's from within LR, and manually deleting outside LR is typically a no-no. So what should I do?

I have searched online, and all I have found is people suggesting not to bother with RAW+JPEG and instead only shoot RAW, and then for the keepers, simply do a quick camera calibration, and export JPEG's and then delete the RAW's. But I have found that if I don't do at least some further processing (color correction, etc.), I usually like the JPEG's out of my camera better than the JPEG's I get out of LR when I just apply any of its camera calibration profiles. That's why I am still shooting RAW+JPEG.

Any suggestions?

Thanks....

michaelglenn · February 9, 2013

My workflow starts in PhotoMechanic where I will cull through all of the wedding photographs and check off the ones I decide to edit. Then I bring those pictures into Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) for my first round of edits. The only time I use PS is when I decide to post a wedding/event on my blog. If that's the case, I select around 50-60 of the best photographs I have, and I will go into PS to make some further adjustments. Other things I'll do in PS is batch process photographs for resizing,sharpening, or switching color spaces. I also use PS to create templates for blog posts and for creating advertisements for any specials I have throughout the year.

Matthew Saville · February 9, 2013

Cambyses wrote: »

For those of you who shoot RAW+JPEG, how do you treat your pics when importing into LR? Do you check the box to let LR treat RAW and JPEG as the same, or uncheck it to import both JPEG and RAW into LR?

I like LR to treat JPEG and RAW as the same as it would be easier to manage (I only see one RAW picture in the Library) and LR is not slowed down unnecessarily.

Now, here is the issue. After import, I usually categorize my shots as picks, rejects, and keepers. Rejects get deleted, and the RAW's for picks get to be saved and processed. But keepers are those for which I don't want to spend any processing time. For keeprs, I like to delete RAW's (to save disk space) but would still like to keep JPEG's. And this is where I would have an issue. Since I have not imported JPEG's separately into LR, I won't be able to delete RAW's and keep JPEG's from within LR, and manually deleting outside LR is typically a no-no. So what should I do?

I have searched online, and all I have found is people suggesting not to bother with RAW+JPEG and instead only shoot RAW, and then for the keepers, simply do a quick camera calibration, and export JPEG's and then delete the RAW's. But I have found that if I don't do at least some further processing (color correction, etc.), I usually like the JPEG's out of my camera better than the JPEG's I get out of LR when I just apply any of its camera calibration profiles. That's why I am still shooting RAW+JPEG.

Any suggestions?

Thanks....

Question- Do you shoot Nikon? If so, you're in luck. Nikon's View NX program is AWESOME for both culling, (better than Photomechanic which a lot of the industry uses as it's standard for culling etc.) ...and of course getting RAW images that look the same as the back of your camera. So you can effortlessly create JPG files from your RAW originals, just as if you had shot RAW+JPG.

If you shoot Canon, on the other hand, you can TRY using Canon's "Zoom browser" program which is the equivalent, but unfortunately I have found it to be simple and limited by comparison. Photomechanic as far as I know does not give you the ability to extract high-quality JPG's from RAW files using in-camera processing, but I may be mistaken.

Other than that, all I can say is this: At our studio we do a similar thing, (exporting un-edited JPG's from RAW files in Lightroom) ...and we have never had a problem in processing one of those JPGs later on down the road. In fact as long as you nail your white balance, a correctly "defaulted" JPG image that is created from a RAW file is actually just as good as that RAW file!

If you have Lightroom 4, simply bump your highlights and whites down to -20 or -40, and your shadows & blacks up to +20 or +40. The rest of the image can get standard Adobe defaults, though maybe turn on the CA removal option, and maybe the lens correction.

Export those RAW rejects / "keepers" as JPGs, with "add to this catalog" selected, and then when that is done and verified, you can safely delete the RAWs. Again as long as you didn't horribly screw up your WB on any photos, this is just as good as if you still had RAW files! They may require a little more editing than the in-camera JPG shots, but then again you shouldn't be needing these images more than once or twice per job, hopefully less than that!

=Matt=

Cambyses · February 9, 2013

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Question- Do you shoot Nikon? If so, you're in luck. Nikon's View NX program is AWESOME for both culling, (better than Photomechanic which a lot of the industry uses as it's standard for culling etc.) ...and of course getting RAW images that look the same as the back of your camera. So you can effortlessly create JPG files from your RAW originals, just as if you had shot RAW+JPG.

Thanks Matt... Yes, I do shoot Nikon. But just so I understand, what you are suggesting is to shoot RAW only, then do the culling in View NX, delete my rejected RAW's, and then convert my keeper RAW's to JPEG within View NX. And then import the RAWs for my picks together with JPEG's for my keepers into LR, and proceed with the rest of workflow in LR, right?

Thanks again...

Matthew Saville · February 10, 2013

Cambyses wrote: »

Thanks Matt... Yes, I do shoot Nikon. But just so I understand, what you are suggesting is to shoot RAW only, then do the culling in View NX, delete my rejected RAW's, and then convert my keeper RAW's to JPEG within View NX. And then import the RAWs for my picks together with JPEG's for my keepers into LR, and proceed with the rest of workflow in LR, right?

Thanks again...

Yep.

Just pay attention to your in-camera settings, and don't turn your contrast or sharpness up too high cause that kinda ruins JPG images...

=Matt=

karloznz · February 13, 2013

Informative posts - Mat , Thanks for your input

DWS · February 18, 2013

Another LR vote. LR's capabilities have expanded to the point that I rarely use PS.

Photoshop or Lightroom in editing wedding photos?

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