photo software suggestions

[TammyB]

Hmm I thought lightroom did more effects with lighting and special color treatment you can do to the photos

[rodent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TammyB Hmm I thought lightroom did more effects with lighting and special color treatment you can do to the photos

maybe one of the photographers can answer that.

I found this online. I was under the impression it was more about workflow. it looks like lightroom cost more. not sure why I thought it was cheaper.



Lightroom Pros:
• Super Fast Image Editing
• Spectacular User Interface
• Logical workflow progression
• Ability to Print and create Web Galleries directly from RAW image files
• Quick Metadata and Keyword Insertion
• Much faster editing and processing of a large number of images

Lightroom Cons:
• Have to Import images to work on them
• Slows down with over 10,000 images in the catalog
• For processing just one or two images this is a slower workflow

Photoshop Pros:
• ACR has the same RAW processing controls as Lightroom
• ACR Histogram is specialized to the chosen color space (Lightroom is locked into ProPhoto RGB color space with an sRGB tone curve)
• Don’t have to Import images to open in Bridge or ACR
• Ability to customize processing of RAW images with Photoshop Actions

Photoshop Cons:
• Slower, less precise editing features in Bridge
• Processing lots of images requires actions and can be slower than exporting images from Lightroom
• Much slower with editing and processing a large number of images

In the end I think it really comes down to the number of images you need to edit because Lightroom, at least in my experience, is many times faster in the editing phase of a workflow than a Bridge, ACR and Photoshop workflow. In my work, shooting adventure sports, I shoot many images even on quick stock shoots. I am almost always shooting at 5 frames per second or more so Lightroom makes more sense because it allows me to compare very similar images easily and mow through images quickly to find the real gems.

In contrast, as in Jamey Stilling’s case when he is shooting an ad campaign and fires off less than a hundred images the faster editing advantage of Lightroom isn’t such a big deal. The reality is that only one image is needed. And the odds are good that image is obvious even before the photo shoot is over because an assistant and the art director are reviewing images as they are being shot - so in this case working up that RAW image in ACR 4.1 which has all the same features and power of Lightroom makes a lot more sense. It doesn’t make sense to waste time importing images if all you need to process is one or two images.

If you are on the fence as to whether or not Lightroom is worth the extra $299 then maybe this will help. But for me, I’d say if I have to edit more than 100 images at any one time then Lightroom is the way I’d go for sure. Even in some cases where I only shot 50 images for an assignment, I have used Lightroom because I knew that I wanted to make virtual copies for black and white conversions.

[1elephant]

we have lightroom and photoshop cs2. i dont know much about either, but i know that dh used both for different parts of making our album. he used lightroom mostly for layout of pics, but idk what else. i can ask him for more info if you need it.

[boscobel]

K, so I obught lumapix the other day and got sucked right in. It was like 2 hours later when I realized I was still on the computer. Now I am contemplating all the other things, lightroom, photoshop, elements. I cant' make up my mind!

[~Melissa~]

I personally love lightroom. I have photoshop & lumapix as well but lightroom really helps me with creating different lighting effects and techniques. Photoshop still confuses me but I don't regret getting it, it's such an advanced program.

 

Carly just to let you know I only used lightroom for editing your photos.

[boscobel]

Ohhhh. I was just about to purchase elements. i think I will go home and download the free trial of lightroom to see. Since I know the before and after shots that you edited for me and really liked them. Thanks, Mel!

[~Melissa~]

That's a great idea carly! let me know what you think of it