• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Questions About Lightroom

D

doug anderson

New member
I've been reading a lot of favorable comments about Lightroom.

Is it something you can use by itself, or must you have some kind of photoshop software to which it is a supplement?


Why do people like it better than photoshop? It's made by Adobe, right?
 
S

Sean DeMerchant

Inactive
doug anderson said:
I've been reading a lot of favorable comments about Lightroom.

Is it something you can use by itself, or must you have some kind of photoshop software to which it is a supplement?


Why do people like it better than photoshop? It's made by Adobe, right?
Click to expand...

Lightroom is a stand alone hybrid of Camera RAW and Bridge mixed together with a few extras. Some like it. I find it to impose itself too strongly on my workflow for the value it gives. So I tried and stuck with PS. And yes, it is an Adobe Product.

one opinion,

Sean
 
D

Damien Symonds

New member
To my knowledge, Lightroom is only capable of global editing of your files. You still need Photoshop (or equivalent) to perform editing on selected areas of your images.

I don't think many people use just Lightroom by itself.
 
B

Brad Fernihough

New member
A lot use LR by itself.

Depends how much of a graphic artist vs photographer you are?

LR 2.0 beta
- localised corrections works pretty well. Some tweeking required but nice.
- Export sharpening (aka: PK sharpener)
 
D

doug anderson

New member
Brad Fernihough said:
A lot use LR by itself.

Depends how much of a graphic artist vs photographer you are?

LR 2.0 beta
- localised corrections works pretty well. Some tweeking required but nice.
- Export sharpening (aka: PK sharpener)
Click to expand...

I'm more of a photographer. I guess my question is, does Lightroom have any editing tools, and are they on par with, say, photoshop Elements?
 
D

Damien Symonds

New member
Brad Fernihough said:
A lot use LR by itself.
Click to expand...

I guess that's true, but if I come across photographers who only use a raw processing program (LR, Aperture, etc), and don't own a pixel editing program (PS, PSE, PSP, Gimp, etc), I think they are one of the following:

(1) An absolutely amazing photographer, whose photographs need no selective editing, and never needs to composite any images.

(2) A deluded photographer, who believes he is (1).

(3) An easy-to-please photographer, who has no need for selective editing or composition.

Doug, if you don't fit any of those categories, then LR probably won't be enough by itself.

LR and PSE is a very good combination, I believe. LR can do most of the work in a high-bit, non-destructive environment, then you can export to Elements for special work.
 
S

Sean DeMerchant

Inactive
Damien Symonds said:
(3) An easy-to-please photographer, who has no need for selective editing or composition.

Doug, if you don't fit any of those categories, then LR probably won't be enough by itself.

LR and PSE is a very good combination, I believe. LR can do most of the work in a high-bit, non-destructive environment, then you can export to Elements for special work.
Click to expand...

I use Photoshop but I have been using the program for well over a decade and find that the extensive usage of layers masks and layer masks on layer groups gives me an incredible amount of non-destructive editing potential at the expense of disk space and memory usage. Recording the full creative flow is a powerful thing and it makes reverting changes and tweaking things for clients very rapid.

LR and PSE would be a good combo for most new users with shallower learning curves. And I cannot recommend PS to new users as the learning curve is steep and most users do not need the full power of PS.

some thoughts,

Sean
 
K

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Instead of spending time reading others' opinions why don't you just download a trial version and formulate your own conclusions.

Lightroom, like Apple's Aperture, is more than just an editing program; it's an image management environment.
 
M

Michael Fontana

pro member
Damien

big grin about your categories... ;-)

I might add, that LR vs PS depends much on the typ of photography as well; as a press photographer - with a quite big amount of photos to be converted every day, I wouldn't probably care much about PS. With a rel. small image size to be printed, it wouldn't make a such big difference.

But beeing a photographer working for architects, artist, etc, beeing published in magazines, catalogs, up-rez etc.... I spend in the average > 1 h in PS after the RAWconversion, for a single image, only:

local contrast adjustments, wide angle lens distortion corrections, merging different bracket shots for a extended dynamic range, stitching, correcting mixedlighted images etc, hasn't to do anything with pixelpeeping, but just the attitude, to make best out of your captured material. LR just isn't made for these things. So its horses for courses...

BTW: LR isn't the only RAW converter, in natural light conditions, I prefer C1 Vers 4.
 
B

Brad Fernihough

New member
Damien Symonds said:
I guess that's true, but if I come across photographers who only use a raw processing program (LR, Aperture, etc), and don't own a pixel editing program (PS, PSE, PSP, Gimp, etc), I think they are one of the following:

(1) An absolutely amazing photographer, whose photographs need no selective editing, and never needs to composite any images.

(2) A deluded photographer, who believes he is (1).

(3) An easy-to-please photographer, who has no need for selective editing or composition.

.
Click to expand...


Have to respectfully disagree. The power of LR is a tad more so than you give it credit for, and the requirements for PS are way over stated. Or, maybe you rely on PS too much and that say something about your out of camera capture?
 
D

Damien Symonds

New member
Brad Fernihough said:
Have to respectfully disagree. The power of LR is a tad more so than you give it credit for, and the requirements for PS are way over stated. Or, maybe you rely on PS too much and that say something about your out of camera capture?
Click to expand...
I'm not a photographer at all. (Well, I have a little P&S with which I take photos of my daughter, if that counts). I work with other people's images, ranging from beautiful professional Raw captures to hideous camera-phone snaps.

The latter need all the help they can get, obviously. But even in the case of the former, I've never seen a photograph with which I was satisfied using only global corrections. Every pic needs at least some selective enhancement to meet my (often absurdly) high standards.

In truth, I haven't used Lightroom, only Aperture, ACR and DPP. My comments were meant as a broad assessment of that genre of program, to point to the necessity of owning a pixel editing program, if only for sparing use.

I can see how my previous post may offend some people. I apologise. Perhaps a moderator can remove it, if deemed unsuitable.
 
Cem_Usakligil

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Damien Symonds said:
I'm not a photographer at all. (Well, I have a little P&S with which I take photos of my daughter, if that counts). I work with other people's images, ranging from beautiful professional Raw captures to hideous camera-phone snaps.

The latter need all the help they can get, obviously. But even in the case of the former, I've never seen a photograph with which I was satisfied using only global corrections. Every pic needs at least some selective enhancement to meet my (often absurdly) high standards.

In truth, I haven't used Lightroom, only Aperture, ACR and DPP. My comments were meant as a broad assessment of that genre of program, to point to the necessity of owning a pixel editing program, if only for sparing use.

I can see how my previous post may offend some people. I apologise. Perhaps a moderator can remove it, if deemed unsuitable.
Click to expand...
Well, as a moderator I can assure you that we don't remove posts here just like that unless they are spam. So it stays. Besides, there is nothing really offending to it if you ask me.

On topic: I use for almost 99% of my pictures posted here just LR and no PS. For web pictures, only when there is cloning and/or layer work needed I go into PS. In that sense, I agree with Brad that LR deserves more credit. OTOH, if I am going to print my work I always end up doing it from within PS since I can selectively sharpen for output, among billions other things.

As Ken has pointed out, LR is also my main image management (DAM) environment and it does do this task so easily that I have stopped using others such as iView or Bridge along the way.

Cheers,
 
B

Brad Fernihough

New member
No offence here.

This is a healthy discussion relating to the future of digital imaging and computational photography.

I think that what this highlights though is a difference between 1. "the way we do things" PS users who have spent so much time, money and energy mastering the program and 2. "the new photographers" RAW shooters and LR users, who have adopted a RAW work flow without PS.

2 years ago i shot film until had all my gear stolen.

Went out with my insurance money and made the jump to digital. Got some advise from some pro friends already in digital, went out and bought RSP and PS. Immediately i was turned off PS and was so reluctant to use it, to the point where i would not take some images when on a shoot, because i knew the only was i was going to get anything good out of it was to manipulate it so much in PS.

Instead, i would take my shots knowing i was going to predominately use RSP and now LR. I feel it has made me think more about my capture.
 
D

Damien Symonds

New member
Never truer words spoken, Brad. No amount of post-processing beats good photography.

And in most cases, global edits can be easily adequate to put the final polish on good captures.

But returning to Doug's original question, I simply don't think any serious Photographer can get away with not having a Photoshop-esque program in their arsenal. Even if only one image in twenty needs some special attention, it's worth it.
 
M

Mike Shimwell

New member
Just a quick irritable comment...

LR is a nice catalogue program and the raw conversion can be good when you calibrate and practice. Downsides are that it tends to take over your workflow making the use of other raw converters seem harder (because of the catalogue function) - I find this irritating to say the least - and adobe products/upgrade in the UK cost about 40% more than in the US before taxes. This is very bad for my mood.

Otherwise a nice package.
 
Cem_Usakligil

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Mike Shimwell said:
Just a quick irritable comment...

LR is a nice catalogue program and the raw conversion can be good when you calibrate and practice. Downsides are that it tends to take over your workflow making the use of other raw converters seem harder (because of the catalogue function) - I find this irritating to say the least - and adobe products/upgrade in the UK cost about 40% more than in the US before taxes. This is very bad for my mood.

Otherwise a nice package.
Click to expand...
Hi Mike,

I agree that using LR as a DAM package without using it's own RAW Converter (basically the ACR) is not convenient.

Re. the prices in the UK; we all know that it's a rip off for most computing products, not only the Adoe ones. We have had this discussion quite a few times in the past. It's a pity that nothing has changed despite many protests raised by the UK customers. This is apparently something the free market economy can get away with. Unless customers would refuse buying the Adobe products in masses such that it starts to hurt Adobe sales, it won't change. Why should they after all?

Cheers,
 
K

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Michael Fontana said:
I'm tempted to correct:

good photography = good capture + good post.

Or you thin they' re contradictions ?
Click to expand...

Now I'M tempted to correct.

Good Photography = Skill + Talent + Planning +/- Luck

Good Presentation Reproduction = Good Original Capture + Vision of Final Product + Skill With Reproduction Medium Tools
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top