Why do you feel Lightroom is better for editing than PSE?

[suzanne]

I am thinking or upgrading from PSE 5 to PSE 8 and from reading other threads know that a lot of you use Lightroom for your editing and then CS or PSE for your scrapping.

If you use LR for editing why do you feel it works better than CS or PSE?

Thanks!

[DonnaNJ]

So glad you posted this... While I have the PSE vs PS argument down pretty good.. I've never quite understood where Lightroom fit in

[Jen D]

Lightroom is amazing in my opinion. I love the easy of use. I love how it imports my photos and does not effect the original file.

I think it is just on an entirely different level than PS. I don't do anything to my photos in PS except for editing flaws. All my adjustments and presets are done in Lightroom =)

I would download the free trial and play around with it. There are bunches of free tutorials that can get you through the basic stuff.

I love Lightroom almost as much as my camera =)

If you have a student at home you can get an amazing deal on it at the academic superstore... I only paid 99.00 for it =)

[elseepe]

You can download the beta of Lightroom3 here:

Adobe Labs - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

As opposed to the normal 30 day trial, this version can be used until April 2010.

I have only barely scratched the surface and I'm sure I am not taking full advantage of it. But I was able to very quickly edit some old wedding photos using some downloaded presets.

[katrinak]

The difference for me is summed up with a few of Lightroom's features:
-library module
-copy/synch
-export
-presets
-smart collections

the library module lets me quickly tag and sort in numerous ways. Much faster and easier than PSE was for me. I currently have 14000 photos in my main catalogue.

Copy/synch let's me quickly copy and paste settings to other photos taken at the same time while synch can synch everything in a batch

export let's me export to jpgs or smugmug seamlessly. The beta also exports to flicker

there is more but I'm on my phone and my thumb is going to break...I'll post more soon!

[suzanne]

Jen I did dl the trial last year and never could figure out how it was any better so I never bought the full version.

Katrina what the heck did you just say?! I'm so totally confused.

My photos are currently very organized on my hard drive by year, date, & event or person. So tagging doesn't seem like a big deal for me personally. But you may be able to tell me a good reason why this would be necessary.
As for the copy/sync I'm not sure I would use because I've noticed that quite often my photos from one session have different issues that need to be corrected.

Thanks for all the replies.

[suzanne]

Originally Posted by DonnaNJ

So glad you posted this... While I have the PSE vs PS argument down pretty good.. I've never quite understood where Lightroom fit in

LOL...I have asked this question before and boy did I get replies on that one. I'm good with PSE since I'm not designing anything.

[deanie]

LR is made to work in tandem with PS or PSE. LR is a workflow tool, it uploads, stores on your disk where you tell it too, sorts with commands you give it, adds exif data and your trademark, and then after all that is done you process your photos with the fabulous tools it has. You can batch process, copy what you did to similar photos with a click, and last but surely not least you can change your exposure, white balance, clarity, and use presets to make your photos look their best. All this is done without touching your original. Only when you export it do you actually change the pixels. Hope this helps.

[muddygirl]

I probably dont use lightroom to its full extent. I do find it much much easier to edit my photos in than ps. You can play with all the settings at once changing the exposure, brightness and contrast etc with simple sliders, rather than having to open a diagloue box for each, changing then committing it before going on to the next. I like that I can upload all my raw files from my camera, look at them all, edit the ones I want, then export them as jpg's with the filename I want into the folder that i want. I should look at tagging and the like but for me, I take the photos, organise them into date files, then scrap them and thats it. If I want to find particular photos, I just have to search my folders for them.

[cstaff]

Main thing for me is that it is totally non-destructive. One is not editing the photo but the metadata. At any point, I may go back through the edit history, shown to the left of the screen, and go back to any point of editing. The original pic is not touched. I certainly hope I said this correctly. You might go to Adobe and look at their tutorials for a better explanation. I'm certainly in the infant stage but think it is a wonderful program. A lot to learn but Adobe's tuts are wonderful. LR3 will be out in 2010.

[esther_a]

Now I hardly know what I'm doing in Lightroom, but I bought it because of the artsy effects you can do (see Christina's gallery). I use PSE rather than CS on my desktop machine so I can't run Pioneer Woman's actions. Lightroom has so many freebie presets available, and it is amazing how they can transform a photo if you want a fun effect. I have a lot to learn - I haven't a clue about anything Katrina said! I hope to do some online tutorials during my break.

[suzanne]

Originally Posted by cstaff

Main thing for me is that it is totally non-destructive. One is not editing the photo but the metadata. At any point, I may go back through the edit history, shown to the left of the screen, and go back to any point of editing. The original pic is not touched. I certainly hope I said this correctly. You might go to Adobe and look at their tutorials for a better explanation. I'm certainly in the infant stage but think it is a wonderful program. A lot to learn but Adobe's tuts are wonderful. LR3 will be out in 2010.

But isn't CS or PSE nondestructive as long as you don't save over your original or as long as you are working on a copy?

[katrinak]

LOL! Sorry about speaking a foreign language, I was sitting in my car on my phone waiting for my hubby and couldn't figure out how to scroll up!!

Translated.

I love Lightroom's ability to add keywords on import with one quick step. Once my photos are in LR I can adjust the settings with a preset to black and white, sepia, or just better color. Once one is adjusted I can copy and paste my changes to all of my others photos and then fine tune any individual photos.

Unlike, PSE or PS, Lightroom contains the complete history of changes made to a photo so you can quickly go back and make changes. I'm also able to copy a photo with its changes and "step" back to the spot I preferred.

In terms of keywording, I can keyword by color, event, give photos a star rating. So say I need a photo of Ian, wearing red, that is of 2 star quality or or more...I can find it in about 3 seconds!

Also, I can create "Smart Collections", which are simply put a quick collection made based on any combination of photos regardless of the folder they are in. As an example, I recently completed a book of my brother's Ironman experience. I wanted all of his photos from a 9 month time frame. I made a Smart Collection on "Ironman" and in one folder I had everything for his book.

Like has been mentioned, Lightroom is nondestructive and unlike PSE or CS you really can't save over your working copy accidently, it's just not set up like that as you are working on a virtual copy of your photo pointed at your original.

I hope this sounds a little bit more like English

After playing with LR for a long time I've also learned to work across the TOP for your workflow and then from top to bottom for develop.

[DonnaNJ]

Thanks Katrina that was an excellent explanation... I think that the real question, now that I've really thought it thru, is why someone would use both Lightroom and PSE/PS. For those of us with little experience it's hard to understand why most people seem to use both when you can do editing and tagging etc in Lightroom? So why wouldn't it be an either or thing?

[katrinak]

Great question Donna.

I use LR to tag and do my raw processing. If I need to do noise reduction or sharpening I import into CS. I prefer the CS methods over LR's. Otherwise I do very little if any editing in CS. I do my scrapping in CS so I will always need both

It is very much a personal preference and like so many things in life multiple paths to get to our destinations!

[elseepe]

Check out these 2 videos from Lightroom Killer Tips. They really show off the benefits of moving back and forth between LR and PS. There is tons of other good info on the site as well.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips Video – Before & After Family Photo

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips Video – Before/After

[suzanne]

Thanks for those links Lisa!

[audrey77]

RAW, RAW, RAW processing..... and being able to use the camera calibration presets! I have sooooo much control over my photos, and they are never in harms way of being saved over.

Generally, when I process a Raw file, I:
1- Go to the Camera Calibration panel and select the profile I want (It auto populates based on the camera used... so for my case, D90 or D40 profiles)
2-In the Basic Panel, work on the tone (usually auto tone, and adjust the blacks; sometimes exposure, or fill light) and occasionally adjust the vibrancy.

I also love that I can quickly go through a huge amount of photos and type "p" for "pick" to flag photos, and then filter those, and even apply corrections to all of them at the same time.

[DonnaNJ]

Oh that does sound great.. thank you for replying. I'm definitely beginning to understand the difference now

[Sierra25]

So, those of you who have LR on a Mac - do you ever use iPhoto or just use LR?

[echogirl]

Great question guys! Can I add a few more questions....
So if you only shoot in Jpeg, would you get it?
What happens to the automatic downloads to iPhoto if you use LR? (Do you download to both?)
Do you know of a book that describes how to use it/get the most out of the program?
Thanks guys...such a timely thread!!

[shellb]

I only shoot in Jpeg and use lightroom. I have LR3 beta (which is free but I love it too much to use LR1 which I paid for) which allows for RAW but I still shoot in JPEG. One day I will convert.

Things that I love about LR that PS doesn't even come close to:

White balance adjuster
Saturation AND vibrance adjuster (not just the over all picture but each individual color or for black and white)

Some cool things about LR3
Contrast slider that goes BOTH ways. It is sooo cool. Before it only sharpened now it does the soft blur you get from a low fstop #
Also the Gradient filter which allows the user to put a gradient "mask" over an area of the photo and control the exposure in that area. I use it for a more creative effect.

Overall I would highly recommend LR, but that's just because I'm almost more about the photography now than the scrapping, gasp...I know. I blame Katrina (J/K)

[echogirl]

Not trying to be a dunce but...
Do you still run actions in Lightroom or do you then transfer them to Photoshop and then transfer back to Lightroom?

[katrinak]

Lightroom works with Presets instead of actions, but they work in a very similar way

[suzanne]

Is there a good Lightroom book that all of you would recommend? I downloaded LR3 Beta this morning and will install it later. If I like it this time and decide to keep it then I am going to need a good step by step book to help me figure out how to use it properly.

Thanks!!

[kdif]

Scott Kelby's book Lightroom 2 stays on my desk as a constant reference tool. It is amazing. Take a peek at it in B/N and you will begin to grasp some of the things that LR can do. I've been using it since the original beta came out and I am still learning new things about it (that's how much depth the software has). I hardly ever use iphoto. Iphoto duplicates your pictures so it takes up twice the space on your hard drive. The only reason I have used iphoto is when I want to load pics to my imac account through iweb.

But I just found a link the other day which would walk me through how to load from the web browser in LR into my imac account (something that has been confusing to me in the past). Here is the link for that if anyone is interested:

How do you upload to .MAC (dot Mac) from the Lightroom Web Module? - Lightroom Journal

Also, here is a great thread from Scott Kelby's blog from awhile back where people posted their LR questions all day and Scott and others chimed in with answers. It is another valuable resource.

Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider Blog » Photoshop & Digital Photography Techniques, Tutorials, Books, Reviews & More Blog Archive What I Learned About Lightroom at Joe McNally’s Workshop

Katrina, I love, love, love smart collections. I set up a smart collection for each one of my kids names, for 3 star photos. The beauty of smart collections is that as I add pics to my library it will always look for the pictures that match my criteria and add to the collection. So at any given moment I can click on Angela and all of the best pics of her will be there from the whole year.

[audrey77]

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

[bjwtville]

Great thread. I love lightroom and use it to catalog all my pics as well as edit them. I could not live without it and I still have a lot to learn with it as well. I scrap in CS3...

[audrey77]

LOL.... let's just say that I feel like a pro editing with it...

[shellb]

LOL...me too jen.