Originally Posted by ozlizard 
I have been using photoshop for many years now to process my photos and to also covert raw files. I am curently using PS CS4. I have heard Lightroom mentioned quite a few times on this forum but I am not famialiar with it. Can you use Lightroom insteed of PS for PP or do you use it in conjunction iwth PS? And what are the advantages of using Lightroom?
It depends on the way you post-process, the way you shoot and how much you shoot.
I find that lightroom is great if you have shot a large number of images of say, an event like a wedding or a keynote address. It "imports" all your images at once, presents them in an an interface where the images are easy to access (no "open" and "save" for every image) and make quick adjustments by using readily accessible adjustments tools located on the right side. And if there's an image or few that does need the full power of Photoshop, all you need to do is right click on the photo and choose to edit it in Photoshop, once you are done you save the image and it shows up in lightroom so you can "export" it along with the rest of the bunch.
But if you shoot less and do a great deal of post processing that includes complicated layers and other Photoshop specific tools, then lightroom doesn't make so much sense.
-AM