[_phil_]

I've looked at CS2 and quite frankly cannot get very far. It's just too hard and its work-flow does not even slightly follow my expectation. I feel like I'm lost in a maze. I guess later versions are better but I expect there's a similarity in work-flow which is always going to confuse me.

So will I enjoy LR any more or is it just as cryptic? I realize I can get a 30 day trial but I'm interested in others' opinions before I invest hours in evaluation only to be disappointed, bearing in mind I come from a virtual zero understanding of any PP editors so part of the problem at this point is not knowing exactly what I want to do. It's a bit like I'm asking for the answer before knowing the question.

Please tell me that LR is a program that I can grow with or suggest another.

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Last edited by _phil_; 05-30-2011 at 08:12 AM. Reason: clarity

[mtansley]

Lightroom 3 is more akin to Apple Aperture. It's more of a workflow management and storage tool rather than a complete deep editing packaging.

Lightroom can do some basic editing on your photos, cropping, spot retouching, exposure/white balance/lighting adjustment along with printing your photos and publishing to web sites, etc, but's it more to do with tagging and organizing your photo collection.

I generally don't need anything more for my basic requirements. I do have Photoshop but rarely use it. If I do want to do something using it, lightroom will write out a copy of the photo I want to work on, open Photoshop and when I save and return to Lightroom, it will keep a copy of the new edit along with the original.

Photoshop is more for deep editing and adjustment of your photos.

I presume by CS2 you do mean Adobe Creative Suite 2, that generally includes Photoshop and a number of other editing packages.

[eddie1960]

LR3 as said will cover all the basics for you. No truly advanced editing, but will cover all the basics (and has some very good preset actions for adjusting as you learn)
I find it an excellent organizational tool and use it for probably 85-90% of my raw conversions. As a beginner it will certainly be easier than Photoshop which can be really daunting to say the least. Somewhere in between there is PS Elements which gives some more advance editing options but isn't as functional at organization for instance
Prior o getting LR I've used an older version of the creative suite (CS3), DXO and PSProX3, along with the Pentax utility. Hands down LR is the easiest and most intuitive (and has the big benefit of non destructive editing.) the biggest missing thing for me is working in Layers

[glee46]

I really see a big difference then anything else I've used. Picasa, or Serif PhotoPlusX4. The organizer in Serif is junk. Picasa, is pretty good, and has some editing tools, but not as good as LR. Now, I'm trying to decide if Elements9 would work better with LR then PhotoPlusX4. I'm going to download Elements & see how it adds to my workflo.

[eddie1960]

I really see a big difference then anything else I've used. Picasa, or Serif PhotoPlusX4. The organizer in Serif is junk. Picasa, is pretty good, and has some editing tools, but not as good as LR. Now, I'm trying to decide if Elements9 would work better with LR then PhotoPlusX4. I'm going to download Elements & see how it adds to my workflo.

Let me know how Elements integrates, PSProX3 and DXO don't integrate very well at all, and I don't want to shell out for Photoshop full version

[glee46]

Let me know how Elements integrates, PSProX3 and DXO don't integrate very well at all, and I don't want to shell out for Photoshop full version

Will do.

[glee46]

So far, it's been a pain to get it downloaded. It's close to 2 gigs, and they install a download program onto you computer. I thought I was downloading & installing Elements9.

Instead, I got some program from Adobe that didn't even work.

Just got done talking with their Chat, and they said,

"Sorry about that. We should let people know they're installing another program before they can install one of ours." WTF...

They told me to uninstall it and just download Elements9 and send me a link which just repeated the process of downloading their downloader.


Ahh, it has finally downloaded after I had to search for a way to get it without installing their whole product line...

[eddie1960]

So far, it's been a pain to get it downloaded. It's close to 2 gigs, and they install a download program onto you computer. I thought I was downloading & installing Elements9.

Instead, I got some program from Adobe that didn't even work.

Just got done talking with their Chat, and they said,

"Sorry about that. We should let people know they're installing another program before they can install one of ours." WTF...

They told me to uninstall it and just download Elements9 and send me a link which just repeated the process of downloading their downloader.


Ahh, it has finally downloaded after I had to search for a way to get it without installing their whole product line...

that adobe downloader is a PITA, I have it from trying out Illustrator (i needed it for a project) now the damn thing is always updating product not installed phht

[dadipentak]

I've tried to migrate to LR twice now: the learning curve is just too steep for me.

[stanic]

Please tell me that LR is a program that I can grow

Yes
when I started with 2.6 using it for raw editing I was just playing with basics - exposure adjustments, white balance stuff and such
as I learned more about lenses I started to control aberrations, vigneting, distortion etc. (in 3.3 there are also very convenient lens profiles)
You can tweak finely sharpness, noise reduction, saturation, contrast, fill light, recovery etc., rotate, tilt horizontally or vertically, crop, use local brush adjustments with lot of parameters as well as graduation filters
since I shoot a lot of panoramas I needed to make sky darker without polarizer - there is HSL(hue, saturation, luminance) module where you can lower the luminance of blue channel - nice
I started to create profiles and saving favourite presets in them...and then choose a group of pics and synchronize them all the same (like the same WB)
and this all is just the Develop bit, with others like Library, or Print
my workflow is very fast with LR, I just load 300 raws and can get them done in an hour..if I dont do panos or HDR I get 99% work done in LR, and export in desired file size, DPI, file format...
I really like this program and think it forced me to learn more about photography and made my life with DSLR easier

[glee46]

that adobe downloader is a PITA, I have it from trying out Illustrator (i needed it for a project) now the damn thing is always updating product not installed phht

I downloaded Elements9 @ 10 am, It kept giving me an error message. I contact chat support. Guy comes on, tells me he can fix the problem. Needs access to my computer, needs to change a bunch of settings, but no problem, he'll set them all back. In fact, he assures me, there is nothing to worry about.

So, he turned off anti-virus, firewall, disabled my 2nd monitor, installed new folders, changed the names of folders, and created a new User Account.

Told me to restart computer and to log in with the URL he copied. I did so, and he was no where. The chat with our conversation was there, but he was AWOL.

From the time I downloaded it, it took me a total of 4 hrs just to get someone to get it installed, and then I'm left to go back and clean up their mess.

He changed so many setting that it will take me a long time to figure it all out. The hard drive is spinning, opening any program now takes minutes, and Microsoft One Note, is running out of control.

Wow, unreal.. So glad I decided to do this today.

At this moment, I would suggest to wait to try it. I'll get back to you after I can get a hold of their main tech support tomorrow.

[eddie1960]

I downloaded lr as a trial no issues a year back
Illustrator 6 months back not as good
I did use the downloader though as i really wasnt concerned about having bootleg adobe stuff on this computer (my old laptop on the other hand .......)

[George Lama]

Lightroom is a in my opinion the best non-destructive photo processing tool out there, particularly if you're looking to intergrate with Photoshop. The learning curve isn't all that steep as long as you're not trying to
a) learn everything in a couple of days
b) expect it to be as easy as Picasa or the like
c) think it's going to replace Photoshop, Gimp, or some other image editing tool.
d) hate to read manuals or other instructional material

I use it for 90% of my PP and honestly couldn't do without. Still remember when I "discovered" LR Beta and haven't looked back since version 1.

As to the Adobe Downloader, I can't say I've had any issues downloading anything as long as I do it from home where I have solid internet connection. Otherwise it can be a pain, but not because of the downloader - slow internet download speeds just stink like post-processed beans.

[glee46]

As to the Adobe Downloader, I can't say I've had any issues downloading anything as long as I do it from home where I have solid internet connection. Otherwise it can be a pain, but not because of the downloader - slow internet download speeds just stink like post-processed beans.

I have 10 mps download speed, so that was not the issue at all. It was having to install it that made it go sideways. I've been installing SW since 1990. Beta, OS, and everything under the sun. The problem was trusting Adobe Tech. My fault for trusting anyone with my rig. I have about $5,000 into this setup and it's a workhorse. But, when the tech typed in, he could fix it with no problems, well I got lazy. Last time on that.

However, I'll be rested and back at tomorrow so I hope to be able to check it out and see out it works with LR.


Edit: It was elements9 which kept returning an error and then uninstalled the whole program.

[_phil_]

(Thought I posted this already)

Thanks to the mostly positive feedback here for LR3, I've bought it.

Thanks everyone.