Lightroom or Photoshop? Organization? W/ prior experiences..

jaywes · 05-02-2012, 05:48 PM

Originally posted by Smeggypants

I'd implode if I had to edit one image at a time. ARRRRGHHH!!!!

When I import a shoot into lightroom, I create some develop presets that do 80% of the editing work for all similar images and the pick the best one's and do final tweaks on those.

The smart collection sets in Lightroom are excellent. I have loads fo collection sets filtered by keyword. Just goota zip through the latest shoot, keyword it and the collections are automatically updated.

Now LR4 has geo-tagging with google maps, images organising is even more fun

"Batch editing" and the photo organization is why I am going to try out LR.

magkelly · 05-02-2012, 06:23 PM

Originally posted by jaywes

"Batch editing" and the photo organization is why I am going to try out LR.

Just an FYI, you can batch process and organize in Bridge with CR too...

Batch process Camera Raw files: Tutorial

slackercruster · 05-02-2012, 06:53 PM

I got PS elements and LR. I seldom use PS for my pp. I just do basic pp, but I like my LR and Nik Silver for most of my work

SpecialK · 05-02-2012, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Just an FYI, you can batch process and organize in Bridge with CR too...

And Elements as well (by itself).

jaywes · 05-02-2012, 08:08 PM

Originally posted by magkelly

Just an FYI, you can batch process and organize in Bridge with CR too...

Batch process Camera Raw files: Tutorial

Aw man. Now this changes everything haha. Good to know. Thanks!

Originally posted by SpecialK

And Elements as well (by itself).

Will test this out in PS tomorrow. Thanks!

magkelly · 05-02-2012, 08:27 PM

Most people don't realize a fifth of what software like Photoshop can do. Once you do? There's no going back. LR is nice, so is Elements, but compared to Photoshop and Camera Raw it's like driving a good sporty Honda and then being given the keys to a Ferrari. You can do a lot with the Honda, and you'll enjoy driving it, but wouldn't you still want the Ferrari if you could afford it? I've probably watched almost every course out there, read every book on it all, been working in PS since V4 (Not CS4, 4!) and yet I'm still finding new things I can do in CR and PS. LR too, every time they upgrade the more I like it, but still not like PS and CR. The full capacity of what that application can do sometimes just blows my mind. Serious learning curve, oh yeah, but man is it worth it!!!!!

Smeggypants · 05-02-2012, 11:33 PM

Originally posted by magkelly

Most people don't realize a fifth of what software like Photoshop can do. Once you do? There's no going back. LR is nice, so is Elements, but compared to Photoshop and Camera Raw it's like driving a good sporty Honda and then being given the keys to a Ferrari. You can do a lot with the Honda, and you'll enjoy driving it, but wouldn't you still want the Ferrari if you could afford it? I've probably watched almost every course out there, read every book on it all, been working in PS since V4 (Not CS4, 4!) and yet I'm still finding new things I can do in CR and PS. LR too, every time they upgrade the more I like it, but still not like PS and CR. The full capacity of what that application can do sometimes just blows my mind. Serious learning curve, oh yeah, but man is it worth it!!!!!

That's not a mind set I agree with.

I know what photoshop can do. I also know what lightroom can do. And for 99.9999999% of my images lightroom + Nik software plugins can do it much much quicker, plus lightroom has all the cataloguing organisation features essential to photographers taking lots of shots and needing to sort and edit those shots in a reasonable amount of time.

If you can come back from a shoot and sort out 2000 shots in photoshop and have the time to do so then great. I'll stick with Lightroom thanks

magkelly · 05-03-2012, 02:03 AM

Originally posted by Smeggypants

That's not a mind set I agree with.

I know what photoshop can do. I also know what lightroom can do. And for 99.9999999% of my images lightroom + Nik software plugins can do it much much quicker, plus lightroom has all the cataloguing organisation features essential to photographers taking lots of shots and needing to sort and edit those shots in a reasonable amount of time.

If you can come back from a shoot and sort out 2000 shots in photoshop and have the time to do so then great. I'll stick with Lightroom thanks

If that works for you, fine. I guess it comes down to what you're used to, and like. I have pretty extensive training in BR, CR and PS and while I can find LR useful on certain levels I still find myself doing some of the more detailed corrections in Photoshop. It just can't replace PS for me. I like LR more than I did but actually I work faster, organize easier in Bridge and CR. Like I posted above I can do the same corrections on a number of files at once just like you can in LR. It's not that much different actually I don't think. But then again I'm not just a photographer I'm also into graphics. My work is about more than taking and batch correcting photos. I do a lot of repair work and some art work too. That's part of running a photo studio type business. People come to me for other stuff all the time. I consider it bread and butter work and I don't turn it down. Actually I enjoy it sometimes. There's a certain satisfaction in it, restoring old images.

I like the flexibility of PS. I particularly like the repair tools. They've made me some nice $$$ money from time to time. LR can do some of that, sure, but it cannot even begin to touch what PS can do in that regard and it's not really meant to do Photoshop's job anyway. I think the applications are actually meant to compliment each other, not compete with each other. That's why all this stuff is cross platform and designed and made to workflow well with each other. It's all about your needs, what kind of work you do. It's kind of like that other Adobe application Elements. For someone who isn't a graphics pro that application can do a lot. But for me that application is only a little better than MS Paint. It's just not all that useful to me. Couldn't replace PS, ever.

I could get by just doing some basic correcting and whatnot in LR, sure. But LR wouldn't do me for much else and if I had to chose, I'd have to chose the PS even though there are things I do like about LR. Bottom line I've got room to do more than I can in LR in PS. There are tradeoffs but mostly that's true. Maybe I won't always need that power, all those extra bells and whistles, but it's sure nice to have that ability rather than just wish for it when I do need it. If you've already got a background in PS, as I believe the OP does, to me it makes more sense to upgrade rather than replace PS with LR. BR and CR can do most of what LR can, not all but most, and plus he's still got PS, an application he already knows that can do even more in when he needs to, win win scenario, no?

Yeah, honestly, I do like to take my time post processing somewhat though I'm not unreasonable about it. I don't ever want to get to the point where I can't do that actually. 2000 images or no. I'm not someone who will just whiz through a pile of photos and knock them out without really looking at them all, working them a little. I can go through 2000 images fairly quickly actually if I use BR and CR, but nobody is seeing my work until it's as good as I can make it, particularly a client I want to impress and hopefully get repeat business from. I'll use CR to kill all the badly focused ones, to correct WB and such across the board if I need to, definitely saves time, but I'm a bit more concerned about what happens after that. CR and BR have actually cut my work time in half, easily. But they haven't just replaced PS for me and neither could LR as good as it is. No way. Not yet anyhow. (Just like PS could never completely replace Illustrator though I can do a lot of things in PS that I can in Illustrator now. When it comes down to creating that kind of work, actual illustrations and long text type documents, I prefer Illustrator or Indesign for multi-page layout.) I think they should be used together if at all possible budget-wise. If not LR maybe, but I'm really thinking someone who's already into PS might miss it more than they think if they just switched to LR. In the whole suite of applications PS is the one that's the most used for cross purpose work. It has the most flexibility. That's why it sells so well, even with non-industry people.

Me, I could live sans LR. I simply cannot see living sans PS completely. Not having had it to use for so long. I love my PS. I love my big useful tool menu, all my plugs. If I had to pick one application on my machine that doesn't belong to Windows that I could not do without? Have used the most across the years? It would be Photoshop. I've actually tried almost every image editor out there. Gimp, PSP, Corel, and they're all okay, even better than okay in some cases, but I'm still using Photoshop. This is one of the big reasons I never made it 100% to a Linux installation. I hate running PS in an emulator and they haven't made a version that's completely compatible for Linux as yet. My fondest wish is that sooner or later they'll do more than a mini version for Android phones and tablets. I'd love to have a really big pad and a full version of PS for on the go. I can't even run the mini version on the Cruz pad I have now. It totally sucks. I can do almost anything else, run almost anything else but that and Angry Birds, sigh...

wildman · 05-03-2012, 09:56 AM

PS is a artisan's tool.

If you are going to lavish a great amount of time, thought, imagination, effort and skill on a given image PS is your tool. Nothing else comes near to it's depth, power and subtlety in manipulating images.

It's not a batch processor nor a file manager. If that's what you want look elsewhere.

Smeggypants · 05-03-2012, 07:22 PM

Originally posted by magkelly

. 2000 images or no. I'm not someone who will just whiz through a pile of photos and knock them out without really looking at them all, working them a little..

Neither am I.

I whizz through and delete the obvious turkeys ( unless I've done a photoshoot of acutal live turkeys, which I ahaven't done yet, but if I did ...

)

I then go back and apply a general preset to make all the keepers a reasonable standard.

After that I choose the best one's and spend some time on them getting them as best I can. And once I've done that I'll choose a set from that which I will publish.

Lightroom is perfect for all of this.

If you're restoring old images then yes I can see the benefit of photoshop over Lightroom. Like I've said before I can't solely use Lightroom to scan and restore my old 1980s 35mm negs I'm currently scanning as a long term project

jaywes · 05-03-2012, 07:32 PM

I guess this has turned into some debate. I am planning to spend some of my free time with LR and see where it takes me. I will most likely end up using them in tandem. Thanks for all the real feedback and pointers.

BirdDude007 · 05-03-2012, 07:35 PM

I too am a photographer and a graphic designer(in training) and I have used CR at first in conjunction with PS. But since I installed and learned LR, I rarely use Bridge or CR, the main reason? the ability to organize, I am the worst when it somes to organizing, but when I got LR it all just clicked with me. when I come up on that image that I need to either do a bit more processing work to or just want to get artistic with, I just import it right into PS right from inside LR, and then I save it right back into LR for "organizing" sake. Ya if I had to choose just one program for my images, it would be PS hands down, but that is the beauty of computers nowadays......you dont have to choose! you can have it all! I have the CS5 design suite and it WORKS, and when I threw in LR it made it complete.

dmfw · 05-04-2012, 11:25 AM

LR is good for organizing, if you wish to tag images with keywords or search on image attributes. If you are always trying to find where you stored a pic, then I would buy LR and not look back.

If you keep you pictures in a logical folder system, you might be able to use a free product like Picasa.

I would download LR demo and Picasa. Compare them for what you need.

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05-02-2012, 05:48 PM	#16
jaywes Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: New York, USA Posts: 235 Original Poster	Originally posted by Smeggypants I'd implode if I had to edit one image at a time. ARRRRGHHH!!!! When I import a shoot into lightroom, I create some develop presets that do 80% of the editing work for all similar images and the pick the best one's and do final tweaks on those. The smart collection sets in Lightroom are excellent. I have loads fo collection sets filtered by keyword. Just goota zip through the latest shoot, keyword it and the collections are automatically updated. Now LR4 has geo-tagging with google maps, images organising is even more fun "Batch editing" and the photo organization is why I am going to try out LR.

05-02-2012, 06:23 PM	#17
magkelly Veteran Member Join Date: May 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,901	Originally posted by jaywes "Batch editing" and the photo organization is why I am going to try out LR. Just an FYI, you can batch process and organize in Bridge with CR too... Batch process Camera Raw files: Tutorial

05-02-2012, 06:53 PM	#18
slackercruster Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: NE, USA Posts: 1,302	I got PS elements and LR. I seldom use PS for my pp. I just do basic pp, but I like my LR and Nik Silver for most of my work

05-02-2012, 07:28 PM	#19
SpecialK Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: So California Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,481	Quote: Just an FYI, you can batch process and organize in Bridge with CR too... And Elements as well (by itself).

05-02-2012, 08:08 PM	#20
jaywes Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: New York, USA Posts: 235 Original Poster	Originally posted by magkelly Just an FYI, you can batch process and organize in Bridge with CR too... Batch process Camera Raw files: Tutorial Aw man. Now this changes everything haha. Good to know. Thanks! Originally posted by SpecialK And Elements as well (by itself). Will test this out in PS tomorrow. Thanks!

05-02-2012, 08:27 PM	#21
magkelly Veteran Member Join Date: May 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,901	Most people don't realize a fifth of what software like Photoshop can do. Once you do? There's no going back. LR is nice, so is Elements, but compared to Photoshop and Camera Raw it's like driving a good sporty Honda and then being given the keys to a Ferrari. You can do a lot with the Honda, and you'll enjoy driving it, but wouldn't you still want the Ferrari if you could afford it? I've probably watched almost every course out there, read every book on it all, been working in PS since V4 (Not CS4, 4!) and yet I'm still finding new things I can do in CR and PS. LR too, every time they upgrade the more I like it, but still not like PS and CR. The full capacity of what that application can do sometimes just blows my mind. Serious learning curve, oh yeah, but man is it worth it!!!!!

05-02-2012, 11:33 PM	#22
Smeggypants Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 1,536	Originally posted by magkelly Most people don't realize a fifth of what software like Photoshop can do. Once you do? There's no going back. LR is nice, so is Elements, but compared to Photoshop and Camera Raw it's like driving a good sporty Honda and then being given the keys to a Ferrari. You can do a lot with the Honda, and you'll enjoy driving it, but wouldn't you still want the Ferrari if you could afford it? I've probably watched almost every course out there, read every book on it all, been working in PS since V4 (Not CS4, 4!) and yet I'm still finding new things I can do in CR and PS. LR too, every time they upgrade the more I like it, but still not like PS and CR. The full capacity of what that application can do sometimes just blows my mind. Serious learning curve, oh yeah, but man is it worth it!!!!! That's not a mind set I agree with. I know what photoshop can do. I also know what lightroom can do. And for 99.9999999% of my images lightroom + Nik software plugins can do it much much quicker, plus lightroom has all the cataloguing organisation features essential to photographers taking lots of shots and needing to sort and edit those shots in a reasonable amount of time. If you can come back from a shoot and sort out 2000 shots in photoshop and have the time to do so then great. I'll stick with Lightroom thanks

05-03-2012, 02:03 AM	#23
magkelly Veteran Member Join Date: May 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,901	Originally posted by Smeggypants That's not a mind set I agree with. I know what photoshop can do. I also know what lightroom can do. And for 99.9999999% of my images lightroom + Nik software plugins can do it much much quicker, plus lightroom has all the cataloguing organisation features essential to photographers taking lots of shots and needing to sort and edit those shots in a reasonable amount of time. If you can come back from a shoot and sort out 2000 shots in photoshop and have the time to do so then great. I'll stick with Lightroom thanks If that works for you, fine. I guess it comes down to what you're used to, and like. I have pretty extensive training in BR, CR and PS and while I can find LR useful on certain levels I still find myself doing some of the more detailed corrections in Photoshop. It just can't replace PS for me. I like LR more than I did but actually I work faster, organize easier in Bridge and CR. Like I posted above I can do the same corrections on a number of files at once just like you can in LR. It's not that much different actually I don't think. But then again I'm not just a photographer I'm also into graphics. My work is about more than taking and batch correcting photos. I do a lot of repair work and some art work too. That's part of running a photo studio type business. People come to me for other stuff all the time. I consider it bread and butter work and I don't turn it down. Actually I enjoy it sometimes. There's a certain satisfaction in it, restoring old images. I like the flexibility of PS. I particularly like the repair tools. They've made me some nice $$$ money from time to time. LR can do some of that, sure, but it cannot even begin to touch what PS can do in that regard and it's not really meant to do Photoshop's job anyway. I think the applications are actually meant to compliment each other, not compete with each other. That's why all this stuff is cross platform and designed and made to workflow well with each other. It's all about your needs, what kind of work you do. It's kind of like that other Adobe application Elements. For someone who isn't a graphics pro that application can do a lot. But for me that application is only a little better than MS Paint. It's just not all that useful to me. Couldn't replace PS, ever. I could get by just doing some basic correcting and whatnot in LR, sure. But LR wouldn't do me for much else and if I had to chose, I'd have to chose the PS even though there are things I do like about LR. Bottom line I've got room to do more than I can in LR in PS. There are tradeoffs but mostly that's true. Maybe I won't always need that power, all those extra bells and whistles, but it's sure nice to have that ability rather than just wish for it when I do need it. If you've already got a background in PS, as I believe the OP does, to me it makes more sense to upgrade rather than replace PS with LR. BR and CR can do most of what LR can, not all but most, and plus he's still got PS, an application he already knows that can do even more in when he needs to, win win scenario, no? Yeah, honestly, I do like to take my time post processing somewhat though I'm not unreasonable about it. I don't ever want to get to the point where I can't do that actually. 2000 images or no. I'm not someone who will just whiz through a pile of photos and knock them out without really looking at them all, working them a little. I can go through 2000 images fairly quickly actually if I use BR and CR, but nobody is seeing my work until it's as good as I can make it, particularly a client I want to impress and hopefully get repeat business from. I'll use CR to kill all the badly focused ones, to correct WB and such across the board if I need to, definitely saves time, but I'm a bit more concerned about what happens after that. CR and BR have actually cut my work time in half, easily. But they haven't just replaced PS for me and neither could LR as good as it is. No way. Not yet anyhow. (Just like PS could never completely replace Illustrator though I can do a lot of things in PS that I can in Illustrator now. When it comes down to creating that kind of work, actual illustrations and long text type documents, I prefer Illustrator or Indesign for multi-page layout.) I think they should be used together if at all possible budget-wise. If not LR maybe, but I'm really thinking someone who's already into PS might miss it more than they think if they just switched to LR. In the whole suite of applications PS is the one that's the most used for cross purpose work. It has the most flexibility. That's why it sells so well, even with non-industry people. Me, I could live sans LR. I simply cannot see living sans PS completely. Not having had it to use for so long. I love my PS. I love my big useful tool menu, all my plugs. If I had to pick one application on my machine that doesn't belong to Windows that I could not do without? Have used the most across the years? It would be Photoshop. I've actually tried almost every image editor out there. Gimp, PSP, Corel, and they're all okay, even better than okay in some cases, but I'm still using Photoshop. This is one of the big reasons I never made it 100% to a Linux installation. I hate running PS in an emulator and they haven't made a version that's completely compatible for Linux as yet. My fondest wish is that sooner or later they'll do more than a mini version for Android phones and tablets. I'd love to have a really big pad and a full version of PS for on the go. I can't even run the mini version on the Cruz pad I have now. It totally sucks. I can do almost anything else, run almost anything else but that and Angry Birds, sigh...

05-03-2012, 09:56 AM	#24
wildman Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Flyover America Posts: 4,469	PS is a artisan's tool. If you are going to lavish a great amount of time, thought, imagination, effort and skill on a given image PS is your tool. Nothing else comes near to it's depth, power and subtlety in manipulating images. It's not a batch processor nor a file manager. If that's what you want look elsewhere.

05-03-2012, 07:22 PM	#25
Smeggypants Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 1,536	Originally posted by magkelly . 2000 images or no. I'm not someone who will just whiz through a pile of photos and knock them out without really looking at them all, working them a little.. Neither am I. I whizz through and delete the obvious turkeys ( unless I've done a photoshoot of acutal live turkeys, which I ahaven't done yet, but if I did ... ) I then go back and apply a general preset to make all the keepers a reasonable standard. After that I choose the best one's and spend some time on them getting them as best I can. And once I've done that I'll choose a set from that which I will publish. Lightroom is perfect for all of this. If you're restoring old images then yes I can see the benefit of photoshop over Lightroom. Like I've said before I can't solely use Lightroom to scan and restore my old 1980s 35mm negs I'm currently scanning as a long term project

05-03-2012, 07:32 PM	#26
jaywes Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: New York, USA Posts: 235 Original Poster	I guess this has turned into some debate. I am planning to spend some of my free time with LR and see where it takes me. I will most likely end up using them in tandem. Thanks for all the real feedback and pointers.

05-03-2012, 07:35 PM	#27
BirdDude007 Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Las Vegas NV Photos: Albums Posts: 784	I too am a photographer and a graphic designer(in training) and I have used CR at first in conjunction with PS. But since I installed and learned LR, I rarely use Bridge or CR, the main reason? the ability to organize, I am the worst when it somes to organizing, but when I got LR it all just clicked with me. when I come up on that image that I need to either do a bit more processing work to or just want to get artistic with, I just import it right into PS right from inside LR, and then I save it right back into LR for "organizing" sake. Ya if I had to choose just one program for my images, it would be PS hands down, but that is the beauty of computers nowadays......you dont have to choose! you can have it all! I have the CS5 design suite and it WORKS, and when I threw in LR it made it complete.

05-04-2012, 11:25 AM	#28
dmfw Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Dallas, Tx Photos: Albums Posts: 159	LR is good for organizing, if you wish to tag images with keywords or search on image attributes. If you are always trying to find where you stored a pic, then I would buy LR and not look back. If you keep you pictures in a logical folder system, you might be able to use a free product like Picasa. I would download LR demo and Picasa. Compare them for what you need.