Originally posted by Bcrary3 Okay. The title kind of says it all. I am somewhat new to the world of post porcess editing, RAW shooting, etc, etc. I currently have in my possession:
Adobe Photoshop CS6
Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
Adobe Camera Raw 7.0
HDR EFEX PRO 2
Now, I keep hearing almost everyone on this fourm talking about Adobe Lightroom... What the hell is it?! I'm curious to know what lightroom is used for exactly, do I need it, and what can I do with it that I cannot do in photoshop. Mind you I am not very skilled with any photoshop or PP in general.
Thanks
Photoshop should do everything you need for editing, it is just a matter of finding out how.
With Photoshop you get Bridge, which allows you to browse your image files and see relevant EXIF data. I like it but there really isn't any organizing. You can put stuff in folders but then it's harder to search the EXIF data.
Elements theoretically has both an editor and an organizer. The editor works and is a subset of Photoshop, with some features disabled so you want Photoshop. It's not bad. The organizer appears to work except it is geared towards putting captions on photos and naming people. It does not like large sets of images, say 10,000 or more. I like to use Elements on a laptop for travel, so it is rarely stressed.
Lightroom is intended to organize first, with light editing stuff thrown in. When you only have a few thousand shots or a great memory, the organizing feels like fluff you don't need. But with it, you can organize anything. You can organize everything by certain equipment, places, times, content, whatever.
A wedding pro might use Bridge by putting all the shots from one wedding in one folder, maybe subfolders for reception or ceremony or whatever. Then edit one image at a time. If he had Lightroom, he could do something that looks similar. But when he has several weddings, he could also have sets of photos to show prospective clients, using the best shots from any wedding. He can quickly apply one or a group of Camera RAW settings to large sets of images. The files can be exported to other places. He can look at every shot from one of his lenses over years. It is limited more by your organizing imagination than the program.