[pb_red]

with regards to the original post, LR is the "standard" and while there are alternatives, some of which might be better in some aspects (such as price), there is nothing out there that has as much reference, in both electronic and printed formats, or as much 3rd party support. this includes presets, plugins, toutorials, etc.

if those things are important then LR is the obvious choice. otherwise it's worthwhile to explore other options.

[deejjjaaaa]

or as much 3rd party support. this includes presets, plugins, toutorials, etc.

PS beats LR in terms of "presets, plugins, tutorials"... LR value is that it is all-in-one solution mostly for people who either do not have desire or time or will or money or whatever to use separate tools (DAM if they need DAM at all, raw converter or rather several different raw converters each for a specific situation and postprocessing tools like PS).

[pb_red]

PS beats LR in terms of "presets, plugins, tutorials"... LR value is that it is all-in-one solution mostly for people who either do not have desire or time or will or money or whatever to use separate tools (DAM if they need DAM at all, raw converter or rather several different raw converters each for a specific situation and postprocessing tools like PS).

PS and LR are different beasts designed to solve different problems.

PS is the standard for post-processing. it has additional components that help you do other stuff but the main goal is post-processing. (the line gets a little more blurry with elements...)

LR is the standard for organizing and making frequent and fairly basic adjustments. it's not a substitute for PS and neither is PS a substitute for LR.

in other words, it's apples and oranges...

what the OP has to do is define the problems he/she has and pick the best tool(s) that will solve those problems. this may be a single tool or a combination.

[deejjjaaaa]

PS and LR are different beasts designed to solve different problems.

you know that PS/Bridge/ACR come together, so they can be used in for the same work and so can be compared in terms of "presets, plugins, tutorials" for sure.

[WMBP]

Lightroom is so different from Photoshop it's hard for me to believe they come from the same company.

Photoshop has tools that do so much more than edit photos. You can open up a blank new document in Photoshop and create a logo or paint a painting or take 5 photos and create a collage. Creative possibilities in Photoshop are nearly endless. If you want to remove the old boyfriend from the photo, Photoshop is essential. You can even do "normal" post-processing of photos in Photoshop. But Photoshop's UI is antique. Some of the very technical, numeric adjustment tools harken back to the days when that was the only way anybody could think to deal with images.

The other components of the creative studio that photographers use - for example, Bridge - are separate programs, just as in Photoshop Elements the organizer and the editor are separate programs. As Photoshop has grown, Adobe tacked on new features or even complementary programs to meet the expanding needs of users. Because it's so powerful, and because so many people have been using it for so long, there are people who are very comfortable with the UI. That's fine. (There are people who love Bibble 4's UI, too, although I think it's a complete mess.)

Anyway, Lightroom represents something quite remarkable. Adobe already had the top-of-the line program (Photoshop) and a very popular consumer program (Photoshop Elements). Nevertheless, they created a team to rethink the process of dealing with photos from the ground up - a completely fresh approach. The fact that folks at Apple were doing much the same thing at exactly the same time is proof (to me, anyway) that this was something that was in the air and really needed to be done. Lightroom is NOT "Photoshop Lite." It is NOT just for "basic fixes". It's true, Lightroom's UI looks a lot simpler than Photoshop's. That's partly because Lightroom's UI is new and they found simpler ways to accomplish similar goals. It's also because Lightroom simply eliminated half of Photoshop's feature set. You can't draw a picture in Lightroom, or create a bezier curve, or even copy and paste a part of an image. Lightroom's developer module is designed to process photos "normally" and that's all it's designed to do. It's like what you used to do in the darkroom. It's not designed to create logos, make drawings, collages, remove the old boyfriend from the photo, etc. It's not a special effects editor, either, so no HDR, pano-stitching, etc. I do wish they'd add perspective adjustments to Lightroom but that's about the only thing I miss.

And for processing photos "normally" (without special effects) Lightroom is by no means just a basic tool - it's a very powerful tool indeed, especially since version 2 added the selective editing brush. Lightroom doesn't hit you in the face with all that power, because the UI was designed from the start to be "intuitive" for photographers, in other words, it's not designed for geeks, really, the way Photoshop always was. I've been reviewing software for the last 20 years (for the last decade or so for Macworld). I think Lightroom's UI is one of the best I've ever seen in any program.

Lightroom also has those other modules - for managing photos, printing, creating web sites. These were designed with pro photographers in mind and they seem very good. I use Lightroom's Library module daily; I use the web gallery module infrequently and I've never printed directly from Lightroom.

If you desire to express your creativity while working at the computer, Photoshop is the tool to use. I am not speaking disparagingly. I have a good old friend in the UK (a former top commercial photographer) who turns landscape photographs into amazing dreamscapes in Photoshop. They're wonderful. There's almost nothing he can't do in Photoshop. But I do most of my creative work while I'm shooting, and when the files get to the computer my goal is simply to finish the job and deliver to the client. To put it differently, for those with a historical bent: I think Ansel Adams would have loved Photoshop, while Cartier-Bresson would have hated it and would have preferred Lightroom.

More and more pro photographers - at least event photographers and journalists - are spending most of their time in Lightroom and many spend nearly all of their time there, because Lightroom really can do everything they need, most of the time.

Will

[Spotmatic]

John,

I have. Lightroom 2.5 is my main processing tool. I own a Bibble Pro license (for v4) and have spent time trying out several of the pre-release versions of Bibble Pro 5. I don't own a license for Silkypix but I threw myself pretty hard at the new version this summer both before and after it was released.

Each program has its strengths.

Well, I should take that back. Bibble Pro 5 has no strengths: It hasn't been released. Worse than that, they're so far behind schedule that it's difficult to imagine the product EVER being released. The last prerelease version that I looked at (about 2 weeks ago) was still very far from ready for prime time. The feature set is intriguing - and very likely way too ambitious.

I liked Silkypix very much, really. It has a couple tools that Lightroom lacks, including a tool for correcting perspectival distortion. It is a somewhat less ambitious program than Lightroom, because it lacks the web and print modules that are a big part of Lightroom (although I admit I never use the print module and use the web module only occasionally).

I get bored with Lightroom occasionally but I keep coming back to it. It's just too good. 99% of what I do with my photos can be done as well or better in Lightroom than in any other program. And equally important, it can be done more efficiently. Lightroom isn't just powerful, it's designed for folks who have lots of images to process.

I think Silkypix is a very fine program, especially in the latest release. But in my opinion, it's a bit overpriced. I don't mean that it's not worth $250 in some absolute sense, but just that in terms of overall features, it's not on a par with Lightroom, and yet they cost almost the same thing. Lightroom's list price at Adobe.com is $300, but you can buy it for $260 from Amazon; I don't know where you can get a deal on Silkypix.

Keep in mind that, no matter how good Silkypix is (or Bibble Pro 5 may be, when it actually appears), products like these from small companies lack the support communities that you get for free with the products from the large companies like Adobe and Apple. There are probably 15+ books available on Lightroom 2, and quite a few on Apple's Aperture, which in many respects is quite similar to Lightroom. There are however no books on Bibble Pro or Silkypix or LightZone, at least not to my knowledge.

I do not mean to discourage you AT ALL. As I said, I think Silkypix is a VERY fine program, especially if you are the sort of person who doesn't take 1000 photos at a shoot.

There are free demos of all of these products available. You should visit the web sites, check out the demos, and perhaps join the forums and see what support is like, too. There is a large element of personal taste here: what works well for one person might be the wrong choice for someone else. And I am personally very pleased that we have options and I'd like to see Silkypix and Bibble stick around.

WIll

Did you get the $5 Silkypix e-book when you tried the program?

http://www.eos-images.com/ebooks/An%20Introduction%20to%20Silkypix%20Develop...%20Excerpt.pdf

It is well worth the $.

There is no perfect PP program. *I* also like the Nik plugins.

Nik Software, Inc. | Welcome

The best thing you can do is to try the demos of the programs you are interested in and see what works best for you. There are many excellent alternative to full blown Photoshop....especially if photos are your main focus.

BTW, Silkypix does do batch RAW processing...it is not an organizing program though.