[Ed n Georgia]

Is Lightroom a "stand alone" photo processing system? Or, does it have to interface with CS4?

And, if stand alone, what will it do for me that PSE won't?

[Cloggie_UK]

Lightroom is DAM and RAW conversion software with some tools for editing but nowhere near as many as PS or PSE. It has got a crop function, spot healing, local adjustment tool via a brush etc. You've got your curves, sharpening, noise reduction but not quite with the control you have in PS. It also can't do layers. It all depends how much editing you tend to do; for some it is has more than enough features, for others it hasn't and they like to further edit in PS.

It is a stand alone product but you can export your photos straight from Lightroom into PS. Lightroom uses the same ACR as PS but IMO it is better laid out and so is easier to use than ACR in PS.

[Canada_Rockies]

Rene has it nailed. Lightroom is a great organizer with basic developing available. You might never need anything more. LR will also create PSD slide shows and basic Web pages. Lightroom editing is non destructive - you always have the original file to fall back on. For more specific editing needs, I pop out to PSE 6. It has layers, for example. PSE is not non destructive in its editing, so I am careful to use a TIFF file for external editing. This allows me to retain the RAW originals, unaltered.

I preprocess most of my images with DxO first when the lens/body combination is covered or the image needs keystone corrections. This saves me the trouble of manually doing barrel/pincushion and vignetting corrections. It might not be worth $ 150 to you.