lightroom and photoshop

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ttheduck

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Hi all

Can anyone please tell me the advantages to having both lightroom AND photoshop, what will one do that the other onw wont?

Thanks in advance
 
lightroom will import, catalouge and will quickly apply settings to a batch of files among other things

photoshop will do heavy editing with layers and masks among other things
 
The advantacge of having both is that there are a few things that Lightroom will not do, layers etc, so you need to go into Photoshop to use these features.
 
which would you advise to get first as a starting point, Lightroom or Elements 9?
 
ttheduck said:
so, strickly speaking, photoshop is all i need
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Lightroom is much quicker for the RAW processing and is great for organising images, much better than Bridge.

SeeFarr said:
which would you advise to get first as a starting point, Lightroom or Elements 9?
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Lightroom without a doubt.
 
Elements without a doubt (helpful place this, isn't it? :eek:)

There are quite a few things you can do in Elements that Lightroom can't do, but not much (if anything...) in Lightroom that can't be done in Elements. Also, Elements costs about £60 for the latest version, and you can get older iterations (such as Elements 6, which can do RAW conversion, though may need a (free) download add-on to work) for under £20. Lightroom costs around £200 (good student discounts though) and is good for doing lots of very similar shots if you're in a rush and don't mind giving everything the same treatment. Lightroom is also good for cataloguing if you feel the need to grade every photo and add dozens of key words ( you can do this in Elements as well. It just takes a bit longer so you will have less time to spend colour co-coordinating your anorak collection)

Elements gives you more subtlety and has many, many more creative possibilities.

Another opinion will be along in a while, and will be totally different...:p
 
ttheduck said:
so, strickly speaking, photoshop is all i need
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Not really. You can import and organize in bride that comes with Photoshop but if you where wanting to edit 100 or more pictures quickly it would take you for ever.

So Lightroom is great to change the white balance, exposure, sharpening, etc. and also really fast for the basic editing.

Photoshop is good for doing the final changes. If you want to get rid of something in a image or add something to the image that is also only available in Photoshop.
 
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To give some examples - I am currently doing some intensive editing in Photoshop (lots of layers, merging different images and creating effects none of which can be done in Lightroom).

In Lightroom I want to find my images, most of which are keyworded, if I want a picture of a red toadstool and have no idea where it is, even which year I took it I can just select all the years (I file in year, month, day) and find my toadstool pictures from amongst many thousands within seconds. Without LR it would have taken me hours if not days. Then all I have to do is pick the one that most suits my needs. With current pictures I keyword as I enter them but as I wanted some of the past years in LR I still hav to keyword so am working my way through them, just wish I had had LR right from when I first started putting photos on my computer :)
 
So in other words, its handy if you have many thousands of photos, i have about ten thousand and i keep them in catagorised foldars, sport, holidays, family...etc, have to say i never have a problem finding a photo using this method but each to their own i suppose, i can see what you mean, if i had 10,000 photos it might be more convienient to use lightroom....thanks for the answer.
 
yep, working now,I,ve not looked trough it properly yet but i will, it looks like exactly what most of us need...a site writen in plain english...thanks for that.
 
ttheduck said:
LOL Jon.....im not feeling the love for lightroom here
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You noticed :D

I've tried Lightroom, I really have, but can't find anything it does for me (note qualification) that I can't do with Photoshop.

Partly this is probably because I've worked with Photoshop virtually every day for the last 10 years or so (Elements 2, anyone?). If I stuck with it, I'd probably find things LR could do for me that would speed up my work, and a lot of people love LR to bits.

Best thing is probably to download both free trials, get some decent books (Scott Kelby I'd suggest), and see which you prefer.
 
I agree, i have used photoshop for a few years now and im not seeing anything that would persuade me to add lightroom
 
Lightroom without a doubt. It's SO good for processing images. The name is well-chosen....everything the photographer used to do in the darkroom, and much more , you can do in Lightroom.

I hardly ever use photoshop now, although I have been tempted to add the latest version of Elements for the few things that LR can't do.

LR is a great piece of software. Unlike PS it was actually designed for photographers!
 
jerry12953 said:
Lightroom without a doubt. It's SO good for processing images. The name is well-chosen....everything the photographer used to do in the darkroom, and much more , you can do in Lightroom.

I hardly ever use photoshop now, although I have been tempted to add the latest version of Elements for the few things that LR can't do.

LR is a great piece of software. Unlike PS it was actually designed for photographers!
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I agree but I think elements is at least built more for Photographers.
 
Photoshop is more than just for photos, designers use it a lot for example, it is a digital image manipulation program. Elements is just a consumer grade version on it. Having said that, it's great for photographers, especially for the price.

On the other hand, Lightroom was designed for photographers from the outset and has the tools that photographers need, without any of the unnecessary extras. If I had to choose one, it would be Lightroom, as I find I can do 99% of my processing within Lightroom's highly efficient workflow.
 
As said above, they are 2 different things for very different purpose.

You should see what kind of workflow you currently have and how much editing you intend to do.

I'm on one of those who love LR because of its so easy and managable =)
 
i have used PS for years and its all i use. cant help but wonder if i missing a trick not using LR - really have to set aside some time and see. i have used it before just never given it a good enough chance
 
I use both side by side, although LR gets more of the work purely down its simplicity. Unless I need to clone out large objects or add lots of masks, photoshop just isnt needed.
LR can process a RAW file in about a minute from import to export if you know before hand what you want it to look like.
Thats aside from the cataloging and keywording that LR excells at.

I was until about 6 months ago very much a Photoshop man, but once I used it and learnt how to do it properly LR is now my program of choice.
Using the two together however is really simple, you can send an image from LR direct to PS and do what you need to do and send it back to LR for the final touches.
LR also makes it incredibly simple to watermark images and batch export them in various sizes/formats/quality etc.
 
TCR4x4 said:
I use both side by side, although LR gets more of the work purely down its simplicity. Unless I need to clone out large objects or add lots of masks, photoshop just isnt needed.
LR can process a RAW file in about a minute from import to export if you know before hand what you want it to look like.
Thats aside from the cataloging and keywording that LR excells at.

I was until about 6 months ago very much a Photoshop man, but once I used it and learnt how to do it properly LR is now my program of choice.
Using the two together however is really simple, you can send an image from LR direct to PS and do what you need to do and send it back to LR for the final touches.
LR also makes it incredibly simple to watermark images and batch export them in various sizes/formats/quality etc.
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yea.. what he says!!
 
PhotoshopEditer said:
Not really. You can import and organize in bride that comes with Photoshop but if you where wanting to edit 100 or more pictures quickly it would take you for ever.

So Lightroom is great to change the white balance, exposure, sharpening, etc. and also really fast for the basic editing.

Photoshop is good for doing the final changes. If you want to get rid of something in a image or add something to the image that is also only available in Photoshop.
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What he said, I have been running LR3 for about 2 weeks now, started off with just PSE9 and upgraded to CS5 and LR3, the only mistake I made was getting CS5, I have gone back to PSE9 along with LR3.

I was surprised just how easy and user friendly Lightroom is and it lets you export straight to PSE9, if your fairly new to it all then PSE9 & LR3 IMO is the perfect match(y)
 
jerry12953 said:
Lightroom without a doubt. It's SO good for processing images. The name is well-chosen....everything the photographer used to do in the darkroom, and much more , you can do in Lightroom.

I hardly ever use photoshop now, although I have been tempted to add the latest version of Elements for the few things that LR can't do.

LR is a great piece of software. Unlike PS it was actually designed for photographers!
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Absolutely. Think of it this way: Lightroom is for photographers, Photoshop is for graphic artists.

Everything you need to do in post as a photographer is available in Lightroom. Any image manipulation you might need to do over and above that is into the realm of graphic art.

Photoshop will do many things that Lightroom does, mainly because it predates Lightroom and also there's overlap between the needs of photographers and graphic artists.

Note that differentiating between the two roles is nothing new, in the good ol' days most of the pros never printed their own film, they used master printers. Also, referring to image manipulation as graphic art isn't a dismissive term, purely a descriptive one. The two roles, photographer & printer (then) /post production (now) are distinct and should be treated that way. It doesn't mean that you can't do both, but it also means that if you're no good at post production or not interested in it it doesn't mean there's anything lacking in you as a photographer.

Given the above, I would start with Lightroom and see whether you need anything over and above that once you've got to grips with all it can offer.
 
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