Then download the Trial and see how you get on.I like the idea of getting it and have been thinking about it for a while but I'm unsure for some reason
My advice to anyone starting to use Lightroom is to read up on how to install and set it up properly to suit your own requirements. It's more than just an editing program. It's an image cataloguing program too.
Now the issue with just bowling in and just using it is, if you do happen to end up using it as your main workflow tool and you don't do it right from the outset you will have a lot of work straightening it all out after the fact as it were. There are a lot of settings and choices to make, especially about how you file and catalogue your images. It's worth the effort IMHO. You can also buy a standalone copy rather than paying through the Adobe Nose! Of course Adobe want to extract as much cash from you as possible but you can find the standalone but you have to really search to find it they have it well hidden. Google stand alone copy of LR 6 you will eventually find it.
Of course you don't need Lightroom or Photoshop to edit RAW files there are many programs that will do that.
However there are a lot of advantages of shooting RAW as you probably know. You have a massive amount more latitude for editing with RAW. Shooting JPEG you do loose a lot of data and every time you edit an image and resave it you throw more away. You can probably set your camera to save your images to RAW and JPEG if you want to test the water. There are endless web site extolling the virtues of shooting in RAW. It's well worth the move Stuart.
Completely agree with this. It's a given that LR is a good raw editing tool so that bit is almost secondary. It's also relatively easy to learn the editing side of things. The important bit is how you want to manage your photos. I personally have about 20k of photos and so being able to find them again whenever I feel like it is so important. I'm a big fan of using keywords and then setting up smart collections to collect photos together with certain keywords (landscapes, people's names, cars, whatever). For specific events, I'll use normal collections and just highlight the photos that relate to that event. The big advantage of this approach (and I realise there are many other ways) is that it means there are multiple ways to find the same image. Where it's actually stored on your computer becomes largely irrelevant. Takes a bit of leg work in the first place and some on-going discipline but works well for me. There is a smart collection called 'without keywords' as standard so you can always find photos that you haven't yet tagged.
I also never export any image until I need it for something, so they just sit in lightroom with edits applied and then I export a jpeg, use it and then normally delete. It reduces clutter that way.
From your profile your camera is a canon 450D. If this is your camera to be compatible with lightroom you need lightroom 3 or newer to be compatible with RAWs from that camera. What this means is you can buy an older version of lightroom second hand at a lower price (I would guess around £30-40) than a CC subscription or the latest version (Lightroom 6). This will give you a chance to see if RAW processing is for you. If you find it is then you an upgrade the older version to Lightroom 6 via the adobe site for around £60 or go for a CC subscription. Before you do this you can download lightroom as a free trial version to 'try before you buy'.It dose sound complicated but is it worth me getting do I really need it I'm not a pro photographer so only really do it for fun and memories wouldn't say it's a hobby or any thing like that but is it worth me getting especially when my photos are never really that good especially my airshow ones I all ways seem to struggle with the sky and I all ways feel disappointed with my photos