Is Lightroom worth using over Photoshop & Bridge

TheBigCheese · 21 Mar 2011 at 01:53

Hi everyone

The thread title sums it up really.

Is Lightroom 3 worth using instead of the combination of Photoshop and Bridge?

Currently I do all my RAW conversion and processing in Photoshop and I keep meaning to organise all my pictures etc., using Bridge but I haven't got round to it as yet.

As I'm a blank canvas organisation wise at the moment is Lightroom worth it? I understand the way you can rank photos in order of preference and add keywords is very good but I wonder about the processing. Is that as good as using Photoshop...is it better?

If so how much of Photoshop work would be done in Lightroom instead?

Thanks very much for any thoughts.

Gaffer · 21 Mar 2011 at 07:03

TheBigCheese said:
If so how much of Photoshop work would be done in Lightroom instead?

Photoshop and Lightroom work well together.

You start in Lightroom.

Lightroom is a workflow tool. When I was at Twickenham, it was Lightroom (on a decent laptop) that enabled me to select the best dozen pictures from 1200, process, crop, and export to JPG within 60 minutes of the final whistle.

Lightroom has 5 sections:

Library For picking, rating, selecting. Side-to-side comparison.

When you have picked the frames you want to work on, you go to:

Develop where you do manipulation: crop, spot removal, graduated filter, white balance, exposure, recovery, fill light, blacks, brightness, contrast, vibrance, colour, split toning, sharpening, noise reduction, lens correction, vignetting. For 95+ of pictures, it does everything I want.

If you need context-aware fill or something else that only photoshop can do, then you drop into Photoshop at this point. When you save and quit from photoshop, you come straight back to lightroom, where your original and 'shopped versions are sat next to each other.

The Next sections are:

Slideshow for creating a PDF or video slideshow.

Print

and Web for creating flash or HTML web sites.

Andrew

TheBigCheese · 21 Mar 2011 at 09:10

Thanks very much, that's about the best and most comprehensive answer I've ever had to a question on here!

I'll give it a go.

Paul11 · 21 Mar 2011 at 09:32

definitely worth giving a go

lightroom is focused on photography and i think you'll find you do 90% of your work in lightroom and only 10% in photoshop

bigredshark · 21 Mar 2011 at 10:46

Depends on you, people forget how powerful bridge is in it's own right. There are loads of professionals who use both approaches and others who use different software again, if you need to rate hundreds of images quickly it's actually a bit heavyweight for that, particularly if you'll do your editting in photoshop or not at all.

That said, I use Aperture almost exclusively and it just about works for me (I have a few issues regarding how I catalog personal and commercial work seperately and generally how to break my library down so I don't just eat SSD space on my laptop).

Try it and see, but there's no one size fits all approach here.

TheBigCheese · 21 Mar 2011 at 10:54

Thanks for the extra input guys.

I will be needing to rate and organise lots of commercial type shots but not so much now as I haven't really started so it will be a drip drip rather than a flood approach.

I probably will do editing in Photoshop but I do try and catch as much in camera as possible so aside from the odd bit of cloning or airbrushing for portraits I doubt I'll need to do much in Photoshop, it'll generally be developing the RAWs and converting to B&W.

As you say bigredshark there's no definitive answer, I suppose it's more getting used to what you use and developing (boom boom :rolleyes:

) your own workflow.

Ksanti · 21 Mar 2011 at 11:07

It's definitely worth having as a workflow and then processing tool, but I like to dip into photoshop for more editing intensive pictures (I hesitate to say photos). It's great for post-processing shots, especially for batch work, but there are some limitations like multiplicity shots that you have to drop into photoshop for. Generally I use lightroom for processing and photoshop for manipulation and graphic design.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 21 Mar 2011 at 11:20

I cant understand why people compare bridge, lightroom and photoshop as competitng products. There is no way I would ever substitute photoshop for anything else. If you are concerned at all about quality of work you simply cant live without photoshop.

Lightroom RAW image converter / Catalogue system.
Bridge - powerful preview and automation system
Photoshop - The knobs for every adjustment

neil_g · 21 Mar 2011 at 11:47

lightroom is fine for minor adjustments, switch to photoshop for major retouching etc. fortunately LR lets you export into PS and then stack the edits within the catalogue which is useful

bigredshark · 21 Mar 2011 at 12:07

Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
If you are concerned at all about quality of work you simply cant live without photoshop.

While it's easy to think that, too many people use photoshop because it's photoshop, there was a piece on Chase Jarvis' blog comparing the results of editing done using Aperture, which is largely a lightroom competitor (albeit a little more advanced in places) and Photoshop.

In fact, here:

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2011/01/aperture-vs-photoshop-in-bw-post-production/

Now I'm not saying Photoshop doesn't have a place and for any sort of moderately advanced masking it's the first thing I turn to but it's also an extremely expensive bit of software so unless you need it's unique features then other software is just as capable of adjusting curves and brushing in and out effects in a basic fashion.

I generally edit in Aperture to get a feel of what's possible with an image because it's just quicker and then re-process any which need heavy or advanced imaging in Camera Raw and Photoshop. That means, for commercial work I'll take maybe 1200 frames in a day, rate them, edit 100-200 in Aperture and a couple of dozen in Photoshop. Anything more and post processing starts using too much time.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 21 Mar 2011 at 15:37

Working professionally in the department theres not a chance at all I bypass photoshop. When it comes to output theres just no way I wouldn't use it. So speaking for a web only perspective you may just be happy with lightroom but I am not.

neil_g · 21 Mar 2011 at 16:37

Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
Working professionally in the department theres not a chance at all I bypass photoshop. When it comes to output theres just no way I wouldn't use it. So speaking for a web only perspective you may just be happy with lightroom but I am not.

thats fine as that works for you. but in all seriousness it depends how much processing you want to do to your shots as to whether you need photoshop over lightroom.

its pretty much only large cloning tasks that i switch over, LR has pretty much all "normal" photography adjustments covered for me personally.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 21 Mar 2011 at 17:09

neil_g said:
thats fine as that works for you. but in all seriousness it depends how much processing you want to do to your shots as to whether you need photoshop over lightroom.

its pretty much only large cloning tasks that i switch over, LR has pretty much all "normal" photography adjustments covered for me personally.

Well to be honest its not just how it works for me. Its how its used for the industry. Lightroom is being pitched now at letting people do things like dodging and burning, gradient effects and to be honest a who array of tools but theres not one time I wouldn't use photoshop.
I work non destructively and thats something thats only achievable in photoshop if I want to make on the fly adjustments.

neil_g · 21 Mar 2011 at 18:48

there are plenty of professionals using LR.

also lightroom is non destructive.

ElDude · 21 Mar 2011 at 19:40

If you have a look on the Lightroom facebook page, they've been posting some interesting processing videos recently. I've not tried much with it, processing wise, but RAW goes straight to lightroom for me then if I need to do anything else I use Elements 8 (which I may replace with CS5 as I can get it for student cost).

Adrianr · 21 Mar 2011 at 20:03

I think what Johhny is trying to say is you can often live without Lightroom if you have Photoshop and Bridge, but seldom the other way around. His point about not being able to substitute Photoshop is also a very good (and valid) one. Anything, and I do mean anything, of any visual note that's been printed or displayed anywhere in the world right now (magazines, billboards, web advertisments, anything with someone's money involved) would almost certainly have been through Photoshop at some stage of it's life. If you make digital images, it's a bit daft NOT having a copy of Photoshop.

I'm also struggling to think of an area of industry other than event photography where Photoshop isn't used to finalize or just generally retouch the file either. If you're whittling down hundreds or thousands of images to a few marketable ones, you're likely using PS to finish them. The only time I can think not (though granted I don't know about every area, I'm happy to accept examples!) would be where you have a very high volume of imagery in, and a very high volume of imagery out. Which even in the case of say, fashion lookbooks, all that is still finalized in PS. I know of photographers who only use LR when shooting a test, but as soon as any of their images is being used for something it's usually straight off to the retouch house, and they'll almost certainly still have a copy of PS 'just in case'.

The reason I'm not keen on the Aperture comparison shown above is this. All they've done with that file is basic clean-up, and a b&w conversion. Relatively simple procedures, obviously do-able in Aperture, LR or PS. Now say I wan't to do something a little more advanced, liquify some features, shift some hair around - Oh look, I'm back in Photoshop. Why didn't I just start there from the beginning and have my entire file progress in one nice organised layer stack? Means if the client ever wants something changing I'm not having to remember which program changed which element for one. It's just neater keeping it all in PS.

I use Lightroom as my sort of Bridge now but with a few more features. I've still not used it on a job as a tethering program as every one is too used to Capture 1 (and it supports everything unlike LR) but it seems to have nice enough functionality for it. That said, I could still always drop it from my life and get on without it. With regards to what to process where, beyond the basic RAW conversion (and unless you're dealing with hundreds of images from the same event) I say stick to PS for everything. In for a penny in for a pound, IMHO

neil_g · 21 Mar 2011 at 20:50

id be very naive to suggest that a lot of images arent touched up in PS, thats certainly not the case and for photos needing heavy manipulation its a no brainer.

what im saying is that LR has probably 90% of the tools most will need for photography.

but then each to their own, some will prefer one way and others the other way.. theres not much point arguing about it

mhk1058 · 21 Mar 2011 at 21:28

Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
Its how its used for the industry

Which industry? Lightroom is a result of taking the parts of Photoshop that are used by the majority of photographers and putting them in a package that makes sense for photographers - most of what photoshop can do goes why beyond photography and you are paying for it.

Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
Lightroom is being pitched now at letting people do things like dodging and burning, gradient effects and to be honest a who(sic) array of tools

And why not? These are just some of things it can do, and much more intuitively than Photoshop, although I agree Photoshop has a greater variety of options in these areas, esp. gradient effects.

Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
I work non destructively and thats something thats only achievable in photoshop if I want to make on the fly adjustments.

I'm not sure I understand this statement but it's impossible to use Lightroom in anything other than a non-destructive way, other than actually deleting an image (and then only to the recycle bin). This isn't the case with Photoshop, where it is very easy to make permanent changes to an image.

Bottom line is, if you just want to develop your image as well as make only minor adjustments to, say, blemishes dust spots etc, Lightroom will do the job as well as Photoshop and probably much more easily and efficiently time wise. (plus it's other functions, library, print, web etc).

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 21 Mar 2011 at 21:57

mhk1058 said:
Which industry? Lightroom was a result of taking the relatively small part of Photoshop that was used by by the Photographic industry and putting it in a package that made sense for that industry - most of what photoshop can do goes why beyond photography and you are paying for it.

And why not? These are just some of things it can do, and much more intuitively than Photoshop.

I'm not sure I understand this statement but it's impossible to use Lightroom in anything other than a non-destructive way. This isn't the case with Photoshop.

If you read what I put I never said lightroom didn't do things non destructively I said so I can make changes on the fly.
I work by a Guy Gowan workflow and a heavy percentage of my own and its important that where I work that we follow a strict consistent way of working due to the photo products I produce. When I work with contrast or anything like that you simply cant even touch photoshop when it comes to 0-100 bars in lightroom etc.
I work purely in adjustment layers so whilst lightroom might put an overlay of adjustments on the image it simply doesn't allow me to see the structure of my layer stacks, the blending modes, control of brushes to paint back my masks etc etc the list is endless.

I am so dependant on photoshop for pretty much any work I produce and believe me no photoshop expert so its easy to discard its abilities if you simply don't fully appreciate what it can do.

If it was possible for me to do all this then maybe so but no, not even close. and to be honest thats basic editing.

bigredshark · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:35

To be honest I don't see anything there that can't be done in Aperture from a brief glance, you're arguing photoshop is better because you know how to do all that in photoshop and for a fairly specific requirement there. If you want to do that kind of editing photoshop is likely what you want I agree.

I'm not arguing photoshop is bad, it's very good indeed, however I am arguing that it's used a lot where it's completely unnecessary simply because it's photoshop, the industry standard which everybody who fancies themselves a creative learns in some fashion.

You can produce great work without it is my point and I know of commercial work, indeed billboard campaigns which have been done without it (or any adobe software for that matter). Don't get hung up on it.