lightroom 3 vs Photoshop

[John.Pattullo]

just wondering if lightroom 3 does anything that photoshop cant? wondered if its noise reduction might be more advanced or something?

[peripatetic]

LR does a lot that photoshop can't. But not with regards to image editing.

LR has 5 modules:
1. Library - the core database and organising package. It's abilities to allow you to organise, sort, search, keyword, create collections, batch process, etc. are a core feature. A huge amount of attention is paid to professional workflow features. This is the stuff that PS doesn't really do at all. Bridge (comes with PS) does a bit of this, but it's not at all in the same league.

2. Develop. This is all based around non-destructive editing, and very much biased towards RAW shooting. It has the same RAW conversion engine as PS CS5. It does a great deal, but it doesn't hold a candle to PS when it comes to true image manipulation. But for PHOTOGRAPHERS, rather than graphic artists it probably does 95% of what most people need. Certainly I hardly ever use PS anymore.

3. Print. It has a very good printing engine, certainly the equivalent of a low-end RIP. The only thing missing is soft-proofing.

4. Slideshow. and 5. Web. -> fairly basic but do the job for most peoples' needs.

The crucial point is that the RAW processing engine in PS and LR is identical, so the noise reduction is identical, the camera and lens profiling is identical, the demosiacing is identical, etc, etc.

Integration between PS and LR is fairly good, as you would expect. If you are first and foremost a photographer rather than a graphic artist, I would recommend starting with LR, and then purchase PS if you feel the need later on.

I can highly recommend the latest Luminous-Landscape video tutorial on LR3.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/lr3.shtml

[John.Pattullo]

well i use photoshop cs4 at the moment so guess no reason to switch to lightroom instead of photoshop 5

thanks for the advice

[peripatetic]

If the only thing you are interested in is manipulating images one at a time, then no, there is no reason to switch.

Actually I am using LR3 with CS4. They are really used for different things, when I need to do some really heavy image manipulation, or use a plugin that LR doesn't support then I use CS4. This is very rare, and becoming more so.

[fldspringer]

As I see it, Lightroom is what you use when you have several hundred raw files on a card. It does great with converting, cataloging, and thinning out the ones you really want to keep.

Photoshop is the program that manipulates a single photo to wring out everything from that one image.

Lightroom is for the bulk, photoshop is for the specific photo. If you don't do alot of heavy manipulation (me) Lightroom is the main answer.

[Dr. Mr. Vandertramps]

Fld, I'd go a bit further than that. Not only is it good in terms of bulk quantity of photos, the changes it makes are much more "overall" changes to the photo rather than the localized ones in PS. Lightroom has become an integral part of my workflow. Can't say enough good things about it!

[John.Pattullo]

can you use layer mask for levels/curve adjustments in lightroom?

[dj76]

SO how does Lightroom compare to Photoshop Elements then, which has the organizer?

[peripatetic]

CS4/5 have Bridge which is a much better organiser than that in Elements.

Both of them are like a bicycle compared to a Ferrari.

[dj76]

Im talking about Lightroom, not CS4/5. Is the organizer in Lightroom much better than the one in PSE? I had a post about this earlier and the thing I like about PSE is how you can easily make all the tags and they all show up in a column and you can just drag them to the picture. I got a free trial of Lightroom and actually havent had a lot of time to play with it, but I didn't see the tagging feature that simple right away. Does it work the same way as in PSE?