Lightroom 4

[Tuck]

Hi all,

I am thinking of purchasing LR4 but not sure can you please help me with the decision.

i currently use iphoto and PS elements.

I use iphoto to modify/view photos from holidays/trips where i dont want to do a lot of work to them as there are usually too many to spend a lot of time on, but i like to make them a bit better than the originals.

I use PS elements for when i want to spend time on a single photo to really get creative.

Now am i correct in thinking that LR4 is an in between program? how easy is it to do quick modifications to multiple photos? i assume it does what iphoto does but much better and with more options?

or do you open one photo at a time?

Would i be wasting money as both PSE and iphoto cover what LR4 does?

Am i in the right ball park with my assumptions?

All help will be greatly appreciated.

[patrick9x9]

I had CS5 and was wondering last year whether to get LR3. I did and have been thrilled. I don't know anything about iphoto, but I use LR for basic adjustments and it is much more powerful than I thought it would be. Makes it much faster. Then like you use elements, I use CS5 for being more creative and major editing.

Also I recently loaded a folder of about 1000 photos in LR and then realized I wanted them all set at Camera Landscape instead of Adobe Standard. Took about 3 minutes to change the entire folder. I definitely recommend it.

[Jerry Soto]

Hi all,

I am thinking of purchasing LR4 but not sure can you please help me with the decision.

i currently use iphoto and PS elements.

I use iphoto to modify/view photos from holidays/trips where i dont want to do a lot of work to them as there are usually too many to spend a lot of time on, but i like to make them a bit better than the originals.

I use PS elements for when i want to spend time on a single photo to really get creative.

Now am i correct in thinking that LR4 is an in between program? how easy is it to do quick modifications to multiple photos? i assume it does what iphoto does but much better and with more options?

or do you open one photo at a time?

Would i be wasting money as both PSE and iphoto cover what LR4 does?

Am i in the right ball park with my assumptions?

All help will be greatly appreciated.

Tom, I have over 30,000 photos in LR4 and I can find and edit a specific or multiple photos within 60 seconds it is absolutely fantastic once you set it up, don’t waste your time GET IT!

[Macmahon]

Hi all,

I am thinking of purchasing LR4 but not sure can you please help me with the decision.

i currently use iphoto and PS elements.

I use iphoto to modify/view photos from holidays/trips where i dont want to do a lot of work to them as there are usually too many to spend a lot of time on, but i like to make them a bit better than the originals.

I use PS elements for when i want to spend time on a single photo to really get creative.

Now am i correct in thinking that LR4 is an in between program? how easy is it to do quick modifications to multiple photos? i assume it does what iphoto does but much better and with more options?

or do you open one photo at a time?

Would i be wasting money as both PSE and iphoto cover what LR4 does?

Am i in the right ball park with my assumptions?

All help will be greatly appreciated.

Tom

LR4 is a much more comprehensive tool than iPhoto. Its nearest Apple-branded counterpart is Aperture.

Routine, post-shoot tasks like changing white balance on a bunch of shots, or re-orienting every one, are a snip. However, LR4's two greatest strengths are its cataloging/image management, and its raw-file conversion and colour/tone/detail adjustment capabilities. The detail you can recover from clever use of LR4 on raw files is quite amazing.

My guess is that you would find yourself using Elements very seldom, if at all, if you were to adopt either LR4 or Aperture.

All of that said, if you do not print images, or if you only ever shoot in JPEG, cost/benefit might not be so favourable given you already have the other two programs.

Tim

[russellsnr]

Hi, Used L/R3 now upgraded to L/R4 am nowhere near an expert with it but do find it easy to get around also the cost for what is a powerful application is compared to other apps for photo editing very very cheap, why not download the trial (30 days I think) give it a go and see what YOU think, nothing to loose!!!
Russ

[marstar]

I'm with the rest on this one.
I'm a CS5 user that was in the same boat as you just a few months back.. I have photoshop CS5, but is Lightroom something worth getting. Short answer is "YES"
In my case, The ability to quickly move between photos and albums while adding adjustments is worth the cost alone. Photoshop made me load individual photos, one at a time.
If you shoot in RAW it's even better with the ability to go back and fix things like WB (and other things.. I'm still learning

Russell had a great suggestion as well. Adobe gives you a 30day trial FREE!, you should take advantage of that.

[Colin Southern]

I'm with the rest on this one.
I'm a CS5 user that was in the same boat as you just a few months back.. I have photoshop CS5, but is Lightroom something worth getting. Short answer is "YES"
In my case, The ability to quickly move between photos and albums while adding adjustments is worth the cost alone. Photoshop made me load individual photos, one at a time.
If you shoot in RAW it's even better with the ability to go back and fix things like WB (and other things.. I'm still learning

Russell had a great suggestion as well. Adobe gives you a 30day trial FREE!, you should take advantage of that.

Hi Mars,

You need to draw a distinction between Photoshop, Bridge, and ACR. Basically LR offers very similar functionality to Bridge and ACR (albeit with a more integrated interface). If you're "having to work with individual photos" then it sounds to me like you're not using Bridge / ACR together?

I regularly open up & adjust hundreds of photos simultaniously in ACR (happens automatically when launched from Bridge) and then edit them "en-mass". Photoshop doesn't do so well handling multiple images workflow wise, but then again, if you're doing something in Photoshop that can't be done in ACR then chances are it can't be done in LR either (LR is basically just Bridge & ACR rolled into one) (certainly in terms of image manipulation anyway -- it uses the same processing engine as ACR).

[Manfred M]

I use Photoshop 5.5 (with Bridge) and to a much lesser extent Lightroom 4.

I think you've received some fairly good advise. Lightroom started off life as a cataloging tool for photographers and does a decent job there as well as being quite good at what I would look at as "mass production" photography. If I were, say a wedding photographer and had to go through and organize 1000 - 2000 images once a week, I would be using it more. It handles large volumes of adjustments much better than Photoshop.

Bridge and Photoshop can do many of the same things, just a bit more awkwardly if you are handling large volumes of similar images where you want to do some fairly basic work to. The underlying "engine" in both applications is the same, so results will be the same regardless of which tool you use.

That being said, for any complex editing, the full-blown Photoshop offers you a lot more power and control. Even when I use Lightroom, I often find I will end up reworking a reasonably my "best" images with Photoshop.

You say you currently use both iPhoto and Photoshop Elements. Both of these products are primarily aimed at the casual user. Both Photoshop (I'm referring to the full-blown version here) and Lightroom are professional products and have their strengths and weaknesses. Lightroom is certainly simpler to use than Photoshop as it has a fairly limited feature set from an editing standpoint. I don't think you are going to see any great advantage to the casual user versus the software you already use. If you are looking at moving your work to the next level, I would suggest Photoshop itself, rather than Lighhtroom would be the logical progression. Bridge (which is included in Photoshop) will likely be more than adequate for what you are doing if you want a tool to help manage your images.

When I look at the people I know that are into serious photography, all of them have Photoshop and most do not have Lightroom (and that includes a couple of pros I know that specialize in product and landscape photograph). Most of the wedding photographers (the ones that regulary shoot weddings, as opposed to the ones that only do them occasionally) I've spoken to do do use it, but still use Photoshop for any serious retouching.

[Tuck]

Im feeling an overall trend to purchasing it, and that pleases my need to buy new shiny things

I Shoot both RAW and JPG but have been tending to more jpg as iPhoto to me doesn't work to well with raw. i am something of a professional amateur hobbiest and do want to use raw more which is what got me looking into this in the first place.

I have read that lightroom can be quite slow and memory hungry, but i assume no more so than elements?

Thank you all

[Carl in Louisiana]

I have LR4 on a PC windows 7 64bit 8GB ram and I have no problems with it. You can always download a free 30 day trial full version of LR4 to try and if you don't like it then you have lost nothing. I also have the Nik Complete collection for LR4 and I feel this will be all I need for a long time to come. I am very satisfied with what I have now and it does one heck of a job and I still have lots to learn about both software items (LR4 & Nik software).

[dan marchant]

I have been using PSE to do all my editing - or rather the organiser to catalogue images, ACR to edit RAW and PSE editor to do any pixel editing. I am current test driving LR 4 with a view to switching to that for catalogue and RAW editing and finding that the RAW editing tools are a decent step up from those in PSEs cut down version of ACR. Obviously it is focused on RAW editing (and does a great job of batch editing, using pressets to edit and export) but you will need PSE for pixel editing.