I know there has been dicussions on whats better LR or PS ? BUT for me I have not got a clue, the photos that i have posted have been edited but for resize only, its a very basic program what to do with the photos on my pc, so i just don't bother. So my question is what should i opt for LR or PS knowing i don't i thing about edidting ?
LR or PS
- Thread starter Bounce
- Start date
Prefrosh01
Senior Member
I am in a similar position to you and have been doing a lot of research on this.
I currently have Photoshop Elements, which is very user friendly. If you aren't getting crazy with your post processing, this may be a good place to start.
I just started to shoot RAW and am thinking that I may move to a combination of LR and PSE to handle everything that I am looking to do.
I'm sure the other members on the forum who have a lot more experience in Post will be able to weigh in more.
I currently have Photoshop Elements, which is very user friendly. If you aren't getting crazy with your post processing, this may be a good place to start.
I just started to shoot RAW and am thinking that I may move to a combination of LR and PSE to handle everything that I am looking to do.
I'm sure the other members on the forum who have a lot more experience in Post will be able to weigh in more.
Photoshop will do everything you can ever imagine and then some. Lightroom is more focused on just adjusting an image instead of creating from whole cloth. Lightroom has quite a few tools from Photoshop, but you can't really create so much as edit and tweak in LR.
I have the monthly subscription for PCC and LR. It includes Bridge which allows editing of RAW files in Photoshop. I tend to use Bridge most of the time anymore. And I still have Photoshop Elements on my computer. PSE is good, but PCC, LR, and Bridge offer so much more when it comes to editing options.
I'm going to disagree it's like Mac vs PC. Reason is both will do the same thing, but differently.
Photoshop is an all powerful tool that will do anything and everything, but there is a huge amount of stuff to learn and it probably can't all be learned.
Lightroom is a steroided raw editor - a bit of a simplification. It cannot do everything PS can do, but can do most of the things most people need to do.
The biggest challenge is that they operate so different from each other. Once you start down the road to learning one or the other you're kind of committed because of the frustration in learning how the other operates - but you can learn it.
Photoshop is an all powerful tool that will do anything and everything, but there is a huge amount of stuff to learn and it probably can't all be learned.
Lightroom is a steroided raw editor - a bit of a simplification. It cannot do everything PS can do, but can do most of the things most people need to do.
The biggest challenge is that they operate so different from each other. Once you start down the road to learning one or the other you're kind of committed because of the frustration in learning how the other operates - but you can learn it.
I used PS Elements for awhile. As said above it is very user friendly. I never warmed up to it though. I tried LR and I loved everything about it. Organizer too, it just felt right. I am still far from an expert at LR though. Everybody is different. I kept Elements around for the things LR can't do. Eventually I broke down and got the monthly CC photography plan (LR and PS). I'm not comfortable with full PS of course, but since I'm paying for it, I make an effort to use it as needs come up. LR is my main program.
For your question of PS or LR, I would say as a beginner, maybe the question is LR or Elements or both. Or consider the cc photography plan if it is inexpensive in UK. Adobe is squeezing everybody to the cloud anyway. Just look at their website. Individual software products are buried. "Choose a Plan" hits you in the face.
Before you do anything, I would spend a few days or more watching training videos. Plenty on youtube and on the adobe site. Don't worry about learning at first, just sit back and watch what these programs do and how they work. Look for the intro and getting started type videos. Then download a free trial. 30 days goes fast, so don't try everything at once.
For your question of PS or LR, I would say as a beginner, maybe the question is LR or Elements or both. Or consider the cc photography plan if it is inexpensive in UK. Adobe is squeezing everybody to the cloud anyway. Just look at their website. Individual software products are buried. "Choose a Plan" hits you in the face.
Before you do anything, I would spend a few days or more watching training videos. Plenty on youtube and on the adobe site. Don't worry about learning at first, just sit back and watch what these programs do and how they work. Look for the intro and getting started type videos. Then download a free trial. 30 days goes fast, so don't try everything at once.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I started on Photoshop and only lately moved into Lightroom. I really think Lightroom is a good starting point. It gets you on the right road to start with in organizing all your photos which is where I had to go back to and redo my organization and tagging so I would be able to find something when I needed to.
Yes the engine for processing is the same in Photoshop RAW and Lightroom but Lightroom gives you more control. MoabMan is right in his saying that Lightroom is like Adobe Raw Editor on Steroids. The learning curve is not as hard with LR as it is in PS. My suggestion to anyone trying to learn any of them is to start off with just the basic adjustments like exposure, contrast, sharpness and crop. Then add a little at a time till as you understand what the controls do. There is no way you are going to learn it all in a few days. I have been studying Lightroom and working with it for months now and am still learning new things. I have been working with Photoshop for many years and I still have to google how to do things in it all the time. But I do learn more each time I do research how to items.
Yes the engine for processing is the same in Photoshop RAW and Lightroom but Lightroom gives you more control. MoabMan is right in his saying that Lightroom is like Adobe Raw Editor on Steroids. The learning curve is not as hard with LR as it is in PS. My suggestion to anyone trying to learn any of them is to start off with just the basic adjustments like exposure, contrast, sharpness and crop. Then add a little at a time till as you understand what the controls do. There is no way you are going to learn it all in a few days. I have been studying Lightroom and working with it for months now and am still learning new things. I have been working with Photoshop for many years and I still have to google how to do things in it all the time. But I do learn more each time I do research how to items.
I've had Lightroom for a few years now and never really "got" it. However I decided I was really going to sit down with it and give it a go with an Adobe Photographer CC trial.
Once I got the idea of collections, it's started to "click" for me.
My workflow (for now, until I learn more)
1. Insert card and import photos from each shoot into LR. If there's more than one shoot on a card (i.e. I took pictures of the forest, then I did some portraits a little later), I only import each "session" into a collection that I name appropriately (i.e. "Walk in the woods 11.15")
2. Then I go through and pick and rate my photos in library mode. The picks I pick with the "P" key and then give a 0-5 star rating (press 0-5 while on the image). Photos that are blurry, I don't like, or for whatever reason just want to reject I press "X" on and reject them.
3. Once I'm done, I go up to the Photo menu and select "Delete Rejected Photos" and I remove them from disk. Storage is cheap, but I've probably got every NEF I ever took with my D40 and what good is it doing me? It just makes it more cumbersome to go through my images.
4. I then go back through the images I kept and ensure I like the 0-5 star ratings I gave them. Then switch to "Develop" mode at the top right.
5. I'll then apply the appropriate lens profile to the images. I need to figure out if I can automate this, but I don't know how at the moment.
6. I'll then start playing with white balance, sliders, sharpening, and lens profiles. All of this stuff works best if you shoot RAW - for example, some lens corrections only work on RAW files. To be totally honest, I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to sliders. I guess this is where the subjective part of the art comes into play. I'm sure there's a technically "right" thing to do, but I just wing it to get the look I want.
Repeat for each image you want to process.
At this point, I'm generally done. If there's an image where I need to remove some lint off of a shirt, remove a pimple or an unruly eyebrow, this is where I tell lightroom to "Edit a copy in Photoshop with Lightroom Edits." In PS, the clone stamp tool does wonders. I hear the healing brush does wonders as well, as well as some careful selection and softening / gaussion blur (if you have a subject that has some heavy acne or rough skin.)
I then export the photos from Lightroom to whatever format I want. I have export presets for The Web, Prints, and of course a preset for Nikonians (Limits long side to 1000 Pix!)
I'm sure there's a million other ways to use these tools, but this is the workflow that seems to be working for me.
Oh, backups are important! I use Backblaze - $5/month unlimited continuous cloud backup. As soon as stuff is imported, it's backed up within the hour.
Once I got the idea of collections, it's started to "click" for me.
My workflow (for now, until I learn more)
1. Insert card and import photos from each shoot into LR. If there's more than one shoot on a card (i.e. I took pictures of the forest, then I did some portraits a little later), I only import each "session" into a collection that I name appropriately (i.e. "Walk in the woods 11.15")
2. Then I go through and pick and rate my photos in library mode. The picks I pick with the "P" key and then give a 0-5 star rating (press 0-5 while on the image). Photos that are blurry, I don't like, or for whatever reason just want to reject I press "X" on and reject them.
3. Once I'm done, I go up to the Photo menu and select "Delete Rejected Photos" and I remove them from disk. Storage is cheap, but I've probably got every NEF I ever took with my D40 and what good is it doing me? It just makes it more cumbersome to go through my images.
4. I then go back through the images I kept and ensure I like the 0-5 star ratings I gave them. Then switch to "Develop" mode at the top right.
5. I'll then apply the appropriate lens profile to the images. I need to figure out if I can automate this, but I don't know how at the moment.
6. I'll then start playing with white balance, sliders, sharpening, and lens profiles. All of this stuff works best if you shoot RAW - for example, some lens corrections only work on RAW files. To be totally honest, I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to sliders. I guess this is where the subjective part of the art comes into play. I'm sure there's a technically "right" thing to do, but I just wing it to get the look I want.
- Press "J" on the keyboard - this will show you clipping as the camera does - basically, have you used too much of any one slider to clip out detail.
- I'll change the white balance to match the type of lighting I was shooting with. If I don't like it, I go back to "As Shot."
- I then click "Auto Tone" - If I like it, I'll stick with it. If not, I'll play with the exposure, whites, blacks, highlights, and shadows sliders until I get a look I like. Sometimes I'll zero everything out and start over. It all just depends. I'll generally go -100 to +100 and just stop the mouse where I think it looks good.
What I look for with these sliders is to look at extremely bright and dark parts of the images. For example, if you're editing a photo of a woman and she has a white dress on, I might bring the highlights down because the image as displayed has basically lost detail in the folds or small details of her dress. Same with blacks - you might lose detail in extremely dark areas that you can recover with the sliders. - I then play with the Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation sliders. Be careful with these - these can add a heavily "processed", almost ethereal look to your images if overdone. Sometimes that's what I'm going for, but sometimes not.
- I always look at an image in black and white. Especially if you were pushing the ISO and get some grain you didn't expect, I like the grain + B&W look - but that's just me. Again, there's probably a "technically" right way to play with these sliders, but I just go with what looks good to me.
- I then go down the side and look for the sharpening slider and give it a little sharpening if it looks good. Too much sharpening will make an image look strange. Again, subjective here.
Repeat for each image you want to process.
At this point, I'm generally done. If there's an image where I need to remove some lint off of a shirt, remove a pimple or an unruly eyebrow, this is where I tell lightroom to "Edit a copy in Photoshop with Lightroom Edits." In PS, the clone stamp tool does wonders. I hear the healing brush does wonders as well, as well as some careful selection and softening / gaussion blur (if you have a subject that has some heavy acne or rough skin.)
I then export the photos from Lightroom to whatever format I want. I have export presets for The Web, Prints, and of course a preset for Nikonians (Limits long side to 1000 Pix!)
I'm sure there's a million other ways to use these tools, but this is the workflow that seems to be working for me.
Oh, backups are important! I use Backblaze - $5/month unlimited continuous cloud backup. As soon as stuff is imported, it's backed up within the hour.
Last edited:
lorenbrothers
Senior Member
I really think that folk get way too wrapped up in the whole Adobe thing. Of course PS has all the bells and whistles with all the plug-ins to do almost everything but have your photographs make breakfast for you in the morning. But on the downside is that everybody whispers, "Oh my God ... not another Photoshop masterpiece!"
Personally I'm too cheap to shell out that kind of money and find that using a couple of free editors I can do almost everything one can do in PS and/or LR.
For basic editing of jpeg photographs I just use 'Faststone Image Viewer". Easy to use and fits well with my KISS principles (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
If I want to get more elaborate or want to take the time to fuss with RAW files I use "GIMP" or "RawTherapee" (Not the easiest editor to use but it definitely gets the job done and done well).
Since I like to have my photographs speak for themselves and not some filter ... and I'm a cheap grumpy old coot, I find I don't miss PS or LR at all.
Just my 2 pence worth.
Personally I'm too cheap to shell out that kind of money and find that using a couple of free editors I can do almost everything one can do in PS and/or LR.
For basic editing of jpeg photographs I just use 'Faststone Image Viewer". Easy to use and fits well with my KISS principles (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
If I want to get more elaborate or want to take the time to fuss with RAW files I use "GIMP" or "RawTherapee" (Not the easiest editor to use but it definitely gets the job done and done well).
Since I like to have my photographs speak for themselves and not some filter ... and I'm a cheap grumpy old coot, I find I don't miss PS or LR at all.
Just my 2 pence worth.
Last edited:
Vixen
Senior Member
Just depends on how far you want to take the editing I guess. Basic stuff...there are heaps of free software that will do very basic editing.
Want prize winning show stoppers? then you need to learn to really process....layers and luminosity masks etc. So you need PS
I started with LR but wanted to try stuff it wouldn't do so opted for PS. I have the $10/month sub to Adobe. I wish they would let me swap LR for something I would actually use
Want prize winning show stoppers? then you need to learn to really process....layers and luminosity masks etc. So you need PS
I started with LR but wanted to try stuff it wouldn't do so opted for PS. I have the $10/month sub to Adobe. I wish they would let me swap LR for something I would actually use
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
(my fix of your question)
There is no answer to your question other than to highly recommend that you learn something about editing photos so you learn your needs and wants, and then you can look at software that does that for you.
Are you simply taking photographs for your own enjoyment that you'll share with friends, print occasionally and merely want to make them look better than what you get straight out of camera? If so there are a bunch of free programs out there and I suggest you find one and begin to learn it, and in doing so learn about editing photos. If you're shooting RAW, Nikon's own View NX2, while discontinued, is more than you'll need for that.
Are you wanting to eventually get into some serious editing and more "artistic" stuff? If so then I would recommend the PS/LR CC package, because you'll only have to learn once. Lightroom is all you need for basic to intermediate image editing and you can spend most of your first year paying for the CC subscription and not even open Photoshop and still be ahead of the game financially with LR alone. You can then go another 3 years before you've paid off the PS investment, and you're working on the most up to date stuff all the time. If you ever decide to abandon it you will retain Lightroom as a catalog tool (no editing) and you can use it to invoke whatever editor you decide to migrate to. People will tell you it's confusing, but most of them have started on something else, or are more familiar with the layout of the exact same tools in Adobe Camera RAW. There are great free tutorials to get you started on it, if you decide to go that way.
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Clarification here. Bridge acts as an interface between your catalog and various Adobe products. It is not required in order to edit RAW files in Photoshop as you can open a RAW image from the file menu in Photoshop and it automatically invokes Adobe Camera RAW. In this way it acts like the Organizer in Elements. Lightroom does nearly the exact same thing, except that instead of opening something in PS and having ACR pop up you specify your Camera RAW settings in the Develop module within LR. The only difference is that once you've made your adjustments in ACR, LR stores them in the catalog with a link to the RAW image, where Bridge/ACR creates a sidecar (.xmp) file with the settings (something LR can also do). With the Bridge solution you must make sure that the RAW and XMP files are moved in pairs or you will lose your settings. With Lightroom you don't have to worry about lost sidecar files as long as you do all your file moves within Lightroom (doing it outside will cause the same disconnect). You can recover from both, and if you're prone to moving files around then it's easier to relocate 1000 XMP files than it is to reconnect 1000 catalog images (unless you're willing to move the RAW files back to the original location and do it again).
Thanks for the clarification, Jake. I have PSE 10 on this computer, but its options for editing RAW files are minimal compared with Bridge. Doing a quick look, I see that RAW files can also be opened by PCC. It's something I haven't done before though. Not surprised I learned something new from you. Miss your teaching, Jake!
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Again, to be clear, Bridge does not have any editing function, it simply opens the image in Photoshop. Photoshop invokes ACR and looks for a sidecar file when asked to open a RAW file. The difference you're seeing is due to Elements having a stripped down version of ACR (only the Basic, Detail and Calibration sections with none of the radial graduated filters or spot healing). The sections they share are exactly the same, except Calibration has its sliders removed. If Elements is sufficient for you "Photoshopping" you can overcome this by using Lightroom as your front end, which gives you full ACR, and then use Elements to do whatever layering and other edits you need. For a lot of photographers the functionality of those two products would cover 95% of what they would do with LR and PS.
Last edited:
SkvLTD
Senior Member
So how is my analogy different? Haha. Obviously from the consumer perspective, not the inner-workings.
LR has terrible organizing and "exporting" schematic going on when all of that is completely unnecessary, and that's what bugs me the most about it. Then the fact that all the image setting sliders are arranged in a completely different manner from ACR which makes perfect sense.
PC and Mac will both do all of the same things, but differently. LR does not have all of the capability of PS concerning editing. LR is like a tablet (very useful and does most things many people need to do) compared to a computer.
Last edited:
I haven't had a chance to read the responses. IMO it boils down to how much time you're willing to commit to learning either system. And how much you plan to grow with it. If your time is limited I think LR is a better option. I think LR is a very capable program and can suit most photographer's needs. I believe PS takes a little more effort but gives you the most room for growth. Just my 2 cents.
BackdoorArts
Senior Member
Every time I see this it makes me nuts, because ACR and LR Develop are so darn close it's not even funny. The only thing really different is that you have sections instead of tabs. They're largely in the same order too...
ACR: Basic, Curves, Detail, HSL/Grayscale, Split Toning, Lens Correction, Effects, Camera Calibration
LR: Basic, Curves, HSL/Grayscale, Split Toning, Detail, Lens Correction, Effects, Camera Calibration
...with presets available in the opposite panel so you can actually see what changes with each preset. Don't like scrolling down in LR? Right-click in the right panel and activate "Solo Mode" which will show only the active section and collapse the others.
The fact that you think it is a terrible organizer puts you in an extremely small minority. You may have a preference for something else, but to cast it as "terrible" only means you've spent very little time with it. Lightroom is far more than just an editor and therefore contains functions that go well beyond those of an editor. It's an image management system, which makes things like the organizer and export functions completely necessary, and the fact that I can export directly to everything from Flickr and Facebook to my Wordpress site with no other work necessary means that it's an incredible time saver. All of it makes perfect sense.