Photoshop vs. Lightroom, am I missing anything?

I have become pretty good with Photoshop CC for post processing. I mainly use Adobe Camera Raw and then open in Photoshop but rarely do anything in Photoshop. My question is, I know nothing about Lightroom, am I missing something? Doesn't Lightroom use the same ACR and would I gain anything from learning Lightroom?

Lightroom IS ACR - at least the Develop module is - but with a different layout (stacked instead of tabbed). What you gain with LR is the organizational and publishing pieces that PS doesn't give you. This article that talks about PS alternatives also talks a lot about what LR gives you that PS doesn't have. You could use Bridge, but LR is so much more.

Just tacking on, I consider Lightroom to be bookends for Photoshop. On the one end I use it to import, tag, rate and filter all my images before processing them, which involves basic edits in Lightroom ala ACR and then editing in Photoshop (where I invoke other filters like Nik, Topaz and onOne). When I'm done with my edits (the back end), I'll use the Develop module in LR to do final tweaks, if necessary, the same way you might invoke ACR as a smart filter in Ps late in the editing. I then use it to Export to Facebook, Flickr and other places, either directly from Lightroom or to a flat file that I will then do final sharpening on in Photoshop. I'll keep collections of sized exports from Ps for prints, and I manage my current and prior year catalogs, which can concurrently work with images both on my computer and on external hard drives (if I keep Smart Previews I can even export and edit images in LR that I do not have immediate access to).

You don't need both, but my take is that the whole (LR+PS) is greater than the sum of the parts, and if you're on PS CC then you're foolish not to take advantage of LR.

Thanks Jake, think I'll learn Lightroom. You are right, it's there with the subscription so why not.

I do most of my editing in Lightroom. I wish Lightroom had a little more flexibility in the way you import and store files, but it is still a good organizational and importing tool. I use Photoshop when I have a difficult editing situation that I can't fix in Lightroom. The shake reduction in Photoshop, for instance, has helped me more than once. But I can process a whole day's shooting at times without ever going into Photoshop.

Woodyg3 said:

I wish Lightroom had a little more flexibility in the way you import and store files, but it is still a good organizational and importing tool.

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Just curious, what are you looking to do that you can't? LR is pretty darn flexible in the way you can import, either directly from the card or from directories you've already imported to, so I suspect you can do a lot of things. Granted, you cannot import to multiple locations from a single source outside of by date, but once imported it's extremely easy to reorganize from the Added By Previous Import listing in the Catalog.

If LR had the magnetic lasso tool and layer masks to allow you to do composite photos, I'd never open PS ever again. As it stands, I use PS so seldom that I almost have to watch tutorials and read up on it to re-learn how to use it... and even then only to a basic level of proficiency. The LR interface just works better for the way my brain functions. PS isn't very intuitive for me, and I find it to be cumbersome and confusing. Granted, if I used it more often, it would probably become second nature, but I was able to "hit the ground running" with LR simply because its interface is more logically laid out.

BackdoorHippie said:

Just curious, what are you looking to do that you can't? LR is pretty darn flexible in the way you can import, either directly from the card or from directories you've already imported to, so I suspect you can do a lot of things. Granted, you cannot import to multiple locations from a single source outside of by date, but once imported it's extremely easy to reorganize from the Added By Previous Import listing in the Catalog.

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It's really not so much the importing itself, although the interface is kind of clunky and slow, IMO. I probably should have said file and folder handling. I'd like to be able to sort folders by date, rename folders from within Lightroom, or move a folder in or out of another folder within Lightroom. It drives me crazy that if you move or rename a file or folder, Lightroom isn't smart enough to find it on it's own and you have to locate the file for it once it's moved.

All in all, though, I have yet to find anything better than Lightroom, and the Lightroom/Photoshop bundle for $10 a month is the best deal out there, as far as I'm concerned.

Woodyg3 said:

It's really not so much the importing itself, although the interface is kind of clunky and slow, IMO. I probably should have said file and folder handling. I'd like to be able to sort folders by date, rename folders from within Lightroom, or move a folder in or out of another folder within Lightroom. It drives me crazy that if you move or rename a file or folder, Lightroom isn't smart enough to find it on it's own and you have to locate the file for it once it's moved.

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You can't sort them differently, but you can certainly do the rest. Right click on the folder and you can rename. Drag and drop and you can move as long as you make the folder you're moving it to known to the catalog first. And if you move it on the outside you can certainly point it to the right folder again. To assume it could find things on it's own is a little much, but if you right click on the folder and choose Update Folder Location you can certainly point it to the new spot and keep everything. Not magic, but once you know how to work with it it's no biggee.

BackdoorHippie said:

You can't sort them differently, but you can certainly do the rest. Right click on the folder and you can rename. Drag and drop and you can move as long as you make the folder you're moving it to known to the catalog first. And if you move it on the outside you can certainly point it to the right folder again. To assume it could find things on it's own is a little much, but if you right click on the folder and choose Update Folder Location you can certainly point it to the new spot and keep everything. Not magic, but once you know how to work with it it's no biggee.

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Thanks for those tips, Jake.

@BackdoorHippie.....how can I get Nik Tools to install on BOTH LR & PS at the same time? Having problems with that. Thanks Jake.

How do you get Nikon .NEF files to open in PS?? Do I need another application to do this? What is this ACR thingy??

sonicbuffalo said:

@BackdoorHippie.....how can I get Nik Tools to install on BOTH LR & PS at the same time? Having problems with that. Thanks Jake.

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You just run it. Make sure you have the latest version (download the trial software - if you have a license it recognizes it).

fsbcyp said:

How do you get Nikon .NEF files to open in PS?? Do I need another application to do this? What is this ACR thingy??

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Have you tried it? ACR is a part of PS and it will invoke it first.

fsbcyp said:

How do you get Nikon .NEF files to open in PS?? Do I need another application to do this? What is this ACR thingy??

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Associate the .NEF file-type with Photoshop and then, when you open a .NEF file, it will automatically open in ACR (properly known as Adobe Camera RAW) or you can open files in ACR by using the "Open in Adobe Camera RAW" function in Adobe Bridge.

If you're totally unaware of what ACR is and what it does I'd tell you, in short, Adobe Camera RAW is a photo editor that works in conjunction with Photoshop.

There's a really good tutorial on using ACR here called, Why ACR is the Only Tool You Need. It's probably more information than you want, but there you go.
....

Horoscope Fish said:

Associate the .NEF file-type with Photoshop and then, when you open a .NEF file, it will automatically open in ACR (properly known as Adobe Camera RAW) or you can open files in ACR by using the "Open in Adobe Camera RAW" function in Adobe Bridge.

If you're totally unaware of what ACR is and what it does I'd tell you, in short, Adobe Camera RAW is a photo editor that works in conjunction with Photoshop.

There's a really good tutorial on using ACR here called, Why ACR is the Only Tool You Need. It's probably more information than you want, but there you go.
....

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Thanks for the replies, since poting, I did some further research and it appears that you need a particular version of ACR for the camera you are using. Unfortunately for my D3200 I also need PS6. I have PS5. Oh well, i'll continue with LR and export. I am very new to PS so I guess is wont matter much.

Thanks again.

You could use the Adobe DNG converter to open the D3200 raw files in PS CS5.

You just convert them to DNG and then open the DNG with PS(Just don't delete the original or embed it, You never know if you want the original RAW back ).

HTH