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Lightroom or Photoshop?

PLM

PLM

I know there's something in the wake of your smile
Joined
Jun 28, 2014
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Hi girls,

I know there has been talk about it, but I would like some up-to-date info about the pro's and cons between Lightroom (and of course shooting my photos in RAW then) and Photoshop.

Last year I took a course photography and she explained the differences. I knew them allready and read alot about it on the net.
Right now I use Photoshop for working on my pictures, I rework them myself or with actions, it depends. I printed allready in albums and was pleased with the result.
So now my question is: what is the difference on reworking pictures in Photoshop or Lightroom? Are the results that different or the working easier on any of them?

I also read here the library part of Lightroom is great for the organizing and tagging of the pictures. I use Picasa right now and have been happy with it. But I know the tags I made there are not to be found if I should ever use another program. Since Picasa is free, it depends on Google how long I can work with it...

Thank you for your insights girls! :flirty
 
Lightroom combines the functions of PS, ACR, and Bridge into one program. I use it for 95% my editing. For images that need extensive cloning, or filters such as Portraiture, etc. I use PS. Some of the filters you can purchase to use within LR instead of PS, but I feel like i have more control in PS so do it there.

The results between the two approaches isn't different, but the methodology, or path to get from point A to point B is different. One isn't better than the other, but it depends on how you want to approach your workflow. I like that for the vast majority of my photos I can sort, tag, edit, and export all in one fell swoop through LR.

I've been using LR since LR one and started using it as soon as I started shooting RAW. I love the sync function, the filmstrip...well pretty much everything about it. I find working RAW files through PS to be cumbersome and slow.http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
 
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If you are tagging your jpg (or even tifs, psd) images in picassa, those tags should be embedded in the files and could be read in another program. I don't really know much about the raw file formats.
 
mollyc said:
I've been using LR since LR one and started using it as soon as I started shooting RAW. I love the sync function, the filmstrip...well pretty much everything about it. I find working RAW files through PS to be cumbersome and slow.http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
Click to expand...

What do you mean with sync function and filmstrip? Maybe a stupid question...
And could it be Ps is slow on working on RAW pictures because of the seize of the picture?
 
elseepe said:
If you are tagging your jpg (or even tifs, psd) images in picassa, those tags should be embedded in the files and could be read in another program. I don't really know much about the raw file formats.
Click to expand...

You mean the tags you place on the right? Like in my example?
aH660E_kQVouG_98Dzqo_Ddj4q0V6cYCr6A8Dau8dRA=w1024-h468-no

I sometimes noticed from a saved picture from the net, it also came with text in the grey space under the picture. So I was wondering if the things placed there would also show up in another program?
How are you sure the tags from Picasa would come along anywhere else? I always read it wouldn't, so I'm kind of hoping you have tested it?
 
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In LR, with the sync button you can edit one photo and then select a bunch of others and sync them all to the same settings. You can do this in ACR but it isn't as effective, IMO.

And the filmstrip shows all photos in a folder at the bottom of your screen....also great when syncing as you can see them all change at once.
 
Oh yes, that sounds like timesaving!
 
It has been a while since I tested it, but yes the tags on the right. This will NOT work for png files. You can do a quick test if you look at the file properties for one of your jpg, tiff, psd images from within windows explorer, you should be able to see your tags that you applied in picassa. These can be read by lightroom as well.
 
You are right, I checked in the properties and saw the tags on the jpg files but not on the png. Such a shame it doesn't take along the png, then I would not have to worry about that anymore.
You sound like someone who knows Picasa very well! Thank you and if you have any tips, they are welcome too! I am quite used to Picasa too, but there are always little ricks that might be helpful, you never know.
 
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I've done some significant editing to JPGs in Lightroom. You don't *have* to shoot in RAW to use Lightroom, it's just that you can do more with RAW images. I don't want to talk anyone out of shooting in RAW ;) but please don't think that any JPGs you already have aren't worth playing with in Lightroom!
 
You have far more options editing RAW in LR than you do a jpg. But no, you do not have to shoot RAW to use LR. But honestly, if you have the space for the files, why wouldn't you?

I have both LR and PS and edit almost exclusively in LR. It's so much quicker for me. I have a number of presets that I use (some purchased and some of my own) which makes editing a little bit quicker, but the sync tool is also exceptionally helpful in speeding things up.
 
LR is amazing - time consuming and a great organizer. The editing features and capabilities for jpegs are plentiful!
 
PLM said:
You sound like someone who knows Picasa very well! Thank you and if you have any tips, they are welcome too! I am quite used to Picasa too, but there are always little ricks that might be helpful, you never know.
Click to expand...

I used Picasa a lot for a while, what finally frustrated me enough to look at other options was the limitations with search -- as good as they are, there is no "wildcard" type of search. So, let's say I want to search for filenames that contain "frame", we're good as long as the name is "something frame", "something-frame", or "something_frame", but if the name is "somethingframe", Picasa won't find it. I currently have a bunch of stuff tagged in ACDSee on an EHD, but I'm mostly just using my windows explorer to search my more current stuff on my internal drive at the moment. I'm considering giving Lightroom a try with my digi stash now that it imports png files.

There are some cool things that might sound scary because they are associated with somethat labeled experimental. But you can set up something like a smart album to create albums based on a tag (the tag has to be all lowercase with no spaces).
 
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Love the ability to sync a bunch of photos with the same edit settings or presets applied in LR - total time saver! If there is a way to do this in PS, never figured it out. Plus, your print options within LR outstrip PS, my belief.
 
While we are talking LR - I am totally new to it, and have no clue where to get good free presets - any ideas?! I have always just used PS, and I love the Pioneer Woman actions - pretty much all I use - even over the Totally Rad ones I have, because hers always seem to do what I need with no extra tweeking...I am not a tweeker (not to be confused with a twerker!). I like to hit a button and see the picture change to a better pic and leave it - never mess with the layers/levels,etc... So, along those lines - any tips and tricks or presets you LOVE?! I also need to really dig into some tutorials, so if you know of any great ones I could check out that would help too! I can hardly stand the ones on Creative Cloud - not sure why, but they bore me.
 
I always use LR for my basic editing and then get my pictures into PS for finetuning. I love both programs a lot and couldn´t imagine a life without these two together. :)
 
Amanda, I have bought a lot of presets but figured out, that they mostly don´t work for me for some reason. The ones I really liked are the vsco packages, but the again I use them rarely.
 
Is there a place on the net to learn about LR or is it best to go on youtube you think?
 
I also use LR for all my editing and also for printing... it's a huge time saver for my weekly photo printing! I also edit my jpg cell phone pics and get better results in LR than I do in PS... the only time I use PS is for adding fonts or pngs or if I want to add texture to my photos and saving them for web... printing through LR shaved off hours from my workflow... totally worth having both
 
It's true that the printing options in CS5 always have kind of disappointed me.
I started with Paint Shop Pro and found the possibilities and working itself in the printing section much better.
 
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