Photoshop CS2/CS3 vs LightRoom

[MikeC]

Time for me to get one of these.......which one?!?!?

I mainly shoot in JPEG but may start in RAW which one of these would be better for me?
Also dose Lightroom have effect settings (blur efects, crop, and vignette) or is just for touch-ups and repairing?

[NoLight]

CS3 then CS2 from the above selections. But CS3 would be my pick...

[Dokk]

First thing you should remember is that Lightroom was not even conceived of as a replacement for any version of CS. I use lightroom to speed things along, A LOT. Download, sort, do color and light balance adjustments, renaming and cropping in Lightroom then, dump the picture to Photoshop of whatever editor you prefer and do bit level adjustments like skin smoothing, repairing, blur, vignette and the rest there. From there, save the image and it comes back to Lightroom where you can export the file to whatever size and format you want and you're done. In some cases, Lightroom has saved me hours between download and finished photo delivered to my client. Since Lightroom is non-destructive, I can always go back to my camera original and take a different direction with an image if I want. Lightroom works best for RAW images but will work on other formats and it does have some effects (mostly color and light balance) called presets. It's a rather powerful program and, when used with PS gives you an extreme advantage.

[Dwight]

If you mainly want to speed up your workflow and be able to do significant, but not comprehensive, image editing I think Lightroom is the way to go.

If you really want to work and control an image it is Photoshop. And the new Bridge in PS CS3 is a pretty good, although not Lightroom good.

As Mike noted they work very well as a team.

[jeffkohn]

Lightroom's appeal seems to be for those who crank out lots of product with minimal or no post-processing. But aside from adjusting RAW parameters the editing capabilities are extremely limited.

IMHO if you're going to end up opening the image in PS anyway, Lightroom doesn't really bring anything to the table except for a snazzy UI that's all about style over substance. It also has half-baked printing, slide-show, and web gallery modules, but if you really need this functionality you can find separate tools that will a better job.

[Dwight]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

Lightroom's appeal seems to be for those who crank out lots of product with minimal or no post-processing. But aside from adjusting RAW parameters the editing capabilities are extremely limited.

IMHO if you're going to end up opening the image in PS anyway, Lightroom doesn't really bring anything to the table except for a snazzy UI that's all about style over substance. It also has half-baked printing, slide-show, and web gallery modules, but if you really need this functionality you can find separate tools that will a better job.

If you are talking only about editing only I would tend to agree.

But if you take a large amount of images, over time, the cataloging feature alone makes Lightroom a worthwhile investment and a great complement to Photoshop. I never use Bridge anymore to import, catalog, keyword, rate, etc. my images. I can do it much more effectively in Lightroom in about 1/4 the time. And when I get finished importing all my images into Lightroom, probably another month or so because I haven't really devoted the time to it, I will have very nice search functionality that will greatly ease my finding the image I want. There are 3rd party apps that also do a great job for this functionality but I like the look and feel similarities to Photoshop a lot more and the price for Lightroom is generally lower.

I would certainly not print from Lightroom at this point in time. The slideshow and web functions aren't great, but they come with the package and if you find them adequate they are right there in one common app.

[MikeC]

Ahh ok.......Thanks for all the info guys.

Like I thought Lightroom is not as capable as PS CS2/3 as for image editing or effects. I maight have to get both like Dwight mention for a double team editing.

[dlbdata]

If you are a serious post processing user, Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom are needed. Bridge is fine but I just returned from Alaska with over 6000 photos to work through. Lightroom has made the task painless. I have been a photoshop user for eons and now that lightroom has made the market, photoshop is getting less use.
David

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by MikeC

Ahh ok.......Thanks for all the info guys.

Like I thought Lightroom is not as capable as PS CS2/3 as for image editing or effects. I maight have to get both like Dwight mention for a double team editing.

It really depends on your shooting and post-processing style. I've heard of great things about PS CS3, especially improvements on Bridge. Photoshop is a very powerful too and I respect it. I played around with CS2 and Bridge and it's awesome. But it was just TOO much for me (price & tools). I don't replace backgrounds, clone in/out anything, etc... Lightroom had great batch/RAW processing, levels adjustments, vignette, sharpening/noise reduction, dust removal, leveling tool, etc... was the best fit.

[andiesmith]

I use lightroom for my processing and then use CS2 (bout to upgrade) for the final touches

[RandySmith]

I just had a little experience regarding Lightroom to share with you all and I'm not 100% sure if this was default settings or not ....

I uploaded some prints after editing them in lightroom and although my monitor is calibrated and "other" prints have turned out okay from Costco, some recent prints were underexposed by 1/2 to 1 stop. After some "panic" I found that when I saved the photos, they were saved with Adobe RGB profile. I noticed a little shift in skin-tones as well. I've resaved the images using sRGB and have resubmitted for printing. I'll find out this afternoon whether or not that makes a difference.

Edit: 3:45pm ... Just picked up some prints, and there "is" a noticeable difference in sRGB and RGB prints .... I know this has been discussed in length, but guess I need to do some more studying....

[KdLaneJr]

Lightroom may whet your appetite for CS3 for a while but you really need to have a copy of CS3. No point in picking up CS2 at this point in time.

The only caveat here is..., if you don't plan on putting in the time to learn CS3, then Lightroom is probably a good place to start.

Amazon is still selling Lightroom for ~$199.00 with free shipping available.

[PhantomEWO]

For me I have both LR and CS3. I now don't use LR unless I do a wedding with lots of similar lighting and exposure. Great for proof setup and mass production. When I decide to go final I always use PS CS3 for the work. For me CS3 is great, LR has it's place but not needed unless you you have lots and lots of pics to process quickly. Best of luck.

[picman]

I just recently heard it put this way - "PS3 is a very good plug-in for Lightroom!"

[AndrewCCM]

I use Lightroom and CS3. Lightroom doesn't play nice on large collections after awhile of working in it (for me at least). I am getting the OUT OF MEMORY blank Gray screen that is well talked about on the Adobe forum. Still feels a little sluggish to me, but I am dealing with it. I just have to restart it every half hour or so to keep it going when editing a wedding.