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01/21/2008 02:19:11 PM · #1 |
| I'm about to buy cs3, and they're offering a bundle with lightroom. Is it worth the extra money? Does it give me anything that my free download of Rawshooters doesn't? (other than the fact that rawshooters crashes half the time for me...) |
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01/21/2008 02:30:08 PM · #2 |
I haven't got it myself unfortunately but we had a demo at our local photo club. Its really nice for organizing your photos and tt integrates wells with CS3 too. It definitely helps streamline your workflow.
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01/21/2008 02:40:10 PM · #3 |
If you shoot RAW, I think either Aperture or Lightroom will become an essential part of your workflow. If gone several years now with my RAW processing separate from editing in photoshop and have a decent manual workflow that works fine. I recently downloaded the Lightroom trial and was shocked at how quickly I could move handle the output from a portrait session. Not only is my workflow faster, but I'm convinced that my initial adjustments to the raw image are much better as well.
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01/21/2008 02:41:15 PM · #4 |
I was a very satisfied customer using RawShooter Premium. When Lightroom came out, I was ecstatic. The quality of the images I get out of LR is much better than what I was getting out of RSP. Having said that, as a paying RSP customer I got Lightroom for free. So it's a little harder for me to say "is it worth the money". But as a wedding photographer, today I can say that I would definitely buy it. If you're not doing photography to earn a living, then maybe the added cost isn't justifiable. Photoshop CS3 comes with ACR which is much the same "engine" as Lightroom. So you can accomplish everything you need to using CS3. But I do feel that Lightroom will give you an "efficiency advantage" when processing a LOT of files.
Message edited by author 2008-01-21 14:41:36.
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01/21/2008 02:55:21 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by dwterry:
Photoshop CS3 comes with ACR which is much the same "engine" as Lightroom. So you can accomplish everything you need to using CS3. But I do feel that Lightroom will give you an "efficiency advantage" when processing a LOT of files. |
As a non-wedding shooter I would say that lightroom has a significant efficiency advantage when processing even just a few files compared to PS+ACR. I love it, and for what I do I would say it is more essential to me than photoshop.
Is it better than RawShooter? I am afraid I have no idea, and given that RawShooter appears to no longer exist, this bundle may be ideal.
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01/21/2008 03:06:41 PM · #6 |
| Is LightRoom worth the money? Yes. |
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01/21/2008 03:13:33 PM · #7 |
Lightroom conceivably could be chosen as your primary editing software without CS3. For one thing it is less expensive. Lightroom is very powerful and adaptable, not only as a RAW converter, for which it was originally designed, but also for many other picture formats. Some use it as such. Your use w/ RAW vs jpeg may be a contributing factor. Lightroom can provide state of the art, aggressive control options for RAW. It can also be optimized for producing web size files most easily.
CS3 w/Bridge also provides nearly the same controls for RAW conversion and I would describe CS3/Bridge as possibly less immediate, softer response and w/more refined control and possibly capable of a bit different output especially for traditional printmakers.
I would say if your in the market for CS3, and Adobe is offering a deal w/ a Lightroom package - might be a good time to buy both. However, the offer makes me smell, inventory reduction. A totally new upgrade for both or either program, may be in the offing. Probably a good time to buy both, you will get a good price now, and you will be eligible in the future to upgrade for either at a reduced rate. |
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01/22/2008 07:14:33 AM · #8 |
In my eyes, Lightroom is more essential for me since I don't shoot as a wedding photographer. While I'm not trying to downplay it's effectiveness for such a task, the idea that I mainly shoot landscapes means that I may get 20 - 30 good shots per shooting session. If you've every tried to categorize such sessions by directory, you'll soon find yourself looking for "that really great shot I took last month of the big tree in that park where the light was to the left" and find you have 60 shots of that tree in 60 different folders for each day you've been in that park.
Lightroom eliminates this for me as I can store photos in folders by date, create catalogs (groups of images from any folder) for different subjects and keyword by location, genre and scene. This means that I can find any photos of that park with a few clicks, any photos of that park with a tree in them in just a couple more clicks and I can narrow it down to last month with a few more clicks. This makes it invaluable for me. What used to take a lot of guessing as to what date I took the shot and then opening each folder and looking for the image, I can now just go straight to it.
I can't say much for the print / web module. I don't usually print my own images (save for family snapshots) and the web module looks like it holds promise though I've never used it. Scott Kelby offers an excellent Lightroom book which really helps to unlock some of the power.
As an added bonus, for simple color corrections or messing with exposure, highlights / shadows, I find I no longer even need to go to Photoshop. Plus, the editing is non destructive and my files take up less space as I'm not creating a .psd for every file.
Overall, I'm really happy with it. Best $199 (bought during the introductory offer) I've spent for editing software. I'd say it's even more important to me that Photoshop. |
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01/22/2008 07:17:48 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by undieyatch:
However, the offer makes me smell, inventory reduction. A totally new upgrade for both or either program, may be in the offing. Probably a good time to buy both, you will get a good price now, and you will be eligible in the future to upgrade for either at a reduced rate. |
I have a feeling that an upgrade to Lightroom may not be far off. They've done great work with the incremental upgrades to fix a lot of small issues, but I do think it's about time for a full version upgrade.
Hopefully, it won't be too expensive for us current users... |
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01/22/2008 07:18:40 AM · #10 |
Originally posted by mjwood0:
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Lightroom eliminates this for me as I can store photos in folders by date, create catalogs (groups of images from any folder) for different subjects and keyword by location, genre and scene. This means that I can find any photos of that park with a few clicks, any photos of that park with a tree in them in just a couple more clicks and I can narrow it down to last month with a few more clicks. This makes it invaluable for me. What used to take a lot of guessing as to what date I took the shot and then opening each folder and looking for the image, I can now just go straight to it.
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probably a really stupid question, but can you catalogue JPegs using Lightroom, or is it exclusively for RAW files? |
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01/22/2008 07:27:17 AM · #11 |
Originally posted by SaraR:
probably a really stupid question, but can you catalogue JPegs using Lightroom, or is it exclusively for RAW files? |
Lightroom does both. It'll even let you process the jpeg the same way you would process a raw file. Of course, you are limited in how much you can "push" the jpeg since it doesn't have as much data in it.
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01/22/2008 07:30:55 AM · #12 |
Just a reminder that a 30-day trial of Lightroom is available.
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01/22/2008 10:59:22 AM · #13 |
Lightroom has many great features, and you can COPY/PASTE settings of one photo to any number of thumbnails selected. It's great for quickly processing many photos to acceptable/presentable standards for your audience. It makes categorizing, resizing, easy. It can save Hard Drive space, too. That's done by only saving the settings/changes applied. When the file is exported, only then does it actually apply your settings/adjustments.
For some things Adobe Photoshop is still the best to use. The only weakness I found was it can't load an ICC Printer Profile for viewing as it would look like in print. I don't think it can do adjustment layers or as much with composite layers as CS3.
I think Adobe will be adding more of the excellent Macromedia technology it bought, in later releases. CS3, has the .swf file zoomming feature.
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