Lightroom 4

Lightroom 5 is just about to be released, and has has some great new functions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Uig0j3nb3uc

In my opinion Lightroom is not a stand alone proramme, for editing images. Though you can certainly edit images, with it. It's greatest asset is for catalogueing your image collection. In real terms its a glorified camera raw. It offers a saving over Photoshop, with will attract many. But for me photoshop, would still be my choice.

Hello Maria,
It depends what kind of Processing you are looking to do.

Although Lightroom doesn't have 'Layers' (something I use quite often), most other useful processing available in Photoshop is also in Lightroom.
Lightroom is very intuitive once you get used to it, plus slideshows, books and even your website can be produced using Lightroom!

Lightroom was produced specifically for photographers whereas Photoshop is a photography/graphic designer program and as such has many features you will probably never use.

An alternative would be 'Photoshop Elements' a 'Stripped down' version solely for photographers ....and a LOT cheaper!

Hi Maria,

I pretty much agree with Michael.

I have Lightroom and Elements 9 and they compliment each other very well. I have access to photoshop but find I never need to use it.

Most of my image manipulation is done with Lightroom, using elements to add the final touches.

Regards

George

I think I'd wait for lightroom 5 to be released, with the new cloning brush being included I think you won't need Photoshop.
At the moment I use just Lightroom 4 and don't miss photoshop, although it does take time to remove distracting twigs etc. from photos with the spot removal tool, it can be done.

Lightroom is undoubtedly a good tool, but I would start off with Photoshop Elements (which suits the vast majority of amateur photographers). Once you are familiar with the basics of image editing in that, I would look at Lightroom as well.
Photoshop Elements has better image editing facilities.
Lightroom has better catalogueing facilities.
If you have both, you can access PSE from within LR.

IMO Lightroom is the program to start off with as it's designed for photographers rather than just being a graphics editing program like photoshop, etc.

Because of this Lightroom includes all the cataloguing, GPS tagging, web publishing, photobook publishing features very valuable to photographers.

You'll find that Lightroom will cater for 90% of your editing needs and something like photoshop( versions off ) will only be needed fro those extra tweaks. As said you can assign photoshop or any other program as an external editor from within lightroom.

Apart from cleaning up 35mm neg scans, which I use a bitmap editor for, I use Lightroom and Nik software plugins for 100% of my photo editing and managing.

So I would recommend getting Lightroom first if you can't stretch to both and set that up as your core application for photography

One o the great things about lightroom si that it works upon a filmstrip ethos so you can multiple select images and apply the same edits to all of them at once. This saves a whole lot of time when you come back from a shoot with multiple variations of the same location/scene and you want to give them some processing in order to then decide which one's you are goign to spend time editing further.

All editing in lightroom is non destructive too



Lightroom 5 has just been released in an early beta format. But it could be months if not a year away before the final version is out.

Hi Maria I don't use anyting but Lightroom . It depends on whatb you want to doe with your images, I find Lightroom easier than photoshop.
Derek

Photoshop Elements is well worth considering and probably a much better bet than the full blown Photoshop.

I'll second that. It's simple to use, responsive and very functional.

Another vote for Lightroom. I have Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Elements (11 I think) and I rarely, if ever, use them.

If you just want to edit/correct your images, rather than create a piece of art, I doubt that you'd justify the expense of the full blown Photoshop.