Lightroom 4

I vote for Lightroom. When I started trying out different software it was the one I found easiest to learn. Also I like it being non-destructive.

Thanks everyone,i appreciate all your feedback and your precious time.

How do you use both at the same time? Is three a way of matching the catalogues?

Thank you Alan, i'm going to try the free trial

I was persuaded by a Canon waving friend to try LR4 a year ago. I didn't hesitate to buy it once the trial was up - it really is the best piece of photo related software I've used. Prior, I was using Elements; I still have it, but very rarely use it now.

My vote is for Elements I have been curious about Lightroom for a while now so after reading this thread I decided to download the 30 day trial last night, and now after giving it a look over this morning I have already uninstalled it, I was in a way hoping to be impressed with it but I wasn't, and to be honest I am not sure what I was expecting, but from what I could tell it does nothing that can't be done in Elements/ACR. Photobooks, calendars etc. etc. can all be done in Elements, adding picture to a map can be done (although...why?:lol Cataloguing is easy in elements, also a few have mentioned that Lightroom is Non-destructive ! I don't understand this point. In Lightroom once you have done making your adjustments you press a button called "Export" this creates a copy leaving original file untouched ie Non-destructive. Surely all they have done is replace the words "Save As" with the word "export". In Elements organiser I can duplicate image, in ACR I can open copy, in the editor I can "save as" (aka export) and many other ways to leave original file intact, or am I mistaken some how?. I am not knocking Lightroom, maybe I should have tried it out for longer but for me Elements gets my vote.

Jim

I don't think you've give LR enough time to comment really !!!

I couldn't agree more with Jim on this, no software is destructive, just users chose to use it destructively. I have photoshop CS6, I never save any changes to the RAW but always create a separate PSD file for mods, I'd want to keep any layers anyway. If I didn't have CS6 I'd pick elements over lightroom, I grew up with MS-DOS and like to know where everything is in terms of disks and folders (i.e. catalogue myself), I'm probably just getting old but can't seem to get on with modern software that hides disks/folders etc from the user.

Yeah, I am sure you are right and maybe some day I will give it another look but this morning nothing about it grabbed my attention


Jim.

p.s. also watched 5 mins of eastenders once and thought that was tosh, but I notice it's still on tv, so guess I could be wrong there also

Recently got Lightroom 4 and just need to spend some time getting to grips with it. Been using Elements and Topaz plugins for quite a while so expecting a bit of a change. I don't do "workflows" (I think this really is aimed at the pro shooter type) and prefer to just browse images and select ones for processing on an individual basis, which is why I probably stuck with Elements for so long.
At least my Topaz plugins are compatible with LR4 (or I can standalone if necessary).

Jim-w - No! You are not wrong about Eastenders!

In terms od destructive or not, the way it is usually used is in relation to how an image is processed.

For example, if we just take a file in Photoshop and apply various effects one after the other, then this is a destructive process where we are processing at every stage something already processed. So, we may go Levels>Resize>Sharpen>Save as and this is a destructive process. It doesn't matter for just a few steps likie this and is simple and quick. I do it all the time.

If we want a non-destructive process though, we use layers. We apply any effects to a layer and although we have a preview, nothing is done with the original information until we save, then it's all applied at once. It's non-destructive because we can "make" changes without changing the original, until we have everything ready to save. This is the way to go if many effects are being applied, adjusted, removed, etc. Before saving I would flatten an image made in this way, some might opt to save as a Photoshop file and keep the layers so further adjustments can be made at any time.

Have you tried? If you had, you'd know that it can't be done.

Repeat after me . . . "RAW image files cannot be modified".

There is no RAW processing software that I know of that has the ability to edit RAW files directly. Instead, they store your edits in a sidecar file or some other repository where your changes are stored. The RAW file, be it .PEF, .DNG, or any other is not changed, which makes all RAW editing software non-destructive.

Jim, if you think you are going to make any sense of a piece of software with the sophistication that Lightroom has in the time you have given it, believe me, you won't. You've hardly given it a fair trial.

I agree but I also try and avoid the sidecar being saved where possible because as far as I can see if you open the RAW again in photoshop it reapplies the sidecar changes. Where I can't avoid getting sidecar's seems to be going from ACR to photoshop, if I apply exposure compensation I see the change in bridge even if I didn't save the RAW in photoshop, not a big issue because as you say the RAWs still the same and I can reopen in ACR and set the compensation back to 0, its just I like the RAW to remain original for the most part, I have PSDs and JPEGS to see my interpretations of it