Lightroom 4 AND Photoshop?

I would think that's why LR was brought out.
Images to fiddle with.... PS.
Where does Illustrator lie in this discussion?

John

Illustrator doesn't as far as I know.

What is useful is that sometimes people will send me images that open in obscure parts of Photoshop that I never use. Then a JPEG can be saved and away we go.

Lightroom was probably brought out to select the most used photographic tools and couple it with a catalogue mechanism to persuade us to buy it. And if that's what is wanted it seems a pretty good idea to me.

If you have a lot of images to process then LR is the way to go.

Always looking for tools to speed up the workflow. I am just giving https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/photogene-for.../id363448251?mt=8 ]photogene[/link] a run through on the iPad and looks a great tool for photographers working away from home or the studio. To be able to quickly edit, add metadata and then upload via FTP from one program on e iPad is the program I have been looking for for a long whilst...

That didn't seem to get me anywhere, mainly because I don't know Photoshop, and Layers is a mystery to me.
Although I have heard that Lightroom does layers, but automatically, without me having to do anything.

Yes really. Of course there are exceptions, but like it or not, Lightroom is geared up to photographers and Photoshop is geared up to Graphic designers.

Sure, but consider, as a photographer, you may have got entrenched in the wrong program.

I don't know how many images you rattle off in a typical shoot, but in Lightroom you can audition and give an 80% make over to hundreds in no time. Which means most of the editing work is done for the favourites you want to spend a little more time on.

Plus an integrated cataloguing system and editing system is not somethign to be underestimated in power.

I hope this is not too far off topic (if it is, I apologise for hijacking the thread). I am considering moving to Lightroom from PSE. My images are currently filed in a series of folders of my own making.

How easy might it be to import all my existing image files into Lightroom's cataloguing system?

Can anybody comment from experience of making the same transition?

I think you can import your Elements catalogue into Lightroom. I vaguely recollect doing that from something like Elements 5 to Lightroom 1.0!

I think Elements and Lightroom make an excellent combination. I do most (99% probably) of my stuff in Lightroom using the raw files and then export to tif for Elements when I want to edit out something more than the Lightroom spot removal tool can cope with - stray hairs, rubbish, political enemies, that kind of thing.

No! Do it all in one programme - Pentax Digital Camera Utility.

Couldn't resist that - but actually, SlightlySoiled, there is an Adobe program that is probably worth your while learning about, and that is Photoshop Elements (version 10 now). This is in fact most of the traditional photoshop tools and features that are most useful for photographs, in a much tighter package, including an Image Organiser element, all for about £80.

You mentioned layers, and yes, more recent software alternatives have technologies that can operate with 'hidden' layers, so that you get the functionality without the additional pre-steps of setting up the layer, brushing masks onto it and choosing blend modes etc etc. But there's a lot to be said for the benefits that actually working with layers can bring, in terms of extra flexibility and selective application of your adjustments.

PS Elements goes some way towards presenting an easier route into these methods with somewhat less choices available - there are plenty of good tutorials and books to help - I would say go for it and learn, it will be worth it in the long run for certain photo edits.

An example? Well, I love the definition and clarity functions in my favourite editor, Sagelight, which doesn't offer traditional layers but instead 'hidden' automatic layering with single click options (really easy to use and effective), but there are some textures and surfaces where I find nothing better then a 'High Pass Filter Sharpening' technique - now to apply this to just the right parts you need layers and masking, so PS Elements it has to be.

Do you need full Photoshop - I don't think so now. But try Elements, even as a learning tool, I'm sure it will be very rewarding.

There's more than one way to get to the result we want, that's for sure.

I'm a hobbyist,I'm not trying to be David Bailley. If the picture is so bad that I can't fix it in Lightroom, then I'll either bin it or wait till I'm better with Lightroom.
Sorry McGregNi, That's what I'm saying, I don't know what 'High Pass Filter Sharpening' could mean. Apart from some kind of sharpening.
Bforbes ( I hope I spelt that right( last attempt at this post I tried going back a page to get the spelling right and Firefox did a whoopsy)).I like the photo, but at this stage that stuff is not for me.
I just wondered what I was missing not using Photoshop aswell.
As John said If it works for you, keep doing it.
Well he kind of said that.
P.S. Or that other American guy who has got some great landscapes

Actually, somewhere in my post above I think the point I was making was that really there is often not more than one way, at least for achieving a very specific effect or quality of result. I gave an example to try and help the OP visualise why he might need to use more than one program.

This 'do I need Photoshop or Lightroom' (or both) question has a somewhat historical significance I believe. For those photographers who are old enough that they were early adopters of digital (those who used to debate if digital files would ever match the resolution of 35mm negatives) had far fewer choices for editing their digital output.

Photoshop was the only serious contender, and so it was that key professional skills required included a mastery of lassos, feathers, clipping masks, colour pickers, sponge tools, blend modes, adjustment layers and opacity sliders. There is often a multitude of combinations of these tools by which we can produce any specific result.

But more recently we are offered a range of software that aims to reduce the complexities and multi-step approaches of Photoshop by carrying out a lot of the methodology in the process in the background - I spoke earlier about the 'hidden layers' in Sagelight. No doubt Lightroom was developed for the purpose of reducing these complexities and making work on photos more intuitive.

But I think there are still some specific results that require the precision of application that PS layers offer. We can't quite disregard it yet.

It's kind of what he meant anyway.

The way McGregNi describes "reducing the complexities" rather sounds like dumbing down though. just pressing a button to get an effect doesn't make art IMHO, it makes it a triumph of technology, designed by someone who did understand the whole process.

However, let's not be snobbish about it. There's nothing wrong in using, for example, a red eye reduction tool, or maybe an instant sepia effect. It's not the way to fine tuning though.

Someone mentioned High Pass sharpening. A perfectly valid sharpening technique, but I've never liked it much. I prefer modest Unsharp Mask, within which is also a wealth of control. Understanding even USM means a multitude of effects can be applied, either globally or locally to an image.

Channel Mixer is something that often gets missed from simpler programs than full Photoshop, which is a shame because it means I have never got on with Elements, which would have cost less. Ah well.

But thinking of the one way/multiple ways thing, taske for example Smeggypants's post a little way up. The way he describes the possibilities of Lightroom, whilst again totally valid, are not the way I work at all. The one size fits all solution doesn't exist IMHO.

Simple.

In lightroom's library module simply select "import" button on bottom left sidebar and then when the import window appears navigate to the location of your folders and select them. LR will then show youre image as thumbnails and you can then import them.

Job done.


Lightroom's catlagues are simply databases. you store your images ( both original and exports ) whereever you like.

The catalogue file ( database ) stores the location of the images and the edits you apply to them.

In a way it's a bit pointless to state one's preference for a particular program - the next person to post will probably have a preference for another! There are countless image manipulation programs out there, from extremely basic to extremely complex and all will do a job in one way or another. I would encourage everyone to try out different software and settle on one that is comfortable for them. I use Photoshop as I find it very flexible and it does all I need it to. I don't want a 'one size fits all' approach and I'm happy to put individual effort into each image I process. I don't know if it's better or worse than Lightroom, but that's irrelevant to me as I'm comfortable with it.

I don't agree that 'Photoshop is for Graphic Designers and Lightroom is for Photographers'. Clearly, Photoshop is used extensively by Graphic Designers, but is is also used extensively by Photographers. I don't think it would be called 'Photoshop' if if were not designed to be used for processing photos!

Regards
David

Lightroom is only about £90 now