I LOVE Lighroom.

Adobe has a 30day free trial for download, give it a shot Bob, I use lightroom 90-95% of the time now, and CS2 maybe 5-10%. It geared for photographers, able to do mass processing on a large amount of images in next to no time. Ill do a quick overview somepoint today as its hard to quickly describe, but the main differences are the batch processing, slideshow, print, and web features.

For what you do Bob, Im not sure if youd really benefit from it, Although I find the library feature worth its weight in gold. But we do completely different aspects of photography so what I see beneficial, you may not use at all ect.

Heres a brief overview of the program layout... Sorry about the large images, but its easier to get an idea.

This is the Library, you can import all your photos here and put them into collections. All work done is saved in lighroom, but nothing changes the original RAW, or JPG file. Library allows you to do quick editing as well, but I mostly use it to sort through all my images and pick my favs from the group. There is a 5 star grading area where you can grade your image from 1-5 stars obviously. You can then go back and sort through your top to bottom images as you go through processing.


This is the Develop section where you do all your advanced editing on the photo, it has all the tools I ever used in PS aside from some of the more creative features a/la the other 10% It does allow you to easily export the photo your currently working on right to CS2/ CS3 to do anything you like. you still have access to your entire collection or library at the bottom of the screen and all previews reflect the editing thats been done. The copy and paste function allows you to do the same PP on multiple images to make PPing super quick, This is great for wedding photography.


The built in slideshow function allows you to edit/ and create slide shows... once again a nice feature for wedding photogs. It also works great with showit web, a fantastic online slideshow tool.


Print section is self explanatory as you can fit the image and apply borders, although this is still easier in CS2 but I havnt used this much yet.


This allows you to format html code for your website or web gallery with your images right through lightroom. Another feature I wont use much until my site is finished.


Any questions specifically just ask, Im sure other members here have used the tool as well for different things.

Thanks for the tour Matt. I had no idea about any of those features but after that I think I might check this program out.

The other photographer Friday night was using lightroom on her laptop and I kind of got the feeling that I'd be an idiot if I didn't start using it. The thought of batch processing my 400+ RAWs from that shoot sounds real nice.

seriously, if your doing events, it makes a world of difference in the amount of time you save. Plus you can save your PP routines for different effects to make things even faster.

That sounds incredibly appealing, especially since I was paid by the hour. I was about to go into work so I could run through those shots (too many windows here at the house that cause bad glare on my screen during the day) so I think I'll download the trial and give it a test drive.

I use lightroom and love it.... once you figure all the features out it's incredibly handy. Another good things is that you can copy whatever development setting you want from photo to photo, it really speeds things up.

I tried it out, but gave up after about 30 minutes. Every single photo I took required different PP settings (going from flash to no flash to flash/white ceiling to flash/black ceiling to outside, all with 2 different cameras with a variety of Av, Tv and M modes. I tried a batch export but loved some shots and hated others.

I resorted back to PP each individual shot in CS3. For now I have much more control and I'm getting the results I want. I haven't given up on Lightroom, I just don't have the time to fiddle with it.

Thanks Bob, it was done quickly, ill add to it when I have a bit more time.

I need to start using it. 95% of what I do is global on the image, so lightroom would be a better tool... I'm just so used to PS and use actions to do what lightroom would I haven't taken the time to learn it yet. I have it on my work computer, so I suppose I should learn it there since I'm paid to...

and isn't it just Adobe Lightroom? I almost corrected the title, but I'm not sure.

They consider it in the Photoshop family so technically is called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom... most ppl just say LR as its less confusing.

Cool. That's why I hesitated on the edit. I've always just talked to people who're using it and they always just say lightroom...
Good to know.

So how many different ways can you process pictures from Adobe?

Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, ??

^ to many but they each do something different... its like collecting pokemon

I think I might've posted this link someplace else, but it's certainly relevant here.

Free LR video tutorials:

http://www.whibalhost.com/_Tutorials.../01/index.html

^ i should add, that the Library section you see. All those Images are RAW. I simply imported them to LR, and im done. no need to convert or go through each EAW image on the step by step basis. Simply import to library and your done. Preview and everything. easy PP.

Even though it is 4x the price, it's probably worth it.

I don't use it because I liked its predecessor better (Rawshooter), I have Capture NX and view NX (I shoot Nikon), and because except for the occasional event I shoot, I am not usually processing tons of photos.

You should download the trial before committing to it, and make sure you like it.

I am hoping that they will improve its interface by the time I really need it.

At first I thought the interface was a little clumsy also but over time I'm navigating around in it very fast. I'm also beginning to learn some of the three key combos that make the software extra handy...ctrl+shift+c and ctrl+shift+v being two of my favorites.

Plus I can snag a copy from my wife's school for $98 bucks so I'm pretty sure I'll be going legit here real soon.

I need to give Lightroom another shot. I tried it and didn't like it. Sure would save me a lot of time if I bothered to figure it out though.

^ once you get used to it, its awesome... Youll like it more once you shoot that wedding..

I think I would have stuck with it if my exposures weren't all over the place. I don't feel comfortable at all batch processing hundreds of images that I feel need a little handholding.

^ I dont batch everything, I just find it so much easier to go from one photo to the next, more assembly line ish... especially with RAW files.

It's good for event and wedding type situations where generally your exposures are all pretty consistent.

I haven't been shooting very often lately, but when I do its more the event type stuff (racing, wedding, etc. . . ) Here are a couple of the biggest time savers for me . . .

- Rating, Sorting, Deleting - the ability to see all of the relative shots at one time and sort rather than opening 5-10 individual images in PS and resizing windows so I can compare them, rate and discard them saves me more time than you could imagine. The last event I had was 600 images, the one before that was ~12,000!!

- Batch process lo-quality original sized selections to upload to the website.

- Ability to batch process the clone tool based on location on the image, i.e. dirty sensor!! You just copy the first clone with all the spots removed and paste to all the other images you want the spots removed.

- Extra storage space. Since it doesn't alter the "original" file there isn't a need to save both your originals and edits, halfing the amount of crap I have to backup.

I could go on

I would like to know about the borders also....

In the export command of Lightroom you can choose to run thru a photoshop action that is already defined. But Lightroom does not have the ability to batch actions AFAIK.

Ok I was finally able to sit down and figure out exactly how Lightroom handles photoshop actions. Technically LR can't handle PS actions, you have to create droplets in PS from your actions and you can add a droplet at the end of the export for further post processing.

A couple tips i've found tonight:

- Create a "batch" folder for LR to place the images right before PS starts processing. In order for the droplet to work it must contain a SAVEAS and CLOSE command back to the batch folder and it will overwrite the LR export with the final product.

- Watch your resolution, my LR was defaulted to 200 pixels/inch which can screw with your PS actions if you assume a "web" resolution. I'm going to redo everything and see which program I prefer to do the web resize.

- have a fast computer, I couldn't see running all this processing on my old P4 It took right at 30 seconds to export 10 images in LR and batch a border/copyright info in PS on my new machine, where it would take at least 5 minutes to get that far before.

Originally Posted by ForceFed4

For someone interested in processing digital photos only (no art, graphic design work, etc), is LightRoom a replacement for Photoshop? From what I've read here and elsewhere I can't quite determine if it's meant at all to be a standalone product, or simply provide the first step of processing, then handing off to PS.

Its designed to be a standalone tool. Its for tweaking photographs as they are, not so much advanced manipulation. it really shines when processing multiple images for events and weddings, which allows you to batch process them much easier than PS. I use LR 90% of the time. Any fixes that need to be done such as cloning I do in PS.

Originally Posted by component

As I grow more used to Lightroom, I'm liking it more and more. But is there a way to resize the images? I can export the file as a jpg, but I end up using elements to resize the picture before uploading it.

File>Export

pulls up export dialog and you can adjust your settings for .jpg output. I have a web setup that resizes to 720x720(only changes largest side), converts to SRGB, 72 dpi and runs a PS droplet for border etc.

Are you a student? its $100 w/ student discount.

/\ Sweet.

LR is god. I love it. Its a nice organizational tool and the editing tools you need for 90%+ of your shots all in one place.

Originally Posted by subimatt

Are you a student? its $100 w/ student discount.

ORLY? I'm going to have to try this and see if I like it then

Originally Posted by emorphien

ORLY? I'm going to have to try this and see if I like it then

YARLY!

They also have the 30day trial on the site.

I downloaded some presets from the above link. How in the hell do I import them into Lightroom? grr..

/\ nm, figured it out.

Ok, I've been using Lightroom for about a month now and still can't figure out some basic operations. halp?

1. Say I make some adjustments to the photo in Lightroom. Now, I want to create a copy of this image and keep the original as well? For the life of me, I can't seem to figure this out. I still don't know what "Create Virtual Image" does.

2. When I export a photo into CS3, why the hell can't I save it as a .jpg. I'm not even familiar with most of the limited file types that I can save as.

^ When you import photos into LR, its automatically copies the files. So the image you edit in LR is actually a copy. after I make my adjustments I export them to a folder as a JPG then edit them in PS if needed or framed.

Originally Posted by moduleum

Ok, I've been using Lightroom for about a month now and still can't figure out some basic operations. halp?

1. Say I make some adjustments to the photo in Lightroom. Now, I want to create a copy of this image and keep the original as well? For the life of me, I can't seem to figure this out. I still don't know what "Create Virtual Image" does.

2. When I export a photo into CS3, why the hell can't I save it as a .jpg. I'm not even familiar with most of the limited file types that I can save as.

1. File>Export. Pulls up export dialog and you can adjust your output settings.

2. The most common reason for that would be that you have multiple layers in your image. In order to create a .jpg you'd have to flatten it back to 1 layer.