Photoshop or light room?

[SLEE]

I've used photoshop for a very long time but I have some friends who rave about lightroom. Is one better than the other or are they different from one another? I have not used light room but I am right now downloading the trial.

[Mr Anderson]

They're different tools for different jobs. Lightroom is an image manager and raw editor. Photoshop is an image editor with a raw editor plugin. Both use Adobe camera raw (different versions of ACR for different versions of PS/LR though) for raw editing, but it's a native component of LR and easier to use in that program with a few features that PS doesn't have.

Have a look at the manage, develop and perfect, and present sections here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/prosolutions/

[SLEE]

I knew you would know what do you use?

[slaughteredlamb]

If you only intend on editing photos in either program that Lightroom can do 90% of what Photoshop can do but it does it in way designed for photographers rather than digital artists. Basically Lightroom strips out most of the photo editing tools of Photoshop and presents them to you in an easier to understand interface. There are a couple of things that Lightroom can do that Photoshop can't and vica versa. The big one that Lightroom does that can't be done in Photoshop in anywhere near as easy a way is graduated filters. However the big one that Photoshop can do that Lightroom can't is blending multiple exposures and any form of masking. If you own Lightroom than most people wont need Photoshop but could benefit from also having Photoshop Elements. If you own Photoshop you don't need Lightroom as such but you'll probably wish you did because of it's library management and use of presets as well as slideshow presentations etc.

I use Lightroom now almost exclusively but still use Photoshop for some photos but I probably now only use Photoshop for 1/300 photos that in shoot.

[Mr Anderson]

I knew you would know what do you use?

Both (LR 3.2 & CS 3). I do all the raw processing in Lightroom and then finish off in Photoshop.

[keri]

I've made do with Adobe Photoshop Elements (and Adobe Bridge) for quite a while now and to be fair there is very little that i've not managed to do in it, and with the latest version having content aware fill added it is the best £50/60 you can spend on software. I am going to purchase Lightroom 3 in the next month or so, have trialled it on PC and it does suit my needs perfectly, although i am playing with Aperture at the moment but i can't see me swaying the apple direction at the minute.

90% of my editing is done in ACR, i do very little in PS or PSE, but when i do it is usually simple masks or removal of things from shot with clone or content aware fill, so i'm pretty confident lightroom and PSE will sort me nicely and save me a couple of quid!

[robwhizz]

Absolutely love Lightroom. I've never got on with bridge, so to have the library/image management integrated into the editor (very good management too) is brilliant. I find the interface much quicker and more intuitive to use than photoshop (but I'm still on CS2). It's no good for heavy duty work, that's where photoshop comes into it's own. As said, photoshop is a different ball game. It's a full on image editor, and so will do everything brilliantly in that area.
Lightroom is for photographers. It will manage your images well, process them very quickly, and it's all non-destructive, so your original photos are not changed.Comes into it's own with RAW files.

Grads, cloning and masks are fairly good in v3 and I rarely touch Photoshop anymore.

[Britman]

99.99% of my work is done in LR3 and the rest is Elements 6 and I fell no need to upgrade to upgrade elements, although version 9 has layer masks now.

LR3 half price today alas that Amazon.com not .co.uk boooo