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lightroom is a raw editor and an orgnizer for finding your photos. photoshop is a raw editor as well as a pixel editor and can do much much more as far as effects,edits and manipulations.
I used Photoshop for many years, but now do 99% of my regular (non-astro) image post-processing in Lightroom. It has pretty much all the things you'll need. I use PS only for the most problematic healing/cloning problems, or when I'm trying to get a very special/complicated effect (e.g. using layer masks).
LR is great at processing a whole bunch of shots at once. You can see the effects of your changes on the fly. You can get a lot of preset effects for free online.
That said, for complicated processing or effects, Photoshop is king. I use it for 100% of my astrophotography processing.
99% of all my raw editing is done in capture nx2. i only started bringing the photos in to elements now because i enjoy using and experimenting with the topaz products which work from within photoshop or elements.
i also started using the organizer in elements.
fuzz how does lightroom differ from what i can do with elements 9.0 and the organizer?
fuzz how does lightroom differ from what i can do with elements 9.0 and the organizer?
Don't know since I've never used Elements. But since Elements is essentially Photoshop light, the differences would be the same I would think.
The thing about LR is that it is great at batch processing large number of images and at global edits. It is not great at detailed/complex pixel-level edits. For instance, if I want to change the tone of a person's arm (i.e. irregular shape), it is a lot easier/accurate to do it in PS than in LR. It can be done in LR, but not with the same level of accuracy and control. If I want to apply different curves adjustments to different parts of the image, it is a snap in PS, but not possible in LR.
So a lot depends on your shooting style. I typically do not need to do complex pixel-level edits (except for astrophotography). If I do, then I just re-shoot. Many photographers use LR to do batch global edits and then bring those images into PS for more fine-tuned edits.
it sounds close to elements..i dont do much batching at all.. i love nikon capture nx2 for my raw editing as doing local enhancements is 10x easier with the nik software color point technology thats built into the nikon software since nik wrote it for them. no layers ,no masks , just drop a dot on a spot and any thing can be done quickly to that spot alone.
i save it as a tiff and then bring into elements for application of the topaz products and any manipulations i want to do on a pixel level. thats saved as a tiff and from there i can print or save a temporary copy as a jpeg for uploading to the web.
im going to download the lightroom trial and see how that differs.. ill report back over the week as im off after tomorrow and can play.
I like the lightroom organizer so much better than elements. I started off with elements and hated the organizer with a passion. It was slow, a pain to cycle through pictures, etc. The raw editor was stripped down a bit too. Overall, elements was just a pain for processing a lot of photos quickly. I tried the lightroom beta earlier this year and loved it. It sped up my workflow tremendously. It also has the full raw editor that you see in CS5. I got a good deal on CS5 earlier this year, so now I can get rid of elements altogether.
im not really a user of elements much or photoshop at all but my question is : if you save in tiff and used a duplicate layer for your enhancements it seems that when i go back into the tiff i can re-edit those enhancements.
now im confused, i thought like jpeg those enhancements were written in stone when saved as a tiff and the advantage of saving as a psd file was you can go back and re-edit . are both re-edible?
wow those psd files are huge..... if both tiff and psd are both able to have edits un-done or re-done that were previously saved why use psd at all?
Just think of PhotoShop as a photo-editing application. LR can be used for editing, but not as much as PS. However, it allows you to organize and manage large numbers of photos. If you don't do a lot of photo editing, LR is perfect. If what you do mostly is photo editing, then PS is the way to go.
You can also use the same plugins or filters for both (Nik, OnOne, Topaz, and so forth), and on both the PC and the Macintosh.
im not really a user of elements much or photoshop at all but my question is : if you save in tiff and used a duplicate layer for your enhancements it seems that when i go back into the tiff i can re-edit those enhancements.
now im confused, i thought like jpeg those enhancements were written in stone when saved as a tiff and the advantage of saving as a psd file was you can go back and re-edit . are both re-edible?
wow those psd files are huge..... if both tiff and psd are both able to have edits un-done or re-done that were previously saved why use psd at all?
Both TIFF and PSD aren't compressed like JPEG is. It means that you can keep on changing them, with in turn increases their size to enormous proportions, except for the original or "background" TIFF or PSD.
The latter is good for the following: When you want to use the same image, but exposed at different levels to later combine into one image (image blending). In this case, before you open the RAW image to process it and save as TIFF, you choose the image, adjust the exposure, and save it to the desktop as PSD. By doing this you haven't opened the photo, just made some exposure change and then saved it half-processed.
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