Looking for workflow clarification

[benee]

Hi everyone, I've used my birthday money to purchase CS3 and LR2 (via educational discount, I could actually afford both). I confess to being somewhat ignorant, and a photoshop novice.. My intention in buying this software is to have it to grow into as I become more skilled with PP.

So, my question is: Besides the organizational advantages of lightroom (smart collections, etc...) what advantage does LR have over ACR in terms of basic editing? I think the answer to this question is that I could use ACR and PS to make adjustments in 2 steps that I could do more quickly, in just one step in LR.

Of course, as I become more skilled with layers, etc, I'll find PS3 more and more advantageous for more advanced editing, but getting my feet wet, I should be able to do most of my editing in streamlined fashion with LR2 correct?

I'm trying to think through how I'll use these programs together in terms of workflow, so your perspective is welcome!

[tim]

Bridge (free with Photoshop) is comparable to Lightroom, though LR has more features. I prefer Bridge personally. All three use ACR, which is the RAW processing module from Adobe. Using any of them you can work on images in batches, which is a huge time saver. You will probably find you don't open Photoshop very much once you have LR/Bridge, I use it for only a few images from most weddings.

I recommend some books in this thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=242640), this one (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPhotoshop-Digital-Photographers-Voices-Matter%2Fdp%2F0321501918&tag=headphonerevi-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) and this one (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FReal-World-Camera-Adobe-Photoshop%2Fdp%2F0321518675%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbook s%26qid%3D1183010240%26sr%3D1-1&tag=headphonerevi-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) will be most useful to you.

[René Damkot]

LR2 does local adjustments.
Curves is a bit different (better) in ACR.
LR has TAT.
Crop (user interface) is different (nicer) in LR.

LR uses a catalog, Bridge is a file browser. (won't work with offline files)

[benee]

Bridge (free with Photoshop) is comparable to Lightroom, though LR has more features. I prefer Bridge personally. All three use ACR, which is the RAW processing module from Adobe. Using any of them you can work on images in batches, which is a huge time saver. You will probably find you don't open Photoshop very much once you have LR/Bridge, I use it for only a few images from most weddings.

I recommend some books in this thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=242640), this one (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPhotoshop-Digital-Photographers-Voices-Matter%2Fdp%2F0321501918&tag=headphonerevi-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) and this one (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FReal-World-Camera-Adobe-Photoshop%2Fdp%2F0321518675%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbook s%26qid%3D1183010240%26sr%3D1-1&tag=headphonerevi-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) will be most useful to you.


Thanks - this should help me quite a bit - I was anticipating using LR more, but want Photoshop available as I improve...