Actually as it is a bit more than 10K pictures let's call it about12000 (I'm not sitting at my computer so cannot check). Those images have been taken over 6 1/2 years, and that averages out at about 2000 a year or roughly 40 shots per week, so actually not really that many shots for a keen amature. As I said I actually like LR as much for it's output options as for the organiser. Even with half the images that I have now, keeping RAW's, processed .PSD files as well as finished JPEGS organised and up to the current version almost impossible using Bridge. The ablity to have everything reside in LR and just use that to send a correctly finished output file for the intended use is just great. By the way yes ai do keep all my RAW files, just like I kept all of my negatives, until my home was flooded and they were all desroyed, no easy backup solution for film. I moved to LR with a reasonable number of existing images, and was aided by the fact that LR automatically inluded all the existing ACR conversions, plus I brought the existing PSD/TIFF files. All the generated JPEGS I eventually discarded, when I realised how easy it was to make a new one when required. Starting out using LR would have been even better, but there was no ACR or LR when I got my first DSLR, actually there was not even any DPP from Canon, which at the time had about the worst converter I have ever seen as part of the EOS Tools/Zoombrowser suite, although the bundled Elements V2 was not bad. The software choices we have now are just so much better than then.
I do not disagree that you also need to have a pixel editor, and full Photoshop is the industry standard, if not the "best graphics editor overall", but for very many photographers when teamed with LR, Elements has all of the tools that you are likely to need. Or even an older full copy of Photoshop again teamed with the tools of LR.
Alan
I don't disagree. Lightroom can do most of what probably the majority of photographers want to do. I am just throwing out what I learned from my experience. Cataloging is important and things can get out of hand quickly. But if you don't have a massive archive yet, it is less important. I started with LR and am glad I did because I probably would have been overwhelmed by CS.
I started shooting landscape and LR did a decent job for beginning level post processing. Then I got the opportunity to do some fashion editorial through a friend (Yeah, I started learning lighting with fashion models directly instead of with an accommodating friend or a dog). As I was learning more about post and comparing my progress to photos I admired from accomplished photographers, I realized I needed to be able to do more than what LR could offer. For example, I shoot landscape in Arizona mostly and the dynamic range is pretty huge. I never really got results I liked from HDR (probably user error, not the software). So I started learning about blending on the web as an alternative to HDR for high dynamic range pictures. I also learned about the magnificent luminosity masks as a better way to target adjustments. Both of these I couldn't do in LR.
When it came to my fashion escapades, LR is much more limited. I could do skin treatment with a negative clarity brush, but I would get a much better result using frequency separation. I needed to do more local adjustments that required precise masking that the adjustment brush in LR wouldn't handle. I needed blending modes for hair, levels, etc. I wanted to push myself to emulate the techniques of those that produce the pictures I admire and I needed the same tools to do it. It didn't take me long after I grasped what was possible in LR before I made the jump to CS6.
For me it makes sense because I wanted to learn more and have more options to solve problems rather than settling for the results I was getting. I don't know how involved the OP wants to get, so I threw the idea out there that they might want to think ahead to where they might go. It depends on what kind of person they are I guess. But the one thing I learned from buying gear is that you want to buy higher quality stuff once than getting a better deal on cheap stuff that you will replace later (not that LR is cheap, but in terms of thinking ahead to what you might want later).
