Lightroom vs Adobe Photoshop

Lightroom 4 is designed for photographers who want the best possible images and an intuitive, all-in-one solution for their digital photography. It includes powerful yet simple automatic adjustments and features as well as state-of-the-art advanced tools, and it's used by photographers ranging from passionate amateurs to experienced professionals.


Lightroom includes all the tools you need for most digital photography tasks in one intuitive solution. Lightroom helps photographers work faster and more efficiently with one image, a set of images, or a large image library. Adobe Photoshop software is the industry standard in digital image editing, with advanced tools used by photographers, graphic designers, and other graphics professionals when they need complete control to perform detailed, pixel-level editing and to work with multilayered files.


Adobe Bridge is designed to work with a wide variety of graphic, image, and video file types and to manage files in varied workflows involving all the component applications in Adobe Creative Suite® software. Lightroom and its file management functions are tailored specifically for the digital photography workflow. Lightroom combines all your photography tools, including image editing, in one intuitive application. Lightroom uses a catalog structure, which speeds up searches and enables Lightroom to store information about images and display them on offline media. Adobe Bridge cannot display offline images.


For some, it might. Having an interface that is 100% tuned to the photography workflow, along with some additional unique features, may mean some people will use Lightroom instead of Bridge. On the other hand, some photographers will want the broad capabilities of Adobe Bridge — such as integration with Creative Suite; the ability to preview documents created with Adobe Acrobat®, InDesign®, and Illustrator® software; and workgroup management tools. So many users will continue to use Adobe Bridge as well.

Frodge wrote in post #15920924
I have photoshop. Is it worth getting Lightroom? What are the differences?

To me it depends on the work you're doing. If you tend to shoot a few photos and edit them; then Photoshop is the choice. If you have large volumes of images, then Lightroom excels at batch processing even though most of its features can be replicated in Photoshop (actions, scripts, and droplets).

You've gotten a fair amount of useful advice and some that is quite misleading (and wrong). I've been a user of Lightroom ever since its initial beta over six years ago but if I had to choose between Lightroom and Adobe Bridge/Photoshop I would choose Adobe Bridge/Photoshop.

Lightroom has a few features that aren't available in Bridge/ACR/Photoshop but that combination is infinitely more useful since it too has features that just can't be replicated in Lightroom.

Here is an analysis of the differences between Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6:

1. Browser vs database. The Lightroom database allows you to edit and keep track of image files stored off-line; once they are brought online Lightroom updates the files. Off-line images can't be edited nor tracked/searched in Bridge. So if you have images stored on external drives that aren't always connected to your computer Lightroom's file management is superior.

2. Match Total Exposure - this is a biggie that most users aren't aware of and its only present in Lightroom. Here's how Martin Evening describes the function:
"You can use this command to match the exposure brightness across a series of images that have been selected via the Filmstrip. Match Total Exposures calculates a match value by analyzing and combining the shutter speed, the lens aperture, the ISO speed at which the photos were captured, plus any camera-set exposure compensation. It then factors in all these camera-set values, combines them with the desired exposure value (as set in the most selected image), and calculates new Lightroom exposure values for all the other selected images. I find that this technique can often be used to help average out the exposure brightness in a series of photos where the light values were going up and down during a shoot, which is probably why the chief Lightroom architect, Mark Hamburg, also liked to describe this as a "de-bracketing" command."

3. Virtual copies - allows you to make multiple copies and editing treatments with little overhead space (each VC uses about 2 Kb). Both Lightroom and Bridge allow the use of Snapshots - a picture of the editing history at a particular point but only Lightroom has Virtual Copies. You can also create multiple snapshots and New Documents at Current State in Photoshop but they use more overhead than virtual copies.

4. Output sharpening (Export module or Print module) Lightroom's output sharpening is based on the PhotoKit Sharpener product created by PixelGenius. It works extremely well and is a time-saver compared to Photoshop (even when using actions).

5. Crop Guide Overlays - Lightroom has six different crop overlays compared to only the Rule of Thirds overlay in Bridge.

6. Bridge reports Subject Distance as calculated by the lens/camera body while that functionality was removed from Lightroom 3.x.

Moppie wrote in post #15922571
Copy and Paste settings
Sync Settings
Auto Sync Settings
Apply settings to different images in different folders
Create Virtual Copies

Adobe Bridge and ACR can also do Copy and Paste Settings and Sync Settings. The other three features are available only in Lightroom so far.

To Copy and Paste settings you don't even need to enter ACR. Simply open Adobe Bridge, right-click and select "Develop Settings > Copy Settings" and then click on the file(s) you want to change and choose "Develop Settings > Paste Settings."

Also, if you edited a file, then realized you want to modify other files can use the Last Settings option to paste the settings of the last edits you did to any number of other files. That's essentially the same as the Sync Settings command in Lightroom.

mwsilver wrote in post #15927647
<snip>... including those LR adjustments that go beyond what I believe is available in Camera RAW like spot removal and local masking.

Both Spot Removal and masking functionality are available in Adobe Camera Raw. There's a Spot Removal Tool in the toolbar in the upper left side of the window; masking is available under the Adjustment Brush.

kjonnnn wrote in post #15931187
<snip>... Adobe purchased lightroom to have a software package for simple basic adjustments that the average photographer wanted to make quickly.

Adobe did not purchase Lightroom; it was developed in-house: The Shadowland/Lightroom Development Story

PixelMagic wrote in post #15932391
Adobe did not purchase Lightroom; it was developed in-house: The Shadowland/Lightroom Development Story

Stands corrected. Was repeating what a previous poster said. #checkmyfacts

kjonnnn wrote in post #15932438
Stands corrected. Was repeating what a previous poster said. #checkmyfacts

Perhaps it was a reference to Adobe's acquisition of Pixmantec RawShooter.

BigAl007 wrote in post #15926988
I would hardly call Bridge/ACR integrated into PS. More like a thrown in RAW converter

And I was accused of "arguing semantics" Sheesh!

PixelMagic wrote in post #15932306
4. Output sharpening (Export module or Print module) Lightroom's output sharpening is based on the PhotoKit Sharpener product created by PixelGenius. It works extremely well and is a time-saver compared to Photoshop (even when using actions).

Only one addition to your post: ACR also has output sharpening, at least in ACR 7.
(don't know by heart when it was introduced)