Will Lightroom ever completely replace Photoshop?

Will Lightroom ever completely replace Photoshop?

For photographers, I mean. Seems that LR is adding more and more stuff, and getting better and better with each release, that I'm starting to wonder if we'll reach a point where the vast majority of photographers no longer need CS or Elements at all.

I'm sure some are already there.

Layers, layers, layers.

ETA: I rarely use PS, but it'll be nearly impossible to eliminate. For those who rarely use it, perhaps enough features will venture over to LR, but PS is too powerful to be eradicated.

No, not completely for all shooters, but it is close for a lot of photographers. I rarely go to photoshop anymore but there are times that I do.

no.

I prefer to take it right, not to fake it later on.
But I do CA and reportage most. Digital and Film.
This is why I use LR only. Gives me all adjustments I need.

But some pictures require a lot of retouching, cleaning, if they are for the stock or glamor style, for example. PS is the right tool for it, no doubt.

Considering PS is now subscription only, and LR isn't, I'm guessing two things - No, LR will never have all the capabilities of PS, and updates to LR will either be slower, or not so comprehensive. I hope I'm wrong on both counts, but it's what I think will happen.

Unless they take all of the photoshop functions and include them in LR, then no.

No. Can LR do layers and gradient maps? How about batch processing? If not, the answer is no for me.

Topaz Labs PhotoFXLab puts a layering capability and a lot of PS tools into Lightroom as a plugin. Basically, you can go into PhotoFXLab from Lightroom, and within PhotoFXLab apply built-in tools and all the other Topaz Labs tools (including the mask plugin), create layers and such, and when don, exit back out to Lightroom.

Nope. There are too many different types of photographers. For some looking to tweak a few setting and use some of the more basic tools, LR is perfect and they don't need it. To others where a photo is just the raw materials for something else, LR is usless. They really are two separate applications with very different uses. It's just that some of them overlap for some people.

BTW, you really don't need the latest photoshop. I could be fine using either CS4 or CS5.

Not for landscape or fine art photographers!

Lightroom is the event/journalist photographer's tool. (Weddings and sporting occasions also count as 'events')

No, not for me.... I don't really care for it.

TooManyShots wrote in post #16046150
No. Can LR do layers and gradient maps? How about batch processing? If not, the answer is no for me.

Just FYI batch processing is one of the strong points of Lightroom. You can batch process by applying a preset to all images on import, or you can do it later by applying one preset to an entire selection of images or you can process one image and then batch process all the others by using sync command to apply all (or just some) of those adjustments to the rest of the images.

That aside though, I agree with you that LR will never replace Photoshop. Personally I do almost everything in LR but I still have a copy of Elements to do layers and cloning (and panoramas).

photoguy6405 wrote in post #16045611
Will Lightroom ever completely replace Photoshop?

I don't know about Lightroom, but after adding the Nik suite to Aperture, I don't even know the last time I edited a photo in Photoshop.