How often do YOU use Photoshop?

Hello Guys, I am struggling a bit now between using Lightroom and Photoshop, and been wondering who uses what, how often...

First to clarify the situation I am in at the moment:
I would say, I am pretty familiar with Lightroom, and have a HUGE database with over 40.000 photos in LR.
All have been keyworded, and GPS tagged, I really like this feature of Lightroom.
Because of that I started using the Develop module about 2-3 years ago, and I have edited most pictures in LR.
Yet I feel, that finally learning Photoshop would yield better results.

Second to clarify who am I and what I am doing:
I am a Hobbyst photographer, doing photography only for my own Fun, mostly shooting models.
I do not get paid, nor am I willing to shoot weddings and such.
On a Shoot I usually take between 150 and 250 pictures

Why am I asking the question:
My issue is, that I think I am pretty good in editing a picture in Lightroom,but seeing others pictures, I always feel i should use Photoshop to edit my pictures, yet I am not familiar with PS at all, and it takes lot of time (like 4-5 hours) to get a picture where I would like it.
In Lightroom it is 20-30 mins at most, but I cannot do certain things.
To get a look, see www.500px.com/nemethr - all done in LR except for 2 - Ice Queen, and Lady Excalibur - done in PS.

So the 2 question from me:
- How many of your edited pictures do you edit in Photoshop? - Would be nice if you also write what you are doing as a Photographer.
- What do you do with the PSD files after? (Usually I get around 1.2-1.7 GB PSD files) - and I think those are way too big.

I import into LR, make basic exposure, WB, tinting corrections in there (10mins max) and then proceed to PS for the final retouching work (30 mins max).

It very much depends on your style but it shouldn't be taking 4-5 hours for a single image unless you are doing something very creative IMO.

I would recommend doing some further reading on workflows and also experimenting with different processing workflows to speed up the process if that is what is troubling you.

As for the second question, for a typical portrait shoot I only aim to deliver around 10-15 images retouched in PS. There is no need to supply any more, and unless I'm experimenting with new techniques I rarely use PS for a draft image.

It's important to remember that you do this as a hobby for fun, if you do not enjoy the processing aspect much then reduce the amount you do to your images and adjust your shooting style to suit.

Just my thoughts

I do very little in Photoshop and use Lightroom only for about 90% of my shots. But your style of shooting is quite different from the type of shooting I prefer. I love journalistic style sports photography. The closest I have done to your style of shooting was taking photographs at a wedding as a participant, not part of the primary photography team.

Wedding shooting is quite similar to your style in that skin smoothing and getting rid of flaws is important. This is where Photoshop works much better than Lightroom. From what I saw of your photos, check out the frequency separation methods of editing. Find actions others have developed to speed up those processes. There are many YouTubes and downloadable actions on the net to help you improve in your processing workflow.

Your poll doesn't include an option for how I think a lot of people use LR/PS which is to use LR to make RAW adjustments and then PS to finish the image. Every photo I take gets imported into LR and every photo I decide to edit has RAW edits done in LR and then finished in PS. That means that I use both LR and PS on 100% of my processed images. But in terms of the amount of time I spend on an image using either LR or PS, I would say I typically spend 1-2 minutes in LR doing basic RAW adjustments and then who knows how much time in PS, could be hours.

In terms of the file size, I save my processed images as TIFF's. I don't really worry about file size, storage is cheap.

I don't use Lightroom (another option missing from your poll); I use CaptureOne Pro 8 and do all my RAW processing there, then I export the image as a 16-bit TIFF to Photoshop CS4 for sharpening (high pass) and minor adjustments (a bit more contrast if needed) and minor retouching. Then I use Photo Mechanic 5 to add metadata to the image and generate my final JPEGs.

About 98% of my images usually only need work in LR, but then my subjects don't usually get upset about the way their skin looks, since they are inanimate objects. Many of my people shots don't really require more than the use of the local brush in LR either. So usually not much ends up in PS. On the other hand if I were shooting models I would probably be in PS far more often. The LR local brushes and filters can really help keep you out of PS. This is especially true now that I have upgraded to CC, since the spot tool is now a brush, not just circular spots, so that quite complex cloning is now possible. The RAW pano also helps keep me out of PS too now.

Alan

Heya,

I don't use LightRoom. I use just Photoshop & Canon DPP (RAW conversion to TIFF, white balance changes, minor changes to highlights/shadows/exp​osure only). I like a lot of the ideas of Lightroom, like the fast and easy sliders, etc. It seems like a faster way to do basic editing and cataloging. I use oldschool directory structure formats on a hard drive to manage my catalog, so it works no matter what I use (and my folders are date based with a descriptor of the content and gear used). I do all my edits in Photoshop. Once you learn it, it's fast enough. I develop my own actions to do some tasks even faster. Photoshop has of course a much higher learning curve, but I just hop on YouTube and learn tons when I have a new challenge presenting itself. I'm still using Photoshop CS5.1 because I own it and don't pay a monthly fee for it. I've considered getting LightRoom 6 for some it's features, but I'm comfortable with Photoshop right now so I really don't need to change it up. I can do all my editing challenges in Photoshop.

As for how often, pretty much daily.

I don't keep any PSD files or TIFFs after the image is finished for sharing or printed. I print from JPG & TIFF depending on goal, large prints and smaller. I cull shots as I go so that I only keep RAWs of images I like or may want to revisit, but I'm picky so if it doesn't stand out or have something to it, I cull it. I keep RAWs for the shots I want to keep. I process from the RAW to TIFF then JPG then share or print depending on goal in that workflow process. Then I delete the TIFFs and any images that are not final products. The JPGs are small file size so I don't care how many there are. RAWs aren't too bad either, so I keep them for "just in case." The PSD/TIFF/etc, I delete, no point in keeping those. I can re-edit if I want to. I often do re-edit after a while when I learn new technique or want to try something different.

Very best,

I always start in LR, and then about 10-20% end up in PSE. It all depends on what I want the final product to look like, and what kind of time constraints I'm under. Usually some things are easier to remove in ps certainly getting layers down has been a big help, but it is a long learning curve, and I'm still learning.

One thing to add.. if you don't do this professionally, I'd look into Photoshop Elements - it does 80-90% of what full blown Photoshop does, and that is what I've done as I dont' get paid enough to justify PS CC.

Here is an example, there was a person standing directly behind this colt, so head and shoulders were along his back and I removed them with PSE after doing all the other adjustments in LR first.

(My appologies to those who hate the tilt, I wanted it to land there artistically for the horse, other times it is one of the corrections I regularly make).

Photo from ksbal's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (818011)

I use only PS because of long-time familiarity and an established organizational system.

99% LR, 1% PSE 12. I have PS 5.5. Never installed it.

Everything starts in LR. After basic edits in Lr it goes to Ps for finishing touches, or major work, depending on the image. Once done in Ps I convert the profile to sRGB (which also flattens the image) and then I save. This saves the finished image as a TIFF. I usually don't keep layered PSD or TIFF files.

For Photography purposes I barely ever use Photoshop these days. Nearly everything I need to do can be done in Lightroom and when it can't I am more likely to use a specialized plugin/tool instead of Photoshop.

I do use Photoshop for other things such as making icons and graphics.

I import into LR for cataloging, reviewing, keywording, and minor tweaking. If it needs anything more I edit in PS.

NemethR wrote in post #18154751
...
Because of that I started using the Develop module about 2-3 years ago, and I have edited most pictures in LR.
Yet I feel, that finally learning Photoshop would yield better results.

The following is just my opinion....
I believe that you should do everything that you can in Lightroom/ACR. Then if you find there are additional things you need to do that Lightroom/ACR can't, you go to Photoshop.

My reasons for this are....
1. RAW data has been though one conversion process (demosaicing). If you want to then edit that image in Photoshop it needs to go through another conversion process and be converted into a TIFF/PSD. While I doubt that there are problems doing this I just think it is better to subject data to the minimum number of conversion processes. Therefore I prefer to make as many adjustments/edits as possible in Lightroom/ACR.

2. Space - The Photoshop editor (as opposed to the ACR plugin) can not edit RAW data. To edit an image in Photoshop a new file must be created (TIFF or PSD). If I am adjusting exposure, clarity, saturation (etc), dodging/burning, making local adjustments, altering the HSL of a particular colour or any of the other things that LR/ACR can do, then I see no point in creating a whole new file. In addition Lightroom (but not ACR) has Virtual Copies. I can have four versions of the same image, each with totally different processing/cropping, without having to create four separate TIFF files.

Obviously there are things that LR can't do. For those I go into Photoshop. However, the type of images I produce don't require much in the way of cloning or layer work so I don't use it very often.

Bassat wrote in post #18155124
99% LR, 1% PSE 12. I have PS 5.5. Never installed it.

This, except with PSE 13. I haven't had a copy of the full Photoshop since v7.