CS3 to LR6

I've had CS3 for about 13 years now. Just wondering if there is any benefit to switching to LR6?

I shoot a mix of everything. The most common things I do in CS3 are: levels, curves, exposure, saturation, highlight/ shadows, perspective adjustment, healing brush, burn/dodge and sharpening.

The difference in the performance of the RAW processor in the latest versions on LR, or even versions since LR4, when the major changes were made to the process version. IIRC CS3 is still using the Process Version before PV2010, which was replaced by PV2012 in LR4. Pretty much all of the things you currently need to do can be done without leaving the RAW converter in the latest versions of LR. If you go with the standalone perpetual licence in LR6, you would still be able to open your images directly into CS3 should you need to do anything that the RAW engine can't manage. Although I am using the CC version myself, when it comes to doing work in PS, pretty much all the PS features that I am using are in CS3.

The really important thing to understand with LR is that it is a full workflow system, and treating it as such will make the experience my more rewarding. Although LR comes setup with lots of defaults, such as locations to import images too, it is very easy to change them and have LR do what you want it to do. Although you have to do all of your image file management from within LR, since LR records the location of files on the HDD in the database, so that it can find them very quickly, by many different criteria, it gives you full access to the file system to do this. If you do move files outside of LR you will then have to tell the program where to find them, and it is not a too painful process, if you do forget, at least for a few files in the same folder. This makes searching for files across different folders really really quick in comparison to using a file manager program like Bridge say. Doing things like adding comprehensive keywords is also useful, since LR is really good at working with them, for example you can build Smart Collections that will group all images with the same set of keywords, as well as also looking at most of the available EXIF data. If you have lots of images it is like being able to have them in many folders under different categories, but with only the one file, and you see the same versions of the file across them too, so you don't end up with multiple files. I only have a very moderately sized catalogue, about 45000 images, but some have upwards of 500K.

The improvements in the actual RAW processing will be staggering, it will be like having a new camera almost. You will probably see close to a two stop improvement in highlight details delivered by your RAW files. Many images that seemed to be overexposed and clipped in your current version of ACR will actually turn out to be perfectly exposed after all! PV2012 makes doing ETTR so much easier. What you will notice is that the sliders are completely different in the basic panel, and there are more of them. Because the changes are so dramatic you will have to reprocess images to take advantage of PV2012. When you first create your LR libary though LR will read the existing ACR .xmp files from CS3, and it will import the images with those settings, and using the appropriate old Process Version. You then have the choice of leaving them as is, or updating to the new PV. Oh and it will also import all of the info from the .xmp file, so if you did keyword and use colour labels and star ratings all of those will get carried over too, as will as the processing history steps etc.

LR also has very good output modules too, you have the standard basic export dialogue, which allows you to export to JPEG, TIFF or PSD files with almost any settings you want/need. It is also very easy to save the output settings as a preset for the next time you need them. Actually LR makes it really easy to save a preset using the current settings, or a sub set of them, in any of the modules. As well as standard exports there is also a really good printing module, although it has a bit of a learning curve to start with to get the best results. There are also photobook, web gallery and slideshow generation options too. Finally LR includes publish services that allow you to effectively directly upload to online hosting and social media sites like Flickr and Facebook, plus many others. It does this without leaving lots of JPEG files on the local system too.

I really would recommend going to LR, the only caveat is that it will only run on Vista or later, so if you are still running an old XP system you are pretty much stuck with CS3, I don't think CS5 even will run on XP. Other than that if your system will run CS3 it should run LR, but it might not be lighting fast. Also LR seems to have memory leaks that slow it down over time and make it a bit unstable, and has had since at least LR4, so it is a good idea to close the program every three or four hours and restart it. You will usually come back to exactly where you were if you do this. Better than it eventually crashing, as in that situation, although you lose no work, it goes back to the sate it was at the last time it closed down cleanly when it starts again.

Hope this is of help.

Alan

I'll agree with everything Al says!

One important distinction is what Al mentioned about the Raw processing advances that we've seen that you can find in versions of LR starting with LR 4 and also in versions of Photoshop CS starting with an upgraded version of CS5 -- CS5 has the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in but to get version compatibility with LR you'd need to update the Adobe Camera Raw plugin. But if you keep CS3, then LR6 will give you an up-to-date Raw processor and you could just use the CS3 pixel/image editor for those things.

Know, though, that Lightroom has a lot more "on board" than just the Raw processor, and folks can get over-whelmed wading in unless they take some serious time to read up on the LR tools and capabilities!

Hope this helps some!

Thank you for the replies. I've been watching LR6 editing tutorials on YouTube for the last hour and the RAW adjustment seems pretty impressive. I shoot mostly JPEG and it seemsto do a good job editing them too. I've been shooting more RAW lately though since I've started shooting BIF.

Watching the videos I think I much prefer the sliders for adjustment then doing adjustment layers in CS3. I also like that LR6 has lens adjustments for many different lenses unlike DPP4 which only has Canon lenses.

I think I'll pick up LR6 soon. And start shooting more RAW.

shane_c wrote in post #18238103
Thank you for the replies. I've been watching LR6 editing tutorials on YouTube for the last hour and the RAW adjustment seems pretty impressive. I shoot mostly JPEG and it seemsto do a good job editing them too. I've been shooting more RAW lately though since I've started shooting BIF.

Watching the videos I think I much prefer the sliders for adjustment then doing adjustment layers in CS3. I also like that LR6 has lens adjustments for many different lenses unlike DPP4 which only has Canon lenses.

I think I'll pick up LR6 soon. And start shooting more RAW.

You really need to shoot RAW, it just gives you so much more to work with, especially outside of DPP, or your really old version of ACR. I stopped shooting JPEG in camera after about the third day with my first DSLR back in 2005, and back the the Canon RAW processor for the 300D was just about the worst bit of image related software I have ever had the misfortune to use, including the command line image processing filters that I had to write during my C Programming for Electronic Engineers course at university back in 1992/3 as course assignments. I quickly found RAWShooter Essentials, which was bought by Adobe and rolled in to ACR and the original version of LR. The only time since then that I have shot JPEG was when the very small buffer of the 300D was a problem when shooting bursts. Having full control of the process is something I have been used to photographically, as in the past I have had both black and white and colour darkrooms at home. Although I say modern, this engine has been around for four years now, and the scope it offers by allowing you to stay in the RAW processor for about 98%+ images, and often quite difficult backlit subjects, BIF is common, but I do aviation, which is similar, in that often you want to maintain some detail in the sky, keep good detail on the upper lit side of the subject, but also to pull details from the shadowed undersides too. Shooting RAW and utilising ETTR can really help with this, but you really do need to be using either Capture 1 Pro or ACR/LR with PV 2012 as they are probably the two best RAW converters out there for maintaining highlight detail from RAW files, details that would most definitely be clipped if processed in DPP or as in camera JPEGs. I'm also glad I kept all the RAW files that weren't deleted in the camera, as I found that some images that I had previously written off as being overexposed and badly clipped in the highlights were actually perfectly exposed when processed in LR4 or above. That's the other great thing about shooting RAW, as new technologies come along in RAW processing you can retro apply it to your old images, or at least you can with non Canon processors. Canon seems to have resticted that to some degree with recent advances.

Alan

I sometimes shot RAW when I had my XT, XTi and then T3i but the main reason I haven't been with my 60D is because CS3 / ACR won't open my 60D RAW files for some reason so I'd need to convert them to DNG files first. Also, up until the latest DPP4, I really haven't liked DPP. But DPP4 seems like a huge improvement over the previous versions.

shane_c wrote in post #18238623
I sometimes shot RAW when I had my XT, XTi and then T3i but the main reason I haven't been with my 60D is because CS3 / ACR won't open my 60D RAW files for some reason so I'd need to convert them to DNG files first. Also, up until the latest DPP4, I really haven't liked DPP. But DPP4 seems like a huge improvement over the previous versions.

It won't open them because CS3 stopped being supported by Adobe long ago. I have CS6 stand alone and it still supported my 5D3 but when I got my 5D4 now it is DNG for me too.

I don't know if this will work on CS3 but DPP has a transfer to photoshop tool. It works on CS6 but it takes a little time. DNG might be the faster method.

A lot has been explained to you already but it took me 2 free trials to warm up to LR but I'm glad I finally got it. I use DPP which is very good but a little clunky, PS and LR.

Do you a lot of design work or need layers because LR does not have that. You can't create actions. Like explained it is a complete workflow for editing images only. When opened it is like ACR but all those adjustments never go away. It remembers all your settings and you can go back tomorrow and change the white balance, etc.

The catalogue system takes a bit of getting used to. Be sure you are careful where you place it when you first open it. If you import folders make sure you move them around and rename them within LR. If you import a folder off the desktop and then move that folder off your desktop it won't be able to find it.

Here is an example of a folder I just imported. When I drag it into the 2017 folder it will disappear off the desktop and go where the catalogue is stored. You can access all those folders and open images with DPP, PS or any other and editing software and edit. It won't effect your LR adjustments. Just don't move them from that location, only within LR. Later you can always change the catalogue location very easily if you have to.

This is how I set it up but there are many other and better ways for advanced searches, etc.

Forgot to say LR also has a transfer to Photoshop tool. In PS it becomes a TiFF, you do your edits and when you save that TIFF files appears in LR again beside the original RAW file. Not sure it will work with CS3.

digital paradise wrote in post #18239525
Forgot to say LR also has a transfer to Photoshop tool. In PS it becomes a TiFF, you do your edits and when you save that TIFF files appears in LR again beside the original RAW file. Not sure it will work with CS3.

Yes it will work with CS3 but with some caveats, that change the way in which it happens. Normally where the version of PS is concurrent with or newer than that of LR it uses ACR to render the image to PS as a dataset that exists only in RAM. LR passes all of the editing commands to ACR, as if it were an .xmp file. Once you have finished editing the image you hit save, Ctrl/Cmd+S, and the image is saved using the settings found in your LR preferences, by default that would be a 16 bit ProPhotoRGB uncompressed TIFF file with layers intact. Of course this being Adobe there are lots of options to chose from, I usually keep all of those with the exception of using .PSD. The file will be saved in the same folder as the original RAW, or other file type*, and imported into the catalogue, if the image is not already part of a stack it will be stacked with the original file. If your version of PS predates your version of LR, then there is a problem, since ACR will not be able to correctly render the image, since the capabilities will be different. In this situation when you go to do an Edit in command LR will throw an error to the effect that there is a mismatch in the versions. In this situation choosing the option to allow LR to render the image, and selecting the don't show again option, will allow the image to open in PS ready for editing. The main difference being that you will have to wait in LR while the file is actually generated, just like a normal export, and also as the file is imported into the catalogue, after which LR has PS open the now existing RGB file. When you finish editing and save then it behaves to the user just like the other method, although of course the image file is updated, not created. The main consequence for work flow is that if you change your mind about doing a PS edit, with the ACR render you close PS without saving, and nothing is created. With the LR render of course there is already a file, that has been imported to the LR catalogue, so you will need to manually delete it from both the catalogue, and the drive media.

*You can run the edit in PS command on any file type from LR, including RGB files. In this case you get three options, which I think you see all the time on a Mac, of Edit copy with LR adjustments, Edit a copy, and Edit original. In the first case LR will behave with an RGB file in just the same way as with a RAW. With the copy option it creates the new file first, imports to LR, and opens in PS. The last option of course just opens the existing file. If you open an existing file directly in PS, outside of LR, edit and save then LR will automatically see that the file has changed, and generate a new preview etc when next you view it back in LR. This will also update any virtual copies of the RGB file, and any LR processing will also be applied to the "new" base image. I will often do monochrome conversions and much prefer to use the LR/ACR channel mixing tools, as they have more channels than any of the direct in PS options. So I will do any PS work first on the colour image, and then bring it back to LR and create a VC for the black and white version, so it is important to remember that any changes to the base file will propagate through to the VC too.

If you have more than one copy of PS or PSE installed on your computer LR will usually find all of them, and you will see the different versions offered to you in the Edit in options. One thing I can't now go back and check, as my new system only has the latest PSCC 2017 installed is what happens with the open as Smart Object option. I would think that as it uses ACR as the editor in PS for RAW file types that you would not be able to use it. However IIRC it is still there but just fails to work correctly. Open as Smart Object was not a function I used to use on my old system, as I was very constrained for disk space, and a RAW smart object has to embed the compete RAW file, as well as the RGB Raster version of it into the file, since on that system I started with LR4 plus CS3 and then also had CS5.5 installed later. Oh and if you do install a new PS version, in addition to the version you already have LR seems to find out about it, and you will see it included in the Edit in options, along with the old, and any other image editing programs you might have. Many other non Adobe editors will see the LR install and automatically include themselves during install. With a new computer system it can be beneficial to install LR first, and then the rest of your third party editing tools for this reason. Otherwise you can find yourself having to set up the "Edit in" exports for them manually.

Finally if you are considering the CC option but are worried what you would do with all of your images in your catalogue should you stop the plan all is not lost. The Adobe CC programs are not really "cloud" programs running from the cloud, they are normal full installs just like any stand alone program. It is only the licensing that requires the use of the web. When you stop the subscription the program doesn't stop working, but it does become restricted. You can no longer open the Develop module to edit images, and you can't open the Map module to geo tag, or view the locations of images. Everything else seems to work, certainly all the export functions and the Print module work, I think the web, book, and slideshow options still work too as they are output related, but I didn't try them between my CC trial ending and a new discount offer starting for my plan. You can even still import new images, and if you are happy just using the basic editing tools that are accessible from the Library module in the Quick Edit tab you can actually make basic editing changes too. Adobe will even let you install all of the updates to LR too if you want them. You can even put a copy of the program download on a memory stick, or even a DVD, it's a bit under 500MB IIRC, so that you can install it in the future, although Adobe seem to be pretty good at keeping old versions available for download. Downloading a copy of LR4.4 was the simplest way to install that on my new computer, ready to then upgrade to CC.

Alan

Thanks for the info.

I just wanted to give a bit of an update. I bought LR6 last Friday, have watched a lot of tutorials and have been playing around with a few RAW images. It's going to take a bit of time to get used to the new workflow. I'm not used to uploading the images from my camera and then having to import them into LR before editing and then have to export them back to the original folder when I'm done. I was surprised there was no File -- Open -- Save. Other than that it seems pretty good. I really like the brush tool for selecting certain areas for adjustment. I'm still trying to get used to the Gradient tool and what areas I'm editing when I drag down the gradient. I forgot how much more forgiving it is to work with RAW images and like that LR is non destructive. Overall though I'm very happy with the switch from CS3 to LR6 but do still find myself using CS3 for a few things.

It takes time to transition and to get used to the catalogue system. I download the images into a folder my desktop. I preview them using DPP first. I like the quick check full screen look and it is fast. I delete all unwanted images and then I import the folder into LR.

shane_c wrote in post #18247450
It's going to take a bit of time to get used to the new workflow. I'm not used to uploading the images from my camera and then having to import them into LR before editing and then have to export them back to the original folder when I'm done. I was surprised there was no File -- Open -- Save.

Well, first of all, congrats on the new software, it's definitely favored by many if not most here!

Second, I'm not clear on what your workflow is, but it sounds like it could be more efficient! You plug the camera in to move (or copy) the stuff to your computer? OK, although if you have a way to take out the card and plug it into a card reader, well, that would be my choice.

But then, if you do plug in the camera, have you run the Lightroom Import to import the images directly from the camera? I would think that would work, in which case you can set an import folder in the LR Import module, so there should not be a need to put the files into a folder and then Import them separately.

And then, you talk about Exporting to the "original folder", well, I'm not clear as to your workflow, but you might want to only Export if you need files to share/send somewhere, and put them in a separate folder than the "original" library/Raw files, so that they won't clutter your library files/folders. You don't want/need your Exported files in your LR library.

Hope this helps! Let us know of any details about your workflow that you're unclear on!

Thanks as always for the replies. When I connect my camera I upload the images to a folder on the hard drive and like to view them in Zoombrowser. If I see one that I want to edit I then have to go to LR and import it. After I edit, I export the adjust image back to the folder with all of my other pics from that day. I like to keep them all in one place.

shane_c wrote in post #18247691
Thanks as always for the replies. When I connect my camera I upload the images to a folder on the hard drive and like to view them in Zoombrowser. If I see one that I want to edit I then have to go to LR and import it. After I edit, I export the adjust image back to the folder with all of my other pics from that day. I like to keep them all in one place.

Hi Shane - If this process works for you then good however, it seems very long winded to me. You can do all that you are doing better (viewing, deleting etc) from lightroom. As Tony says above.
Cheers