Cataloging my photos... which program?

Currently I own Photoshop CS2, which is more than enough for my PP needs and Im also looking to get Noise Ninja. From what I have read NN is capable of batch processing and is very good as noise reduction, both of which are lacking for me in CS2.

Ive read about lightroom, and tried it some at my friends house and I like how it catalogs photos by date and such, but I have no need for all its PP settings since I prefer CS2.

Is there any other software out there that I could use in its place? I cant justify $300 for a program of which I will only be using a fraction of the features.

iView media pro.

Also: Have a read here and here.

I think you will find you quickly will start to do "some" of your post processing in lightroom if you used it. Much faster than ACR. Gets you through your images and rates and get the basics in place - then you work in photoship for the rest....

That, unless you manually edit every picture individually and manually?

Another question... do you shoot RAW?

Well untill recently all I shot was jpg, because that is all my old camera supported. Now that I have the 400D I shoot in raw, but have not gotten into PP yet since making the switch.

Ive been using photoshop for years, so its just something that Im naturally used to, and yes I manually edit each picture. But now that I am switching to a camera that I will have many more images to process I would like to look into a solution that allows me to batch process for the most part, while I would still manually do a few here and there.

Does lightroom allow for batch processing?

Jimmer411 wrote in post #4161485
Well untill recently all I shot was jpg, because that is all my old camera supported. Now that I have the 400D I shoot in raw, but have not gotten into PP yet since making the switch.

Ive been using photoshop for years, so its just something that Im naturally used to, and yes I manually edit each picture. But now that I am switching to a camera that I will have many more images to process I would like to look into a solution that allows me to batch process for the most part, while I would still manually do a few here and there.

Does lightroom allow for batch processing?

Mmmm... yeah you need to work with lightroom lots more. It will solve all that for you. Organization, picking, sorting, collecting, all ACR develop stuff... batching via preset and syncing settings... and on and on...

CRAZY to manually pull up each image in photoshop... no way I'd keep doing that.

Was gonna suggest Elements for a quick, easy organizer similar to Lightroom, but as you want to do batch processing, and use photoshop already (LR's RAW processing engine is almost completely ACR from Photoshop.) I'd have to say look into LR some more.

But as Rene pointed out, there are other programs out there you may wish to consider.

(Also, if you are a student, or have children who are students (even young children) you can get LR at the student price... I think $99!)