Is Lightroom necessary with "Camera Raw"?

I just purchased Photoshop CS4 which comes with Camera Raw and from the very little research I've done it looks like Lightroom is an enhanced standalone version of Camera Raw. Is this a correct assumption?

Is there any reason to have Lightroom if I already have Camera Raw?

Thanks!

Lightroom is more than just camera RAW processing software - it builds into a more powerfull organisation setup for sorting, accessing and processing your RAW images. Give the demo a try (30 freedays of full version operation) from the adobe site.
I have to say I was skeptical at first, but after a trial it really does make a difference for RAW processing. I still have to purchase it though (its not cheap) but in addition to a photo editing suite like CS4 its a powerfull combo.

Since I have been using lightroom it easily handles 90%+ of my processing. Very rarely do I need to switch over the PS.

dog rocket wrote in post #10063937
Is there any reason to have Lightroom if I already have Camera Raw?

Only for the file organisation as discussed. The actual raw processing is the same - and in fact ACR is much better, because it gives you an accurate histogram, rather than the abomination in LR.

Just a couple notes -- Lightroom was designed from the ground up to be a very thorough and often complete "workflow manager" for photographers, meaning that with one integrated interface a photographer often can do all that is needed including printing and outputting for various uses without the need to send all your files to Photoshop. In fact, many of us rearely use Photoshop, just for special needs, but for those we are glad it's there.

Photoshop was not designed that way. It has a browser/organizer, Bridge, that was designed to "catch all" of a variety of Adobe applications for graphics, document design, and photography, and integrate them together to work together. The photoshop editor itself reflects that intent, with an ever-increasing amount of graphics tools that may or may not be useful to a photographer, although if you are a photographer with graphic and/or design needs it can be invaluable.

The Raw processor in Photoshop is a plug-in, a separate dialog but not an integrated part unless you need it. It shares the same engine and tools as Lightroom and has some but not all of the support functions that Lightroom has developed.

Bridge also has many but not all of the organizational tools of Lightroom, although the Lightroom "Library" module is designed to be an integral part of the interface -- you have to hunt more in Bridge to do numerous tasks that are built in with Lightroom.

Just one more thing -- the "abomination" of a histogram in Lightroom needs more clarifying. What the Lightroom histogram actually represents is the wide gamut color space that Lightroom operates in and that includes more of what the camera captures than the sRGB color space that we often work in (and that most of our monitors are close to). This means that if colors in the Lightroom histogram are up against the right side, in sRGB they will be clipped and so not accurately be displayed in a "consumer" monitor or in an image exported for the Web and other sRGB uses. If you understand it, you can work with it in Lightroom, but ACR (and DPP from Canon) both have the ability to switch between sRGB, aRGB and ProPhoto RGB or Wide Gamut in DPP (which will give you the same histogram as LR). The histogram will adapt to your chosen color space so you can adjust accordingly.

So, do you need both? No, you can find tools and workarounds that will give you pretty much all that Lightroom does, although not so much all in one neat efficient package. So it's a question of how much you want that efficient package and what it's worth to you.

You might be well advised to take time to at least learn the basics of Photoshop before leaping into another major application, though. You could certainly try the free trial of LR, but if you do this right away you might find yourself overwhelmed, whereas if you learn to get the most out of CS you will be in a better position to evaluate LR down the road.

Great response, Tony. This is exactly what I needed to know.

Believe me, I'm cramming very hard on PS right now with all the Lynda training that came with registering CS4. I agree that I should get somewhat proficient with PS before venturing out into a new platform for workflow.

Thanks a ton for the feedback, everyone.

Once again Tony has taken the time to explain things very eloquently, well put.

If all you are looking for is a RAW converter then ACR will serve you just fine. If you are looking for a more total workflow tool then Lightroom is one of the many options that is available. If I was starting out and having to make a choice between Lightroom or Photoshop, I would still make the choice to have Photoshop. Lightroom is certainly a great tool but at the end of the day I like to do things that cannot be done in LR and since I get the same raw capabilities then it wasn't rocket science. The learning curve is somewhat longer but the results you can get be so much more.

What really counts is how you feel. If you are comfortable with your workflow with a tool then that is the one that you should stick with.

dog rocket wrote in post #10065484
Great response, Tony. This is exactly what I needed to know.

Believe me, I'm cramming very hard on PS right now with all the Lynda training that came with registering CS4. I agree that I should get somewhat proficient with PS before venturing out into a new platform for workflow.

Thanks a ton for the feedback, everyone.

You may have a look at some of the Lightroom tutorials on Lynda.com as well. I didn't "get" Lightroom the first time I tried it until I saw some of those tutorials and it finally clicked for me. It's been a great benefit since then.

I've actually done an about-face on my thinking on this. I've decided to spring for Lightroom. After more research Lightroom seems to be a workflow efficiency tool and since I'm on the ground floor, I don't want to spend gobs of time disciplining myself to work with Bridge and all the nuances associated with it only to decide I could be more efficient in the future turning to Lightroom to establish a better workflow. One of the videos by Chris Orwig convinced me of that when he shows graphically 3 equal sized circles depicting Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom and then he resizes those circles based on becoming proficient with Lightroom where Bridge becomes pretty small and Photoshop somewhere between Lightroom and Bridge in size. This represents usage of each program as efficiency in workflow increases.

Bottom line, I don't want to add new tools later if I can do it now. I want to start with a workflow that works most efficiently from the get-go. Since this is a hobby and not a profession for me I won't have enough time to let my process evolve by re-teaching myself another program down the road. I'd rather it evolve with the pieces of the puzzle already in place and spend my time learning a workflow that won't need to change so drastically in the future for better efficiency. I've found, as a creature of habit, that once I'm comfortable with a process, I'm reluctant to change even if it's more efficient to do so because of the learning curve I will now have to invest... time I simply don't have.