Photoshop CS5 Extended or Lightroom

Adobe has Photoshop CS5 extended for $199 if you are a student but I do not see Lightroom. So for the same price which one would you go with? My thought is Fry's sells CS5 Ex for $1099 so I want to get it for $199. Is there any reason I should get lightroom? I have two very fast modern computers with high end GPU's, CPU's, and RAM to take advantage of CS5.

Edit: It looks like Lightroom 2.0 is $299 at Frys so I would pay $100 more.

I'm researching the same exact scenario too...

You won't see Lightroom 3 yet as the full software is not out, you can download CS5 and Lightroom 3 Beta 2 and test both and see which one is suited to your workflow..

Gabe63 wrote in post #10155509
Adobe has Photoshop CS5 extended for $199 if you are a student but I do not see Lightroom. So for the same price which one would you go with? My thought is Fry's sells CS5 Ex for $1099 so I want to get it for $199. Is there any reason I should get lightroom? I have two very fast modern computers with high end GPU's, CPU's, and RAM to take advantage of CS5.

Edit: It looks like Lightroom 2.0 is $299 at Frys so I would pay $100 more.

you probably should tell us how much you know the difference between the 2, it's almost like "apples and oranges are both $1.99 per lb, which one should i buy?".

I think those are different pieces of software.

I see lightroom/aperture as a photocatalogue, dat sorts al of my photographs and where I can do a fast tweak on my photographs.

Photoshop is for the more advanced tweaking and correcting of photographs.

That's just the way I see it.

I think they deliver CS5 Bridge with photoshop, that can catalogue photographs to.

HyperYagami wrote in post #10155578
you probably should tell us how much you know the difference between the 2, it's almost like "apples and oranges are both $1.99 per lb, which one should i buy?".

So Lightroom is as good as Photoshop CS5 Extended? I do not know the diff between the two, I have never used either.

I am going to guess PS has more features for the extra $700 retail. I am wondering what it may not have. I only want to learn and use one. I would imagine PS will have more features.

If it was not for the student discount I would not buy it, like most people I suspect. If it was the same price as LR would everyone buy it over LR?

JelleVerherstraeten wrote in post #10155785
I think they deliver CS5 Bridge with photoshop, that can catalogue photographs to.

Yes. CS5 comes with Bridge. I have LR3 beta and never use it.

My workflow is with Bridge into ACR and then to CS5.
ACR comes with CS5 and has everything needed for Raw image PP with the final PP in CS5. ACR can do anything LR can.

Gabe63 wrote in post #10155957
So Lightroom is as good as Photoshop CS5 Extended? I do not know the diff between the two, I have never used either.

what JelleVerherstraeten said, and research more via google.

like I said it's like asking "apples and oranges are both $1.99 per lb, which one should i buy?".

You need to do some reading on the two, what they do. They are really entirely different. One is not 'better' than the other. Is an RV better than a sports car?

drdiesel1 wrote in post #10156014
Yes. CS5 comes with Bridge. I have LR3 beta and never use it.

My workflow is with Bridge into ACR and then to CS5.
ACR comes with CS5 and has everything needed for Raw image PP with the final PP in CS5. ACR can do anything LR can.

Thanks.

mrknowitall wrote in post #10156139
You need to do some reading on the two, what they do. They are really entirely different. One is not 'better' than the other. Is an RV better than a sports car?

Or I can ask people who use or have knowledge about both of them. I am trying to do some reading, including right here. What is wrong with that?

Gabe63 wrote in post #10156145
Thanks.

CS5 should cover anything you need and for a 199.00 bucks you can't go wrong. I had to pay 579.00 for CS4 and then upgrade to CS5 for 169.00


The best thing about CS5 is all the new features, plus Bridge and ACR are all included as part of the complete program. Nothing else to buy, unless you want some add-on's like Topaz Labs or Imagenomic's Portraiture software.
They're add-on's to photoshop you can buy separately and use directly inside of CS5.

CS5 is a complete package and LR is a solo image library that allows you to edit too. I like Bridge because it's simple and you open into ACR straight from the files you select in Bridge, then they open into CS5 for the final output.
CS5 is much more than image editing software and the extended version also has 3D software. CS5 will allow you to create your own images from scratch. It's a graphics interface. You can add anything you can imagine to your photo's.
CS5 allows you to make composite images from two, three, ECT. photo's. You can change the backgrounds, add layer masks, and anything from anywhere. If you have a photo of a boat and a lake, but wanted to add something to the image. CS5 will do it. LR will only allow you to perform image editing related to color, exposure, WB and so on. CS5 is a true image editor with all the same capability's of LR and beyond.

I've used both and if I had to do it all over again I don't I would do anything different. I would still choose Photoshop over Lightroom, if I had to choose one over the other. It all depends on what you are looking for. Part of the power of LR is in its cataloging system. Someone above mentioned that Bridge can do this and this is only partly true and Lightroom does shine in this respect. All you can do with Bridge is keywording. Management of the file location is very much a manual process in Bridge. However, I am not a fan of Lightroom as once the catalog starts to get large, around 75,000 images it really slows down to a point that I find unsatisfactory.

It really depends on what kind of edits that you plan on doing. If you are looking to do basic global edits then Lightroom is a good choice but is certainly not the only nor the best, imo, raw converter available. If you want to be able to do more region pixel based edits then photoshop is going to be a better choice. Do want to be able to add text, Photoshop is your tool. Keep in mind that if you choose Photoshop you get the same RAW conversion engine that Lightroom uses, it just isn't all wrapped up in a user friendly interface but ACR isn't all that hard to learn.

If you are just starting out I would suggest that you try the free downloads and trial periods. You may not think that you need a powerful database driven catalog system but you will change your mind after taking a few thousand shots and you are looking for that image of a bird that you took 18 months ago. This is where Lightroom makes its worth.

Since you mention the extended version you will get the benefits of Photoshop's 3D capabilities. Lightroom offers nothing of the sort. As far as image editing 3D has little to no effect here.

Lightroom offers the other modules as well and makes things easier for the end user. To be honest, I rarely ever used Lightroom for anything other than RAW conversion and its catalog. I preferred printing from in Photoshop and I didn't have a requirement for its web gallery generation. I preferred Photoshop's actions for doing by watermarking. Lightroom has a plugin called morgify which offers this and is pretty dynamic from what I have seen but I have not used it myself.

Take the time to make the decision that is right for you. What works for me may not fit with your style. Only you can decide what is right for you.

ssim, thanks. At this point I don't think I have much to loose since school is ending soon. I can buy LR at any time but not PS for this price. I do not take a lot of phots, I just want to be able to PP the one's I do take without any limits.

Gabe63 wrote in post #10158507
ssim, thanks. At this point I don't think I have much to loose since school is ending soon. I can buy LR at any time but not PS for this price. I do not take a lot of phots, I just want to be able to PP the one's I do take without any limits.

Definitely go for Photoshop with the student discount, you can't lose at that price. Know, though, that Lightroom has a student discount as well. So, while you are in that category it wouldn't hurt to try out a free trial after LR3 comes out, but in the meantime CS5 will do all you mention above and more. Lightroom makes some things easier, especially if you're doing large volumes of photo processing and if most or all of your needs are met by a Raw processor and then quick output, but most of us who follow that workflow also have either Photoshop or another capable image/graphic editor for when we need one.