DPP - Lightroom - CS5

I am wondering if Lightroom would be a good enhancement to my workflow. I currently use Canon Digital Photo Professional for my Raw Conversion and Photoshop CS5 for my post processing (using a number of preset actions).

I've heard nothing buy good things about Lightroom so I am sure there are lots of folks out there that could offer me a recommendation.

BTW - I also have Aperture 3 which I really don't like because of the way it renders my photo's as very bland and flat. I really like the "faces" and "places feature (which I don't think that Lightroom has)

Currently the only feature that I don't have the organizational tools like tags, faces, places. I do have a "very" structured filing system, so I can find almost anything as long as I know the year, month, and event.

Please help me out.

What about Lightroom do you think might benefit you? Is it the organizational tools with the integrated interface? With DPP and CS5 you have two capable Raw processors and it sounds like that's not what you are looking for with Lightroom, although having the good Raw processor integrated with the other things Lightroom does is a plus.

You might want to just read up a bit on Lightroom and download the free trial and give it a spin, and ask here if you have some specific questions!

Tony ... I have read about Lightroom and it seems it is really no different than Aperture 3. My question really is to those that actually have Lightroom to get "their" input.

Everyone I talke to says " YOU MUST GET LIGHTROOM". when I ask "WHY", the discussion sort of stops. Its just "YOU MUST GET LIGHTROOM"> People say anything from "you may not use CS5 anymore" or "Lightroom is far better than CS5)

There is no better input than from those that have the product.

What do I think I will benefit from - I suppose from what I've read - is its organizational capability. But that's all I can think of, since CS5 seems to be much better than Lightroom.

I don't use lightroom, but my question would be, is there a part of your workflow you don't like?

I am fairly comfortable with my current workflow - that's in absence of what I don't know about Lightroom. I am reacting to the overwhelming support folks have for Lightroom - "YOU MUST GET LIGHTROOM". So .. there must be something that could help my workflow.

I'd like someone who is in that camp of "YOU MUST GET LIGHTROOM" to tell me why. That's all.

pophoto wrote in post #11210951
Tony ... I have read about Lightroom and it seems it is really no different than Aperture 3. My question really is to those that actually have Lightroom to get "their" input.

Everyone I talke to says " YOU MUST GET LIGHTROOM". when I ask "WHY", the discussion sort of stops. Its just "YOU MUST GET LIGHTROOM"> People say anything from "you may not use CS5 anymore" or "Lightroom is far better than CS5)

There is no better input than from those that have the product.

What do I think I will benefit from - I suppose from what I've read - is its organizational capability. But that's all I can think of, since CS5 seems to be much better than Lightroom.

Heh! It sounds like you talk to some pretty enthusiastic Lightroom users! Too bad they haven't been able to articulate why they prefer LR over other options.

I've been a Lightroom user since its early days -- I was using CS2, then CS3 and once Lightroom stabilized I took it up and it suits my workflow.

The big thing about Lightroom compared to Photoshop is that LR takes all the tools that I normally use in my photo processing thing and integrates them all into a single interface, whereas Photoshop piles a ton of tools together, many of which I don't need/use, into what can be an ungainly interface unless you do need the tools to do specific tasks.

In that sense, Lightroom will be a lot like Aperture. Since you are using Aperture, I would think that the big question to you would be "do you prefer Lightroom over Aperture?", or "should you get CS5 in addition to Aperture?". Like I said, Photoshop CSx has a ton of tools that you may want/need, whereas Lightroom I'd say is an alternative to Aperture, not an alternative to Photoshop. Whether you have Aperture or Lightroom, it's good to have an image editor such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to do tasks that are impossible in a Raw processor. But many of us do most or all of our day-to-day work in Lightroom.

I love Lightoom because of it's photo management, that's where it excels. I never got into the habit of batch processing when I was using DPP or CS4, but I've automated just about everything in LR3. I import, rename, organize and then apply my custom profile to more closely match the colors in DPP. Then I apply one of 5 tone curve presets and sharpening presets I've created, export to a flickr album or FB and I'm done. I now only use CS5 for layers and content aware cloning. Hopefully LR4 will finally add both of those features and I'll be done with Photoshop, LR really is the swiss army knife of photography.

I've tried LR3 for a few days using the trial version. I tried my best to like it, but I didn't find the interface to be intuitive whatsoever. Right now I import my photos and do basic RAW editing and JPEG conversion in DPP - it is so simple yet effective. When I batch process, I dump the JPEGs into folders that are scanned by Picasa 3 and from there I can do slideshows, upload to Flickr, etc. I suppose the idea of LR is that I can do all of this in one program. I did find that LR3 has some excellent filters and presets to play with, but I don't see myself doing that kind of thing that often. From a photo management perspective, I didn't see anything in LR3 that I can't do in Picasa 3. Oh, and I did like the watermark tool in LR3 - that is something that Picasa really needs.

Riveredger wrote in post #11213009
I've tried LR3 for a few days using the trial version. I tried my best to like it, but I didn't find the interface to be intuitive whatsoever. Right now I import my photos and do basic RAW editing and JPEG conversion in DPP - it is so simple yet effective. When I batch process, I dump the JPEGs into folders that are scanned by Picasa 3 and from there I can do slideshows, upload to Flickr, etc. I suppose the idea of LR is that I can do all of this in one program. I did find that LR3 has some excellent filters and presets to play with, but I don't see myself doing that kind of thing that often. From a photo management perspective, I didn't see anything in LR3 that I can't do in Picasa 3. Oh, and I did like the watermark tool in LR3 - that is something that Picasa really needs.

Well, it sounds like you are firming up a workflow that works for you, and that's what counts! DPP is, like you say, a quick and easy app for Raw processing and converting images, and if you like Picasa for what it does, then you're all set! For many people that really is a good approach -- the idea that everyone needs Lightroom or Photoshop (or Aperture) is just not the case. And, as you've found, some people just don't care for a particular app and shouldn't force themselves to just bear with it when there are alternatives.

tonylong wrote in post #11213190
Well, it sounds like you are firming up a workflow that works for you, and that's what counts! DPP is, like you say, a quick and easy app for Raw processing and converting images, and if you like Picasa for what it does, then you're all set! For many people that really is a good approach -- the idea that everyone needs Lightroom or Photoshop (or Aperture) is just not the case. And, as you've found, some people just don't care for a particular app and shouldn't force themselves to just bear with it when there are alternatives.

Thanks, Tony. Although my workflow does work, I - like the OP - think there must be something I am missing about LR. Maybe I need to play around with it some more and get used to it. I still have 14 days left on the trial

Well, since you have it for another 14 days, why not get the most out the trial -- sure! Lightroom does nothing to your Raw files, so you can do your "normal" process with DPP/Picasa and keep poking at Lightroom and see if something clicks.

My first experiences with LR were in the Beta days of LR1 and they weren't so hot because LR had various problems that it took a while to address, so I stuck with my Photoshop workflow until I saw that a good number of issues had been addressed, and it's been LR ever since. I like the organizational aspect, and to me the Raw processing tools really give more power to the user for more in-depth processing than I see in DPP, but that's me and what I like to do!

There is a learning curve with LR.... it's worth buying one or more of the books about it, to get the best out of it.

LR is designed for high volume work... If you shoot a lot of pics and need to turn them around fast, it's the right tool for the job. It also is a powerful cataloging tool. I don't have experience with Aperture, but would imagine it's similar. I have used a few other similar programs in the past, worked with Adobe Bridge for a while, but now use LR3.

LR doesn't replace Photoshop for me, the two compliment each other. Recently upgraded to LR3 and CS5 and they both have some nice improvements. Found a number of glitches in LR3, but just downloaded 3.3 release candidate, which appears to address some of them.

IMO a trial of these softwares is really not enough to evaluate well unless you have used an earlier version.

I shoot 1000 to 2000 images some days and use LR to catalog, sort, lightly edit and make thumbnails from the keepers. I'd recommend it for anyone with 100s or 1000s of images that they need to handle quickly and efficiently. My biggest project this year was a two day shoot with four photographers and I had 12,000 RAW images to work through afterward!

I use Photoshop or DPP for more complete and final processing of individual images, into larger prints or digital files, as needed. Beginning with CS5 and LR3 I'm using DPP less. I used to use it for better handling of high ISO images than I was getting with LR2 and CS4... but the newer Adobe sortwares are doing a much better job with high ISO images, so I find much less need for DPP. Still, there are some things it can do, so I keep installed and up to date. I have two copies of LR3... one on a laptop, the other on a desktop. I only have Photoshop installed on the desktop, since I don't like to use a laptop for precise image editing (a laptop's screen really isn't up to it, impossible to calibrate very well due to viewing angles and highly variable ambient light situations). I have DPP installed on both laptop and desktop, just in case.

I bought Lightroom recently because I wanted it while I could still get it with a student discount (finishing up a second degree). Like you, I felt that people loved it so much, there must be something that makes it a benefit along with Photoshop!

Luckily the student version is cheap ($90), because I find I don't use it much. I prefer not to have to import my files into a catalog to manipulate them and then export them when I want to save them. I'd much rather use Photoshop, use actions and batches for quick file manipulation and save files to disk. It is slower to do that, but feels more intuitive for me. I can walk away while it's running a batch so the speed isn't really an issue.

One of the nice things about Lightroom is you can see the files as you're making global modifications to them, and use history to reverse changes you've made. I am still finding this a klunky process. I need to get a book on Photoshop and Lightroom and see if I can make it more useful to me.

The other reason I went ahead and bought the Lightroom student edition was because when Adobe updates their photo software, they stop updating their raw converters for their old software. I love the newest Adobe Camera Raw. It makes high iso files pretty usable (I have the 50D). Thus, I wanted a cheaper update path for getting the new ACR when it's updated in future software package upgrades ($100 for the Lightroom upgrade, versus about $600 for Production Premium upgrade). I don't know if that's a great upgrade strategy, but it's the one I'm doing. I'll be able to do raw conversion in Lightroom, and then export from Lightroom to Photoshop for additional editing.

Regarding the rest....You can tag files directly from Windows Explorer. I suspect you can from the Mac OS too.

As for geotagging (Places), you can download Lightroom plugins to do that. Faces, I haven't found, but there's probably a Faces plugin out there somewhere, and hopefully it's free.

I almost bought Lightroom 3 today. Everytime I come close to purchasing it, I chicken out. I have Aperture 3 and the only reason I would get Lightroom is because of its cataloging capability. I can find my stuff back 10 years only because I know the general timeframe in which I took and processed the pictures.

I keep thinking if the $299 price tag on Lightroom will really benefit me. Aperture 3 has a similar capability so maybe I'll stick with it just for cataloging.

Just talking out loud.

I have most of my photos on Flickr, the vast majority are private. Tagging there helps me keep track of what's where, plus the archival views in Flickr make it pretty fast to find what I want. The description has a file name, plus I keep all my photos indexed by date anyhow.