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Lightroom Question (1 Viewer)

T

Taxboy

Well-known member
I'm a little confused about the function of lightroom |:S| I think I understand it to be a RAW converter & cataloguing tool with some image adjustment facility but can't this be done in Photoshop and PS's Bridge.

If someone could spell out in simple terms for a simple soul like me |:$| this would be very much appreciated

TIA
Andrew
 
The simple answer is yes what can be done in Lightroom can be done in Bridge and Photoshop. But Lightroom offers a single interface and is more customisable and automatable (new word I think). One can do much less image tinkering in Lightroom, but it is a third of the price!

Simple answer is if you are simply a photographer who wants to do RAW conversions and catalogue lots of images get Lightroom. If you want to do lots of tinkering, create composites and add arty effects to your pictures (and can afford it) get Photoshop.

Lightroom uses the same Adobe Camera Raw plugin for RAW processing as Photoshop, so if you use the Photoshop one then you will be OK to use Lightroom, but if you use your camera's or a third party RAW processor then do more tweaking in Photoshop you will have to change your workflow considerably to get the best out of Lightroom.

I have not used Lightroom as I have to have Photoshop, as I spend most of the time processing other peoples pictures for print use, that includes major retouching, compositing and other things Lightroom cannot do. I'm sure some Lightroom uses will have more to say, but most Lightroom users I have come across also use Photoshop for the heavier retouching etc.
 
Mono said:
Lightroom uses the same Adobe Camera Raw plugin for RAW processing as Photoshop
Click to expand...

Is that right, Mono?

I know that Adobe bought RawShooter off Pixmantec so as to get its RAW conversion engine, but I thought that they'd only used it for LR, not ACR..?
 
Keith Reeder said:
Is that right, Mono?

I know that Adobe bought RawShooter off Pixmantec so as to get its RAW conversion engine, but I thought that they'd only used it for LR, not ACR..?
Click to expand...
I use LR mainly because it uses the latest version of ACR (same as CS3).

I have CS2 but that is no longer supported by Adobe as far as updates are concerned so therefore does not have the latest ACR .
 
Thanks Roy,

I'm even more confused now!

;)

I've not used LR since my test period expired, but I thought LR did it's RAW conversion without involving ACR?

Or are you actually meaning that LR and ACR use the same RAW processing engine?
 
Keith Reeder said:
Or are you actually meaning that LR and ACR use the same RAW processing engine?
Click to expand...
Yes Keith, sorry to confuse you. I far as I can see it is the same engine and the same interface, only difference is that ACR and CS3 probably interfaces better although after processing the RAW in LR there is a one click option which allows me to edit my RAW conversion in CS2.
 
My thoughts on this, having recently converted from BreezeBrowser Pro and Downloader Pro to Lightroom.

Lightroom and CS3 use the same Adobe Camera RAW engine. The user interface has the same controls but are set out differently (see screenshots).

Lightroom works stand alone but does not have capabilities for selective adjustments or the refined tools of Photoshop - you still really need something to do this.

With regards to workflow - Lightroom and CS3 RAW are completely different.

CS3:
- Download from memory card manually using drag and drop etc. Manually create directories etc.

- Sort, delete, rename, manage files with Adobe Bridge or Windows Explorer. Add metadata etc.

- Open an individual RAW file and CS3 starts, then Adobe RAW Convertor window opens.

- Process file, then click to transfer the processed file into CS3 for any selective adjustments.

Lightroom:
- Insert card into card reader; Lightroom pops up a dialog with options, click OK: files auto download into definable file structure, auto rename (if you want), auto add standard definable metadata etc.

- Sort, manage delete etc. in Lightroom.

- Select RAW file and click develop - RAW processing in same window.

- Then edit in CS3 - a PSD file is created (with your choice of colour space, bit depth etc) and opened in CS3 for selective adjustments.

I had tried many times to use CS2 and CS3 with bridge and ACR but hated the clunky way the Adobe tools were integrated - Lightroom solved this and made the workflow very smooth.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of improvements in Lightroom over Bridge/ACR. One thing though - I now find I do 90% of my adjustments in RAW conversion (I used to do most in CS3). I still do web/print preparation, sharpening and the occasional selective adjustment in CS3.
 

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Interesting, Mark.

I ask, because I seem to recall getting different results when I've converted an image in RSE, ACR and LR...

I might have another play tonight to see whether I imagined things.
 
Keith Reeder said:
Interesting, Mark.

I ask, because I seem to recall getting different results when I've converted an image in RSE, ACR and LR...

I might have another play tonight to see whether I imagined things.
Click to expand...

OK...just tried ACR 4.2 and LR.

If I apply the same settings in both, the images look the same and I get the same histogram in the processed image.

I also found that the controls in Lightroom are more user friendly - you can drag the histogram to adjust exposure, black point, fill light and recovery; you can only use sliders or type values in ACR. Also the Lightroom curve includes both edit methods, whereas ACR has different tabs for slider control or point.

I would imagine that RSE will definately give different results - I would think that Adobe lifted the 'best of both worlds' (ACR and RawShooter) for ACR v4.
 
I am just trying out LR at the moment, having used Capture 1 LE since going digital a year ago. The thing that stands out immediately is the punchier colours with LR, and much better highlight recovery. The interface is quite different - still finding my way around it all, and trying to work out how best to catalogue a year's worth of RAW files with keywords etc applied.
I have never bothered with this before - just kept files in folders by date or location/date as seemed appropriate, so if anyone has a really good system for cataloging (both folder systems and keywords) in LR I'd be interested to read details.
Also, can you include TIFF or JPEG files in the library - it'd be useful to have all my files including scans of negs and slides in one system.
 
gordon g said:
I am just trying out LR at the moment, having used Capture 1 LE since going digital a year ago. The thing that stands out immediately is the punchier colours with LR, and much better highlight recovery. The interface is quite different - still finding my way around it all, and trying to work out how best to catalogue a year's worth of RAW files with keywords etc applied.
I have never bothered with this before - just kept files in folders by date or location/date as seemed appropriate, so if anyone has a really good system for cataloging (both folder systems and keywords) in LR I'd be interested to read details.
Also, can you include TIFF or JPEG files in the library - it'd be useful to have all my files including scans of negs and slides in one system.
Click to expand...
I am in the same boat Gordon, I have been using LR for RAW conversions for a couple of months now but have still not got around to using it for its primary use - cataloging the images.
 
gordon g said:
trying to work out how best to catalogue a year's worth of RAW files with keywords etc applied.
I have never bothered with this before - just kept files in folders by date or location/date as seemed appropriate, so if anyone has a really good system for cataloging (both folder systems and keywords) in LR I'd be interested to read details.
Also, can you include TIFF or JPEG files in the library - it'd be useful to have all my files including scans of negs and slides in one system.
Click to expand...

I am still trying to finalise my methodolgy for this, but I am set on a date based directory structure (which gets auto created on import, both new and as I import old files). I am finding and sorting images by metadata now in LR rather than date in the directories and this is so much easier.

Yes Gordon, you can import TIFF and JPEG and even relate them together in a stack (for example, I can import an old CR2 file and the PSD I prepared from it with my old tools and then 'stack' them together in LR).
 
I am afraid I am not a fan of lightroom, I find it very slow.
I use zoombrowser to upload from card as it does it automatically creating a folder with the date, I then open bridge to sort and batch rename. I then hghlight all the thumbnails of the same subject and dbl click on one of them, this then opens CS3 and adobe camera raw. All the thumbnails are there for me to sort do any adjustments and then press done which deletes all those I don't want.
I find this a long winded way of doing things but until they bring out an up-date from Capture 1 I have no option unless I get a faster Machine. I have 2gb of ram but in lightroom it still takes 30sec to render an image before I can see if its sharp.
 
Saphire said:
I have 2gb of ram but in lightroom it still takes 30sec to render an image before I can see if its sharp.
Click to expand...

What version of Lightroom and how many images are in your library Christine? This doesn't sound right to me - it runs fine on my XP laptop with only 1gb RAM.
 
Saphire said:
I am afraid I am not a fan of lightroom, I find it very slow.
I use zoombrowser to upload from card as it does it automatically creating a folder with the date, I then open bridge to sort and batch rename. I then hghlight all the thumbnails of the same subject and dbl click on one of them, this then opens CS3 and adobe camera raw. All the thumbnails are there for me to sort do any adjustments and then press done which deletes all those I don't want.
I find this a long winded way of doing things but until they bring out an up-date from Capture 1 I have no option unless I get a faster Machine. I have 2gb of ram but in lightroom it still takes 30sec to render an image before I can see if its sharp.
Click to expand...
Like Mark this does not seem right Christine, I have only got 1gb of ram but it is not to bad with LR. Are you running v1.2 as this is supposed to be a lot quicker than earlier versions.
 
I am running lightroom 1.2. I did a complete format and re-install of Xp a couple of weeks back to try and speed things up but I have had no joy, its as if my computer is ignoring the ram and going straight to the swap file.
 
I have a dual-core processor in my desktop system and it goes to near 100% usage for a second when displaying an image in LR...so I wonder if your processor is causing the bottleneck Christine? Not that it is much help though.
 
Its possible Mark I did start a thread under computers called computer slowing down it did show how hard the processor was working before I did the re-format. I may look into getting another faster athlon Xp processor I have the XP 2200 I think I can go up to 3200 they are not expensive, that may cure the problem.
 
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