As photographer progresses in the digital age the will use several programs just as a composer uses different instruments to create his music.

thanks

Just finished playing with the LR trial download and can’t wait for Ver 3 to come and so I can buy that. I’m an accomplished amateur who doesn’t need the power of PS but did need something that worked better than the free Canon software. LR fills that bill with easy to access features (keystroke shortcuts are a godsend – why didn’t Canon ever implement them, at the very least for the star ratings!) and strong print and web modules.

My take on LR: If you want to organize your photos, track them, review them and modify them and save them or output them, LR can do it all. No – you can’t put Uncle Jim’s face on top of a busty blonde, nor can you do other high-powered tasks that frankly, I’ve never wanted to do, but you can crop, adjust colors, brightness, recover darkened areas of photos very nicely, and in general, improve upon what you failed to notice while taking the shot. I love this package!

Now don’t take offense at this next part, but if you’ve got CS4 or PS or whatever, great! Don’t bother us with your lack of understanding why anyone would leave that world to join the LR community. We know you won’t. But for those of us who aren’t in PS, this thread is here to help us start to walk along side the PS users, although at a much lower cost of entry.

Many of us already have been using Adobe Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator) for many, many years and keep up with our upgrades because other elements of the Suite are integral to our work. For instance, I am a graphic designer who relies on InDesign and Illustrator on a daily basis, therefore I have CS4 already (and it’s my graphic design work that “pays the bills”). Why spend extra $300 on LR, when would those of us that have CS4 already as part of our everyday work flow don’t need to, if Bridge/RAW is working for us. That is why I can’t justify the expense. If it was my first and only program for working with my photos, perhaps, but since I have the tools I need already, makes no sense.

Now I’m ready to learn Photoshop CS4 and am running into trouble. CS4 books barely acknowledge that Lightroom exists. Are there clear instructions someplace on how to integrate LR into the CS4 workflow?

In addition to the color labels, star ratings, flags, and plethora of keywords, since LR doesn’t modify the original file but exports and writes a new one based on your edits, this opens the door for export plugins. I use many, including the mogrify plugin which exports with a watermark, an export to facebook plugin, picasa web, google mail, flickr, etc. All without creating a new file. And it’s possible to set jpeg quality, dimensions, and ppi with the exported files, even if they’re exported straight to web and never occupy any new disk space.

I also use preset brushes to whiten teeth, smooth skin, and other things in my people pictures.

Without some type of manual to lead you step by step through all of the marvelous capabilities of the software, you might find it a bit of a learning curve and miss out on a lot of goodies.

I use PS7 and PS Elements 6 and Corel PSP x2U; BUT… since implementing LR2 as my work flow, I spend less time in these other programs. As a portrait photographer, I still require the use of the other software to ‘fix’ certain things that LR doesn’t. However, I have found that my general photography looks its best after running it through LR. So you could say that LR could be a replacement. As others have stated, it all depends on your post work preferences and requirements.

I like the cataloging ability and the fact that you can create more than one main catalog is awesome if you shoot hundreds of images and of different categories. IE: you can separate your weddings, images taken in different countries; different clients, etc. Endless ideas there. You can loupe through your images, compare and flag the best for a quick catalog.

I highly recommend it the software.