Railfan Technology > Lightroom

I use PSE10 and 14, along with ACDSee, for post-processing.  WHAT is so good about Lightroom that I should buy it?  Sell me.

Ed

I use both Lightroom and PSE.  I do most of my editing in LR to get 2-click WB setting (and can tweak from there, if needed), easy slider-based exposure/presence/sharpening/noise adjustments, curves (when I feel like it), and I especially like both the automatic lens correction and the ability to correct converging/diverging parallel lines (as in walls & doors).  I can make 'mass changes' at will to copy my 'standard' settings across all photos or even selected groups of photos as well.  As I too-often have my camera tilted a bit when I shoot, re-leveling the picture is considerably easier in LR than PSE as the picture itself can be smoothly rotated in LR during cropping/levelling vs rotating a rectangle and hope you got it right in PSE.   I also use the 'heal' function extensively to remove everything from distractions on a wall such as switches and fire alarms.  'Heal' is also fantastic taking care of the smaller dust particles on scanned slides (I limit my scanner 'dust and scratches' software to 1 pixel radius, otherwise it noticably softens the picture).  The export function has a number of functions including image size and file nameing that I use extensively, as it runs completely unattended for as long as needed...even 200+ images at a time.  Although many, perhaps most, users love the cataloging features of Lightroom, I have my own system I've been using since I moved to digital in 2002 or so. 

My first photo editor was Photoshop LE that came free with my first digital camera, a Canon G1.  Very primative and archaic by todays standards.  I had to move to PSE because the LE wouldn't run under Windows XP, as I recall.  I added Lightroom later.  I'm a long ways from being anywhere NEAR "reasonably competent" on most of the capabilities of LR and PSE, but I can muddle my way through most of it.  Perhaps the 2 biggest features of PSE I use the most is spot and larger area correction, even down to the individual pixel editing level, if needed (circles under the eyes, acne, etc).  I like the red-eye correction in LR better than PSE, too.  Sometimes the 'heal' function in LR goes nuts, most often near the edges of the picture.  I recently scanned 2200 slides for a friend and used a combination of LR 'heal' on the small dust spots and PSE 'clone' feature to handle the more complex areas such as rigging in a schooner.  Perhaps the feature I use the most in PSE is cropping to a fixed size such as 4x6 or 5x7 for later printing.  Although my photo printing software can automatically crop to those dimensions, the problem is it sometimes crops people in half, etc.  By doing the cropping in PSE, I can make the choices of what is or is not included in the 4x6 picture, sometimes having to find an acceptable compromise cutting of the far-right persons hand, for example vs eliminating the person on the left.  

In short, they are both great products!  It's just that various functions are more easily done in one editor than the other.  It's what I've become accustomed to, so it works for me. 

I used PS Elements for 5 years and then upgraded to Lightroom 3 and used it for 3 more years and recently went to version 6 when I bought a new camera.

The main reason I like it is the ability to modify a RAW image and copy all the adjustments I made. Then I can click on the next photo and "paste" and all the changes are applied. Works really nicely for a sequence of images (I shoot 8fps of my sons playing Little League and soccer) so this alone saves me hours of processing time. Here's a screenshot of the many adjustments that can be applied.

Ryan Wilkerson
Fair Oaks, CA

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I find that scanned slides processed in Lightroom are far superior to what I was getting with other software.  I thought I was going to have to trade up to a much more expensive scanner.  But with Lightroom I don't have to.

KG

Lightroom is the way to go.

My workflow starts out like this:

- Insert SD card and import photos into automatically generated date-labeled folder (e.g. K: / Year2016 / 2016-02-24)
- Give photos star ratings so I can have the best ones ranked at top, worst at bottom
- Tag photos with names, locomotive model, numbers, map location, etc.
- Develop top-ranked photos to adjust sharpness, light levels, etc. with Photoshop-quality adjustable sliders

All of this is done without modifying the original files. This is a life saver!

When viewing later, I can simply enter a name or number in the search bar, and all of the photos corresponding to those search terms will appear. Smart collections can also be created to allocate images (again, the original files are left alone) into a special location/gallery. When I want to email or post a photo, I hit 'ctrl-shift-e' to export and make the last tweaks (pixel size, quality, file name, etc.)

I was like you before, using Photoshop and ACDSee with my own photo management style, and wasn't sure Lightroom was for me until I saw someone demonstrate it. Since then, I did all the hard work transitioning all of my files since the mid-90s (we're talking over a quarter million photos) into LR, and now the work flow is very easy and reliable. I do back up all of my original files onto external HDs in case anything goes haywire, and if it does, no worries, I just use last month's back-up catalog and re-sync it with one of the backed-up photos on the external drives. Sure, I'll lose the last few weeks of work, but it's a whole lot better than losing it all.

After starting with PSE, I went to LR to get the lens corrections  and better RAW capabilities. I think it's the way to go.

As far as backup, I strongly recommend a cloud backup (I use Carbonite) as well as the external hard drive. I just don't want to lose my photos if somebody steals my PC and hard drive, or there is a flood, fire or whatever, and the currency of the backup doesn't depend on my remembering to do itWith ransomware so common, backup is critical. . Fourty years in IT made me sensitive about data loss.

Jim B
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/16 21:32 by jimB.

Thanks to each of you for your replies.  I guess there are enough positive points raised for me to consider buying Lightroom.  I am just now downloading a 30-day free trial.  With your suggestions in mind, I may well move up to Lightroom.  I hope they don't REQUIRE that the program be web-based instead of stand-alone.  Also, hope I can find it for less than advertised.

Ed

Auburn_Ed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks to each of you for your replies.  I guess
> there are enough positive points raised for me to
> consider buying Lightroom.  I am just now
> downloading a 30-day free trial.  With your
> suggestions in mind, I may well move up to
> Lightroom.  I hope they don't REQUIRE that the
> program be web-based instead of stand-alone.
>  Also, hope I can find it for less than
> advertised.
>
> Ed

Ed, I've gone to Abobe's Photographer's plan, with both Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC included, for
$9.99 a month.  Updates/upgrades come out, and are immediatly available, (not always a great thing!)
Some folks just REFUSE to adapt to a subscription based software package, and that's their choice, I
guess.  To me personally, it's the only way to go.  Either way, I think you'll like LR a lot, and again, for
me only, the best editing I get is in a combination use of LR and PS.  

JWR

Again, thanks for the input.  While I have used PSE for some time, and now that I am trying out Lightroom for 30 days, I have to put in a good word for the product I was using previously.  ACDSee Pro does almost everything PSE does AND adds most of what I see in Lightroom.  I may, or may not switch to Lightroom, but I sure have to recommend ACDsee to everyone, it seems to combine PSE AND Lightroom into ONE program.  They also offer free trials, I wholeheartedly suggest people try it.

Ed

I have both and use them differently. When you have a card full of RAW images to pull in in process, LR is the way to go. It is a very seemless process and puts them all in a nice catalog (without moving your files around or touching your RAW master).
For working on single images, especially JPEGs, PE is qucker and easier to use since it is not catalog based. Just open the file, edit and save. PE will work with RAW, but not as easily.

Scott Schifer
Torrance, CA
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