For those that have finally seen the light!
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Out of curiosity.. What does lightroom have to offer CS users? I'm just wondering what the benefit to using both would be? I know they offer a 30day trial... lol I'm finding it hard to resist playing. Btw.. I do not have raw capabilities..
Michelle K.
My Gallery

PSE 5-6, CS3
Sony DSC H1, Canon Powershot A590 IS
I would say if you don't have raw then LR would not be for you, maybe. You can do the same with the raw plug-in in CS3 but more with LR. Give it a try and see how you like it. For me, I do raw and love it. It will also work on Jpegs.
Michelle,

I started with PSE4 and ignored the Organizer until I started to shoot in RAW, then found out that the Organizer gave me the thumbnail view I was missing also. I took a little while using it and then switched entirely to Organizer. I later found an add-on that let me see thumbnails with Windows Explorer, but by then the switch was a done deal.

Went with CS3 when it first came out and got used to using Bridge, but wasn't really happy with the response time and the way it worked with keywording and access.

I tried Lightroom when it was first out in Beta and hated it - too buggy, etc. Eventually I downloaded Lr V1.0 on a trial version and found that they had solved all the problems that annoyed me in the beta version.

So, in my opinion Lr is like Organizer and Bridge on steroids and works really well if you are into a RAW workflow, but also is of great benefit if you are doing lots of shooting under similar conditions and have a basic set of adjustments you want to apply to a lot of images - adjust one and then copy / paste its settings to a lot of other images in the same shot sequence.

If you hated organizer and bridge - forget about Lr.

Hope this helps.
John
If you hated organizer and bridge - forget about Lr.


Hmmm...I don't know about that....I hated Organizer, and have never used Bridge, but I have found that LR doesn't "lose" the pictures like Organizer did (or does!) I have never had to reconnect with LR. And applying keywords and metadata is a snap, also.

LR does offer the same benefits to processing JPGs as it would RAW files, within limits. Meaning that you are starting off at a processed point and that can limit what you can do with your shots, whereas with RAW you have the most flexibility for processing your shots. LR is great if you do a lot of shooting under similar conditions. Edit one picture, and you can apply those edits to all the others. And to me the editing flow in LR is a more natural one than what I had been doing in PSE and CS3. Plus LR is ACR on steroids and after they added brushes in LR2, you got even more editing capabilities which are very useful. I find I don't use PSE at all any more, and CS3 not as much as I had been. But then, I don't do all the fancy stuff that a lot of you guys do, either.

Just my 2¢ worth.
GeneVH

My SmugMug
My PrestoPhoto
Now on Flickr

CS5/LR4/Nikon D300 & D70s/Win7
Gene,

I compare Organizer to Lr because of

- it uses a catalog/database to store things in
- images have to be imported in order for Lr to "see" them
- images can be deleted from the Lr catalog and still be left sitting on the hard disk
- and lastly, you can have multiple catalogs - something I would never do, but puts it IMO into the Organizer like pile of things.

All that said, I never lost files in Organizer or Lr for that matter and wouldny be without Lr now.

I throw Bridge into the mix, because most people who hated the Organizer also hate Bridge. For me, Bridge is distinctly different because it is a file browser - navigate to a directory where there is stuff, and it will show you what is there.

Aside from that, one other feature of Lr that I have come to love dearly is the Snapshot feature available in the Develop module. It doesn't save the "recipe" I used to create an image, but it saves the result. I frequently play with an image, wind up with one and go - Like That - and save it via a Snapshot. Then I go on and try a few more tweaks or a completely different interpretation and I can save that also and go back and forth from one to the other.

And even if you don't use RAW, it is a great thing to use anyway - the major downside is that the White Balance tool settings are restricted. I usually either like an image from my RAW shot, and if not, the first thing I try is to go thru the various WB settings - Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, etc. and see what pops up.

But given the cost ($299 USD) unless you get lucky enough to get a sale, it is kind of expensive and requires a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Or Not - for you toy junkies out there - and that included me! :rotfl:
John
Ahh...the toys...just gotta have 'em! :puter:
GeneVH

My SmugMug
My PrestoPhoto
Now on Flickr

CS5/LR4/Nikon D300 & D70s/Win7
Thanks everyone! That answers my questions. :P May have to check out the batch processing but won't be able to afford it for some time.. lol
Michelle K.
My Gallery

PSE 5-6, CS3
Sony DSC H1, Canon Powershot A590 IS
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