lightroom3 and photoshop CS5

[wallace]

This may be a dumb question, but, what is the difference between Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5? Thanks!!

[nickbedford]

Photoshop is a destructive image editing suite. It's not primarily aimed at photographers, but rather digital artists creating pixel-oriented graphics and art (as opposed to the print oriented Illustrator).

Photoshop is fine for editing photos but the workflow required to process a shoot in Photoshop is more cumbersome than that of Lightroom.

Lightroom on the other hand is a non-destructive cataloging and photo developing suite designed especially for photographers needing to import, catalogue and process photo shoots efficiently. Without plugins, it gives you only (but everything) you need to bring a photo to life and get it out to your clients or into different formats. If I used Photoshop I would probably take three times longer to process a photo shoot.

Or something like that.

[Photologyst]

Photoshop is non-destructive if used properly and is most certainly aimed at photographers as well as other digital artists. It is not a photo-cataloging program like LR which is also a PS processing program.

The learning curve for PS is huge because it is much more powerful than LR. LR makes a data base/virtual copies of photos. These do not become “real” digi-pixs until they are exported. When using PS it is imperative to learn non-destructive techniques.

Each have their place. For great PS processing you will need both.

[ravncat]

lightroom (3) is a filing cabinet and a set of essential tools.

Photoshop (Cs5) is a workbench and a huge full box of tools

[wallace]

Thanks for all your responses. I guess I'll start out with LR and go on to PS
I now only have PSE8 at the moment

Powershoot Photos