Hmmm....CS5 or Lightroom 3???

[Tzetsin]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Two totally different animals. They are not even remotely similar.

PS - layers
LR - everything but layers

theres actually a 3rd party add on now that gives lightroom layers. I havn't tried it out yet though

[Jim Bryant]

CS5 - You can do more with it than LR3.

[smcilree]

I am very happy with my current combination of Lightroom 3 and PS Elements 9. I started using Photoshop with version 3, but I am finding Lightroom's nice clean workflow such a joy that I would be hard pressed to go back to the full Photoshop. Lightroom can do everything needed for 90% of the post processing that you will generally need to do. About the only thing I find I cannot do in LR3 is selections, and if I find that an image needs that I find that PSE 9 with Topaz Lab's ReMask 3 is more than adequate.

Probably what I like the most about using Lightroom is that everything you do is completely nondestructive without having to think about it. Using Photoshop, unless you are very careful, at some point you will do something to an image file which cannot be reversed. If you have been sure that you are not working with your original, you're still OK but if not you've blown it. With Lightroom, there are never changes made to the actual image file, all editing is simply stored as instructions, so you can always revert to the original. This is even true if you have quit the program, do not attempt that with Photoshop. And if your workflow includes converting to DNG on import, the changes are stored in the image file rather than a sidecar.

As for layers, it is true that Lightroom doesn't do layers natively. However, onOne software has just introduced Perfect Layers, a plugin that allows Lightroom to do layers very nicely. There have been third party plugins for some time for Lightroom, but recently onOne and Topaz have been very aggressively pursuing the LR plugin market, with some very nice add ons.

[SwissJon]

I have both...

I use lightroom about 99% of the time (Probably more), and there's maybe only 1/100 photos that need something doing to them that I can't do in LR. LR costs about 1/3rd the price of PS.. In an ideal world, I'd have both, in a non-ideal world I'd take the one I'd use the most often, Lightroom.

Having said that, Adobe are doing a 30% discount on Lightroom if you buy it with PS, and PS IS enourmously powerful. If money is an issue, get PSE.

I'd still take LR over PS, but only because I can't justify the cost.. I was lucky. My work bought PS for me for a project, and I got them to buy LR (and paid them back) at the discounted price. But seriously.. If you're not a professional photographer, stick to LR and either PSE or Gimp.

[dlambert]

Adobe sent me the 30% off deal after purchasing PS-E, so I've got PS-E 9 and LR3. I use LR for everything, and edit in PS-E for stuff that LR can't do. That ends up being about 0.1% of the photos I touch.

[Doug Sundseth]

I have PS CS4 at home and CS5 at work. I have LR3 at home as well and do not have LR at work. (FWIW, I've been working on PS professionally since the mid-90s, so I know it pretty well.)

If I had to give up either my personal copy of PS or LR, I'd give up PS.

PS can do things LR cannot, but LR does nearly everything I need regularly so much more simply and seamlessly that the cost would be higher for my personal workflow to give up LR.