Lightroom vs Photoshop - What is the difference?!

[laurontario]

Hello, folks,

This is my first post here, after the required introduction here.
Although I bought my D80 about a year ago, I am still in the learning phase, basically because I did not have enough time to spend on it.

From the beginning I decided to shoot in RAW+JPEG. I am fully aware of the advantages of shooting in RAW so, I am willing to spend some time in learning how to post-process my pictures.

I know that there are several options out there, in terms of software, but I am a little confused in regards to the product apllete offered by Adobe.
We have Adobe Photoshop (pretty expensive), then there is the Adobe Photoshop Elements (if I understand correctly, this is a stripped down version of the previous) and also Photoshop Lightroom (in terms of price, between the two mentioned above).

I downloaded the trial version of Lightroom and converted a raw file to JPEG, after playing a little bit with the various settings. I compared the JPEG shot together with the raw with the one obtained after post-processing and... WOW... quite a difference! Really worth spending time in learning how to do this properly!

My question, though, is, what is the difference between the three 'flavors' of Adobe? I could not find it anywhere on the Adobe site.
Do I still need Photoshop if I have Lightroom?! Is Lightroom enough to post-process my pictures and convert them to JPEG?

Any input is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Laurentiu

[rediguana]

Originally Posted by laurontario

Do I still need Photoshop if I have Lightroom?! Is Lightroom enough to post-process my pictures and convert them to JPEG?

No, you don't need Photoshop, but it does complement Lightroom very well. Lightroom is enough to post-process and convert to JPEG.

Back to your more general question - they are two quite different packages. Photoshop is a generic raster manipulation tool - it can be used for any sort of bitmapped image, not just photography. Lightroom is specifically designed with photographic workflow in mind, and for manipulating digital photos. I spend probably 97% of my time in Lightroom, and once they add photomerge to Lightroom, I probably won't need Photoshop at all.

Of course, there are certain post-processing looks that can only be created using Photoshops tools. If you are a big one for PP'ing, you'll want Photoshop. If you're more interested in taking photos and getting a quick turnaround in your digital darkroom, then Lightroom will be of more interest.

[kirbinster]

Lightroom will do almost anything most people every need without the complexity of photoshop. In addition it is a great digital asset management program. It creates a database of all your photos so that when you have tens of thousands of them you can find them.

[OsmosisStudios]

I use CS4 for my images. It allows me to seamlessly go from RAW to JPG to editing without switching software.

I also dont like the file-handling that lightroom (and aperture) do: I manage all my files myself.

[rediguana]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

I also don't like the file-handling that lightroom (and aperture) do: I manage all my files myself.

I've actually just raised a feature request with Adobe to provide an option to allow Lr to automatically manage files and folders. I can't be bothered managing the files, I'm happy with a simple yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/file structure, and it would be nice if we could select a policy, and have Lr automatically manage all files and folders. It would be one less thing I have to waste time on!

[AgBeard]

Lightroom has replaced / regained! the darkroom of my youth - only use photoshop occassionally.

[zarquon]

In my opinion, Photoshop is more geared towards graphic designers, it's very very powerful, but for the traditional photographer, you won't use 75% of it. Lightroom is geared towards Straight Photographers, it allows you to do most of your basic editing, management and post processing of your photos from one easy interface.

Personally, I use aperture, but I gave Lightroom a test for 30 days. It was great, I only had to open Photoshop twice. It really streamlined my workflow.