# Photoshop Lightroom 3 Software



## socdad (Oct 4, 2011)

Has anyone used Photoshop Lightroom? Sounds like it is a versatile tool that will help manage and edit large numbers of photographs. The 'raw' edit tool should help manage color corrections... 
Any thoughts?


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## Dave Turner (Oct 4, 2011)

I have not used it personally, but my son bought it after extensive research and really likes it. Some points he made: It does a great job of managing metadata and always keeps it within the picture file (in addition to maintaining it within a database for speed of access). The noise reduction is one of the best out there. He's really glad he bought it.

Dave


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## G1Pens (Oct 4, 2011)

I use it extensively and love it. It is great for managing your photos. It is also great for "tweaking" your photos...such as color correction, sharpness, exposure adjustment, lighting adjustments and such. Everything you do is non=destructive. In other words it puts all the adjustments in a separate file so that your original image file is never changed. You can print from it or save your 'adjusted photo' off into a separate and new file. It does a lot more and is very versatile.


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## widows son (Oct 4, 2011)

Great software, well worth the time to learn and use.


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## moke (Oct 4, 2011)

Lightroom is an Adobe production software. It is comparable to products by Phase 1. It has some elements of Photoshop, but certainly not as versatile as Photoshop for corrections. I still use Phase 1 products as they are IMHO easier to use, more production friendly, and cheaper.

If you are not using raw now, it is a whole new world of control. Jpeg has very limited manipulative power and almost always leaves a tell tale noise increase. In all my years of photographics I never used ANYTHING that was a conversion that increased quality. Not so with Raw. Our studio went totally digital in 2005 and we went straight to Raw. It is time consuming at first, but totally worth it. We tried many different raw converters and settled on Phase 1/Capture 1. It has taken many paths of improvement over it's life, with some not being so great. The new software v6 is awesome. I would whole heartedly recommend it. 

As Gary said these kinds of software merely generate a new image while leaving your raw file alone. You can go back and reconvert as many times as you want. I would recommend two things in addition. Conversion software is no good unless your monitor is color balanced, and balanced frequently. Get a calibration tool. And a bigger hard drive...like not gigs...terrabites.

I don't wish to knock Lightroom. It does more than Phase 1 does in the correction world, but Phase 1 is multi-faceted too, it will allow you to shoot tethered, which if you are doing anything commerical is awesome! So both have definite advantages. Now also I might say I have never seen Lightroom 3---I had 2. 

I have a lot of friends going every which way with software, I think you can make anything work for your application.


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## toolcrazy (Oct 4, 2011)

G1Pens said:


> I use it extensively and love it. It is great for managing your photos. It is also great for "tweaking" your photos...such as color correction, sharpness, exposure adjustment, lighting adjustments and such. Everything you do is non=destructive. In other words it puts all the adjustments in a separate file so that your original image file is never changed. You can print from it or save your 'adjusted photo' off into a separate and new file. It does a lot more and is very versatile.



I agree! I haven't used anything else since I started with Lightroom. I take all my pics in RAW and it makes it a snap to resize and convert to JPG.


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## Haynie (Oct 4, 2011)

I don't use digital except for family snaps, but my dad has gone exclusively digital.  He uses lightroom for the majority of his stuff these days.


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## socdad (Oct 4, 2011)

Thanks fro the info, I just down loaded a 'free' 30 day trial to play with,


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## danrs (Oct 4, 2011)

ditto previous:

"I haven't used anything else since I started with Lightroom. I take all my pics in RAW and it makes it a snap to resize and convert to JPG."


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## sbell111 (Oct 4, 2011)

I'm not seeing any reason to swap from photoshop.  What am I missing?


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## razor524 (Oct 4, 2011)

I use lightroom 3 and it is great.  In response to some of the previous posts, you can shoot tethered in Lightroom just look at the menu choices and click on shoot tethered and that is about all there is to it.  Secondly, lightroom is specifically for photography and has a library module that allows you to organize your photos, rank them, place them in collections, etc which photoshop does not do.  If you want to do minor adjustments to photos like crop, color temp, etc, lightroom is way easier than photoshop.


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## Sylvanite (Oct 4, 2011)

sbell111 said:


> I'm not seeing any reason to swap from photoshop.  What am I missing?


It's my understanding that both Photoshop and Lightroom provide good photo editing support (including Raw photos).  Photoshop provides more image manipulation controls but Lightroom has better organization tools, and is perhaps a bit more intuitive.

Personally, I don't use the library functions of Photoshop anyway, so I don't feel I would get anything extra from Lightroom.

I do shoot "tethered", meaning I have my camera connected to a computer (via USB cable), and the photos are not stored in-camera, but are transferred immediately to the PC and appear on-screen.  I use the software that came with my camera for that, and it provides remote control of all the camera settings except zoom and focus.  I click a button on my computer to take a picture.  That capability has improved my photography, as problems I don't see in the viewfinder pop right out when viewed on the computer screen.

I could shoot Raw, but generally don't bother.  If I were printing enlargements, I might, but for web images, there's really no need.  "Large fine" (jpeg) is plenty good enough.

I hope that helps,
Eric


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## widows son (Oct 4, 2011)

*Lightroom vs Photoshop*



sbell111 said:


> I'm not seeing any reason to swap from photoshop.  What am I missing?



Lightroom is an Image Library application that compliments Photoshop. I have about 10,000 images that I use Lightroom to organize and manage. PS is my photo editor.


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## moke (Oct 5, 2011)

Eric...
Raw is so much more than just more pixels....it is a control issue. The latitude that raw has is 5 fold what jpeg is. It is a pain, at a wedding we will make up to 750 images...converting those is very time consuming...( 8 hours or so ) We mostly shoot on manual and use Lumedyne manual flashes for most on camera flash...sometimes you can not get the exposure adjusted in time to "get the shot". ( Not me...I just heard of a guy..lol) 

In Phase 1 or in Lightroom your can adjust 1000's of degrees in Kelvin temperture or up to 2 stops each direction with little discernable effect on the outcome. If you are at a critical session and you think there is a chance there will be some adjustments required in production shoot in Raw+Large Jpeg and convert the ones that could be benefited.


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## Sylvanite (Oct 5, 2011)

moke said:


> Eric...
> Raw is so much more than just more pixels....it is a control issue.


Raw has nothing to do with pixels.  I get an image of the same resolution whether I shoot Large Jpeg or Raw.  The difference is that a Raw image represents the data straight off the sensor.  To produce a Jpeg image, the camera does some processing internally (white balance, contrast, sharpen, etc.) and compresses the image before saving.

Yes, the compression is "lossy", and yes, it is possible to do a better job adjusting a photo in post-processing than the camera does internally.  The difference, however, is negligible compared to the image loss introduced by resampling and compressing a photo to web dimensions and filesize.

For wedding photos, sure I'd shoot Raw.  For posting pen pics online, Jpeg is fine.

Regards,
Eric


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## moke (Oct 6, 2011)

Eric---A raw image is larger...the jpeg is controllable depending on what DPI you choose to convert it to.  However anything beyond 300 dpi is a waste.  

Yes I agree that the jpeg and raw image are identical...however if the image is flawed in it's color balance or exposure they will both be flawed. The raw becomes your best bet to fix it.  

In order to not hijack this thread, I guess we will agree to disagree...I only ever shoot small jpegs plus a Raw for viewing purposes only.


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## penhead (Oct 6, 2011)

I have used Lightroom for several years now and love it...don't know how I could ever do without it...helps organize my thousands of pics and not to bad at editing...

I was interested in reading more about Phase 1 and googled it...whoa...didn't realize it was also a bar in D.C. 8>)

JMHO, but have to agree with both of you moke and eric...by the time you compress a photo small enough to post it here on IAP...JPEGs should be easily good enough quality..however, if I am taking something like my macro photo's of SWMBO's flowers or bugs and butterflies, etc... then _I_ want control over how it's going to look, and taking every pixel the sensor can offer (raw format) becomes very useful.


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## razor524 (Oct 6, 2011)

I agree with Moke that Raw is a lot more than pixels or size of photo.  I also will not hijack this, but since you have the trial version of lightroom, take some photos in JPEG and some in Raw and then put them in lightroom and make some adjustments to them. I think you will see that Raw is more about the freedom to manipulate the photo as you want and JPEG limits your options.  That is clear with just a white balance adjustment.


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## Sylvanite (Oct 6, 2011)

moke said:


> Eric---A raw image is larger...the jpeg is controllable depending on what DPI you choose to convert it to.  ... I guess we will agree to disagree.


I just hooked up a Canon 30D and and took two photos.  One was in "Large Fine" (jpg) format and the other "Raw" (cr2).  The jpeg photo was 3504x2336 pixels and the raw photo was 3504x2336 pixels.  I call that the same.  If you think the Raw image has greater resolution, then yes - we'll have to just disagree.



razor524 said:


> ...Raw is more about the freedom to manipulate the photo as you want and JPEG limits your options.  That is clear with just a white balance adjustment.


See Photoshop Tip #3 - Correcting White Balance for instructions on how to correct improper white balance in a photo, regardless of whether it was initially shot jpeg or raw.

"Raw" is not about photo resolution.  It is about choosing to perform certain image processing steps with external software rather than in the camera.

Regards,
Eric


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## penhead (Oct 6, 2011)

My apologies, I certainly have no dog in this agreement/disagreement...I just happen to be taking photography classes, and this is sorta like homework for me 

So I Googled the difference.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format


Benefits

Nearly all digital cameras can process the image from the sensor into a JPEG file using settings for white balance, colour saturation, contrast, and sharpness that are either selected automatically or entered by the photographer before taking the picture. Cameras that produce raw files save these settings in the file, but defer the processing. This results in an extra step for the photographer, so raw is normally only used when additional computer processing is intended.

However, raw has numerous advantages over JPEG such as:

-Higher image quality. 

- Bypassing of undesired steps in the camera's processing, including sharpening and noise reduction JPEG images are typically saved using a lossy compression format (though a lossless JPEG compression is now available). Raw formats are typically either uncompressed or use lossless compression, so the maximum amount of image detail is always kept within the raw file.

- Finer control. Raw conversion software allows users to manipulate more parameters (such as lightness, white balance, hue, saturation, etc...) and do so with greater variability.

 For example, the white point can be set to any value, not just discrete preset values like "daylight" or "incandescent". As well, the user can typically see a preview while adjusting these parameters.

- Camera raw files have 12 or 14 bits of intensity information, not the gamma-compressed 8 bits stored in JPEG files (and typically stored in processed TIFF files); since the data is not yet rendered and clipped to a colour space gamut, more precision may be available in highlights, shadows, and saturated colours.


- Different demosaicing algorithms can be used, not just the one coded into the camera.

- The contents of raw files include more information, and potentially higher quality, than the converted results, in which the rendering parameters are fixed, the colour gamut is clipped, and there may be quantization and compression artifacts.

- Raw data leave more scope for both corrections and artistic manipulations, without resulting in images with visible flaws such as posterization.

- All the changes made on a RAW image file are non-destructive; that is, only the metadata that controls the rendering is changed to make different output versions, leaving the original data unchanged.

- To some extent, RAW photography eliminates the need to use the HDRI technique, allowing a much better control over the mapping of the scene intensity range into the output tonal range, compared to the process of automatically mapping to JPEG or other 8-bit representation.


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## eldee (Oct 6, 2011)

I hope Jeff found his answer somewhere in all this.


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