Quick Tip: Why You Should Consider Lightroom

Quick Tip: Why You Should Consider Lightroom

on Jun 12th 2010 with 22 comments
This entry is part 13 of 13 in the Lightroom Session
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Photoshop is the most powerful photo manipulation software ever made. Nearly every designer and photographer around the world relies upon Adobe’s design software for some aspect of their work. But today I’m going to make the case for choosing Lightroom over Photoshop. You might just find that it becomes your best friend.

Comprehensive Interface

why you should consider adobe photoshop lightroom

Lightroom has a comprehensive interface where things aren’t hidden (yet manages not to feel crowded). If you take a look at Lightroom’s home screen, you’ll find that all your photos, adjustments and options are right in front of you rather than being hidden in complex menu entries.

Built-in Photo Organizer

Lightroom is also a photo organizer. In Photoshop, you can indeed open multiple files and manipulate/edit them simultaneously, but it doesn’t have any photo organizer built-in. Lightroom, on the other hand, has a full-featured photo organizer that enables you to view and manage all the images on your computer.

Dedicated Develop Center

why you should consider adobe photoshop lightroom

Lightroom has a dedicated “Develop” center. Take a flashback to the era of film cameras where the photographer had to develop the photographs in a dark room by applying various chemicals. Adobe has maintained the legacy, bringing you into a digital development center for your photographs. Equally useful, but far less fiddly!

Before and After Comparisons

For a photographer, it is imperative to view how a photograph looks before and after a particular effect is applied. In Photoshop, there is no dedicated before and after shortcut. Lightroom makes this side-by-side comparison easy.

Non-Destructive Editing

why you should consider adobe photoshop lightroom

Everything you do in Lightroom is done virtually. Every enhancement, every brush stroke you make – every adjustment is virtual and you can reverse it at any point of time. Some people relate this to the layers feature of Photoshop. Let me tell you, this is completely different.

Suppose you enhanced one of your images in Photoshop. Now, in order to reverse the effects, you can just Undo it. But only while Photoshop is running. The moment you exit the program with/without saving your work, Photoshop forgets what all was there.

But Lightroom doesn’t. And here comes this awesome and handy feature. It doesn’t matter if you exit Lightroom or even shut your computer down. Lightroom remembers everything, and you can reverse it at any point of time. All your originals remain intact and you can export your edited photographs from Lightroom whenever you feel like.

Better Export Options

Since Photoshop is not solely for Photographers, it comes with the burden of many, often irrelevant, export options. But with Lightroom, you’re presented with a more useful set:

  • Group photographs to export in a single folder
  • Use recurring file names to avoid confusion
  • Burn images to DVD directly
  • Export as .dng files
  • Apply user presets to the export options

    • It’s About Being Appropriate

    At the end of the day, Photoshop is a perfectly good tool for all your photography needs. It includes (almost) every feature of Lightroom, and is immensely powerful. If you’re looking for something that’s more specific to your needs as a photographer, and makes the whole post-processing workflow simpler and more appealing, Lightroom is absolutely worth checking out.

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Rishabh Agarwal is an Engineering student from India. In addition to that, he’s also a passionate Photographer and a Web Designer. He writes about technology on his blog, TechyLabs, and Photography on ShutterSkills. Follow him on Twitter: @rish404.  

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  • José Gonçalves

    Yes its a fact, and we all know LR is a very good tool,some people forget that they both belong to ADOBE, but, you can do the same thing with Bridge, apart from CD/DVD burn and some very small things.

    You said and you shut down your PC you can undo the work you made in a Photograph, well what about Smart Objects? They are Non-Destructive Editing right? Open a RAW/Dng file on Bridge Crtl+R and after editing press Shift and on Open image you will have Open Object.
    LR is a combinations between ARC & Bridge.

    On Bridge i can do the same things, apart from side-by-side comparison,witch can be made on Bridge anyway. I don´t have to open PS to work in a RAW/Dng., Tiff or even a JPEG file,as i mention above ,i can call ACR directly from Bridge and ask ACR to develop the file with the settings and give me a copy,if choose to clear settings on the original file i can select both, original and the one with the effects press Crtl+B and made a side-by-side comparison.

    And i PS you can take a snapshot of the file before and after, ask PS to made new document (witch i don´t have to save if i don´t want) from the snapshot with the effects and put then both side by side on screen.

    Another thing i really don´t like in LR, if i move (outside LR) a folder, when i open LR he asks were the hell i put the files or the folder, in Bridge i move it, i like to move it, move it :-) and even without BR open, when i get back to BR he doesn’t ask where it is, i don´t have to synchronize the folder, they are always synchronized.

    I don´t disagree with you that LR is a good program, i have both on my PC since e teach Photoshop and Lightroom in Portugal, but for those who have Photoshop theres no need to buy LR, for the others, without a doubt that LR is a right choice and far more cheap, PS costs £ 932.95,US$999 or € 1.198.80 and LR is £ 232.65,US$ 299 or € 298.80.

    • http://shutterskills.com Rishabh
      Author

      José,
      Thanks for dropping your valuable comment. I do agree with the points of Adobe Bridge you brought, and Ill like to add that Bridge itself is not a complete software. Yes, you can do somethings with Bridge very well. But again, to do things completely, you have to rely on a photo editing software in addition to Bridge. And thats where the importance of Lightroom comes into account. Its a complete editing+developing+library management software.

      And apart from that, as you also mentioned, Lightroom is way too cheaper than Photoshop. So, indeed its a good option for photographers who are on a tight budget :)

  • http://i3mphotostock.com Claire

    Never tried LR but a good case and overview. Would be nice to give it a test try but PS familiarity counts for a lot. Thanks for the Quick Tip!

    • http://www.stevendavisphoto.com Steven Davis

      i’ve been using PS for over 12 years and just discovered LR. i start all my editing in LR then take it into PS if need be for more in-depth editing. give it a try :)

  • http://www.stevendavisphoto.com Steven Davis

    I LOVE Lightroom. I use it for all my processing now. It keeps your photos organized and maintains all changes to it from the original RAW file so u can always go back any amount of steps. And I LOVE presets that you can get for it too. Really gives some of my photos that extra “pop” they need. Get it now! :)

  • Ze’ev Klapow

    I don’t think its so much about choosing Lightroom over Photoshop, but rather using them together to be more productive. There is a reason its called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, i think the intension is that it is an extension for photoshop that allows you to organize and edit to a certain extent, but for more in depth work you can transfer right into photoshop(the non destructive editing capabilities carry over to Photoshop from Lightroom) So I don’t thin its about choosing one or the other but rather using them together to get the most out of each of them.

  • http://www.thedphoto.com Diana Eftaiha

    hmmm after this read i might just try =) thanks for the insight

  • http://craigps.info/ Craigsnedeker

    I don’t like Photoshop… could never afford it, and when I got around to getting a trial I didn’t like it. Paint Shop Pro is for me :) Most people say it’s noobish but I can do almost anything you can do in photoshop in PSP

    • http://home.comcast.net/~pferd/ Ferd

      Ive been using PSP since its shareware days, but it is Windows only. When I bought an iMac, I switched to PS Elements. I bought CS5 for the student rate when it came out and I really like it. Someone suggested that I try LR 3 beta 2, and I bought LR3 when it was released. Im gradually categorizing all of my photos using LR3 just as I did long ago with Adobe PS Album in Windows. Im still playing around with new workflow ideas.

  • Kathy

    I stopped upgrading Photoshop at CS2. Lightroom is excellent, and the bits I sometimes want to do in Photoshop is available in CS2.

  • http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane

    I started using Lightroom since Beta, just this year I switched to Aperture (Im a professional photographer). Why?

    1- Faces. Lightroom does not have Faces support which is quite useful for portraits when youre dealing with 10s of thousands of photos every year.

    2- Cleaner and more intuitive interface. Even after using Lightroom for a few years, I never thought the interface was that intuitive. After playing with the Aperture demo and watching a few online demos at Apple.com, it was quite easy to get started with Aperture.

    3- Everything is just snappier in Aperture. I have both Lightroom and Aperture on a 27 i7 Quad-Core iMac w/8GB RAM and scrolling through and working with RAW files in Aperture is quicker/smoother than with Lightroom.

    In the end, both products are great, I just prefer Aperture (Of course, if you dont have a Mac, you are stuck with Lightroom).

    • http://shutterskills.com Rishabh
      Author

      Shane,
      Definitely, I agree with you on the user interface and features of Aperture. But as you also said, everyone doesn’t have a Mac. And for the windows folks, Lightroom is a great option :)

    • Jared

      Oh great… You started the Aperture vs. Lightroom debate.

      While I know there’s a bunch of things about Lightroom that can be thrown back at you that Aperture doesn’t have—and we can do that till we collapse—I won’t mention them and I encourage anyone else thinking about it to do the same.

      Like anything involving Apple vs. the world it comes down to this:

      1. Aperture is simpler, cleaner, faster.
      2. Lightroom is complex, powerful, versatile.

      The choice is up to the user keeping in mind that the end results will be almost identical and any opinions from other people on this debate are usually extremely biased and ill-informed: note the “I’m a professional photographer” and the “you are stuck with Lightroom” comments. (Faaaaaanboooooooi)

      • http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

        Uh, no need to get your panties in a wad, Jared. Apparently you completely missed my comment that both products are great. Is there something wrong with someone providing insight as to why they have chosen one product over another? Especially since that person has used both products in a working environment? My comments had NOTHING to do with fanboi’ism [sic]. My comment about being “stuck with Lightroom” if you’re on a PC was to make the point that you CANNOT test both products to make an informed decision simply because Aperture doesn’t exist on the PC. Way to make assumptions that it was a fanboi comment. (FYI, I run a successful business based on Windows PC’s and Servers and Bill Gates is my personal god)

        Nobody here started a debate until your crummy tone came along.

        FYI, Aperture is JUST as “complex, versatile, and powerful” as Lightroom (in some respects, even more so). On the flip-side, Lightroom is just as “simple, clean and fast” as Aperture depending on the features you’re using; not to mention, some people prefer the layout to Aperture. It’s clear you haven’t used both products since you’re the only one making generalized statements that have no relevance whatsoever to this comparison.

        Take a deep breath and leave your antagonistic attitude at the door. Thanks.

  • http://www.designbysoap.co.uk Rob

    I just downloaded LR3 beta yesterday to give it a try, and am pleasantly surprised. The whole ‘workflow’ process is something i’ve never really used before, and the non destructive editing is really great also.

  • Jared

    Lightroom and Photoshop are two entirely different programs and people think exposure adjustments, filters, etc. are all done in Photoshop; while they can be, they are very poor.

    I use Lightroom for everything with my photos and Photoshop is just for any touch ups I might need to do. I believe that’s how the programs have been designed to work recently and that’s the way Adobe will continue steering future versions.

    Any half-ass photographer will not be without Lightroom (or Aperture) or at least Camera RAW.

    • http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

      Technically speaking, Adobe’s Camera RAW is a plugin for photoshop, so saying that “exposure adjustments, etc. in Photoshop are very poor” isn’t exactly true. As long as you’re using Photoshop’s Camera RAW plugin functions to make these adjustments, you’re making the same non-destructive (and just as powerful) adjustments as you are in Lightroom:

      http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

      On top of that, obviously there are a bazillion ways to make adjustments in Photoshop (both destructive and non-destructive, raster and vector). But making a sweeping statement that these adjustments are “poor” doesn’t really make sense. Some of the greatest images you or I have ever seen were “adjusted” using Photoshop, entirely. Really, your statement doesn’t even make sense. There really are no “wrong” ways to make adjustments if you reach the final result you were looking for.

      Now if you would have said that using tools in Photoshop that are destructive will prevent you from returning the photo to its original state, that would have made sense. But saying that using Photoshop to make adjustments results in poor results simply doesn’t make any sense at all.

  • http://jazzmachine.deviantart.com Rhydderk

    I just bought a Nikon D5000 i’m an amateur photographer, i read somewhere that light room doesn’t support .NEF files from mi nikon?

    this is what i read

    “For example, if I set in my D200 the sharpening to be high, saturation high, etc, and I shoot RAW + Jpeg, I’ll have 2 files. One “cooked” jpeg, and one NEF file. In Windows Picture Viewer or in photoshop when I open up the jpeg I’ll see the jpeg as I’ve shot it. However, when I open up the NEF with Photoshop (Adobe Raw) or Lightroom, everything look pale and different. I figured it’s because the sharpening, saturation, etc, wasn’t loaded by those programs. If I open the NEF with Nikon Capture Editor, the photo would look the same as the jpeg, because it understands all the settings. ”

    help!

    • http://shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

      This is a case of RAW -vs- JPG and nothing to do with file support. RAW is what it’s name implies, it’s a RAW format (no pixel adjustments have been made). Some camera’s do in-camera processing of RAW files that boost (or lower) various levels, like sharpening, contrast, and saturation. This type of adjustment doesn’t actually change the RAW data, it normally adds side-car data that tells the RAW file which adjustments to make. The only way to see these adjustments is to open the RAW files in software that specifically supports the RAW adjustments made by that particular camera (in your case, Nikon Capture Editor). Most programs, like Lightroom and Aperture, do not interpret in-camera processing of RAW files.

      JPEG, on the other hand, is a destructive format. That means that any/all adjustments made are actually made on the file itself (pixels are being “pushed” around), so you’ll see those adjustments in the JPEG no matter what program you view it in.

      How do you shoot RAW and keep your in-camera processing?

      1- First, I don’t use in-camera processing from my Canon cameras. I much prefer the more powerful processing of my applications (ie, Aperture and Photoshop) to the in-camera stuff.

      2- Shoot JPEG instead of RAW (which I wouldn’t recommend, simply due to RAW’s advantages over shooting JPEG).

      Hope that helps.

      • http://shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

        Oh, and the obvious 3rd option is to use the Nikon software to retain the in-camera adjustments and then save out as another file format that will retain those adjustments when added to Lightroom (TIFF, DNG, etc.)

  • http://vigorotaku.com Dan

    Take a look at the latest Capture One Pro 6!

    I wrote up a quickstart on what features that I find most useful in Capture One when compared with other tethered or base photo editing applications like Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw.
    vigorotaku.blogspot.com

    I did not cover Nikon Capture NX2. I hope that you find this helpful.

    http://vigorotaku.blogspot.com/2010/12/move-over-lightroom-here-comes-capture.html

  • Sara

    Ugh.. so many photo editing software out there and so many reviews.. it’s overwhelming :/ I’m just a beginner in this whole thing and just started with PS CS6, gonna stick with it for some time before I decide where else to start later maybe..
    Thanks for the review though, it really made me consider starting with LR, I mean especially that I might be able to learn it in a week ! x)