I know we've covered this topic before, but Adobe is running one of its periodic promotions for CS4, pricing it at $299 for PS Elements owners, which I am.

I always wrestle with this when the good pricing becomes available, but would like to hear some opinions. I've been really happy with LR (I still have one of the earlier versions, V.1.4), and like it's intuitive interface and ease of handling and managing files. LR also does not offer the level of control that PS does.

But many say it's nice to have both, and the transition between the two is supposed to be pretty seamless, and, obviously, you can do things in the full-blown PS that you can't do in LR. I've always been kind of resistant to learning layers, but feel like I want to also.

Opinions? Should I just upgrade to the latest version of LR, or bite the bullet and go to the dark side?

 

Personally, after downloading the RAW plugin for CS3, I don't find any real need for lightroom anymore....

 

I'll repeat what I've said in past discussions on LR vs. PS, learning layers and layer masks is not at all difficult. You may personally end up thinking they're a PIA, but they are definitely not hard to learn.

Since you currently live inside of Lightroom, you may want to look at the situaation more from the perspective of "How much will I take advantage of LR2's new features?" instead of "What would Photoshop bring me?"

BTW, don't forget that if you go with PS CS4 and stick with LR 1.x then you'll have somewhat different sets of camera raw controls. The current generation of Adobe Camera Raw (which is CS4 only) has the exact same set of sliders as you'll find in the "basic" panel of LR2's develop module. I believe the lens correction and camera calibration controls are also the same.

Oh, and the CS4 version of Bridge is MUCH improved over the CS3 and earlier versions. I mention this because Bridge CS4 can be a viable solution for file browsing and management.

 

Thanks Billiam, that's useful info. Adobe runs these specials all the time, and LR has been good to me. I may just end up upgrading that for now.

 

pssstt ... CS5 isn't that far away.

 

Adobe has also run deals where you can upgrade to both LR2 and PS CS4 for a discounted price. That's what I ended up doing. When I combined the Adobe offer with a NAPP discount, I think I got the latest versions of both programs for ~$200 total. They may run this same sort of offer again when the CS5 apps start trickling out.

 

I have both LR2 and CS4 (both 64-bit), and spend 95% of my PP time in LR2. There are important things that you simply can't do in Lightroom, however. These things mostly involve putting a different head on a body.

Lightroom does cataloging, PP workflow, and batch conversion much more intuitively than PS. For heavy duty photo editing, though, PS is essential.

 

If I had to choose 1, it would be LR. Actually, I did only choose one, since I don't have PS.

While having PS would be useful in many situations, I have been pretty pleased with LR2.

 

I have LR2 and CS3...

I almost never use CS3...only if I need to create a gif or some heavy photo maniuplation, which I almost never do anymore.

 

I've been happy with LR too, and getting the latest version may be enough for now. Selective editing, layers, and maybe better sharpening are what PS offers, but I don't find too many situations where I need to do that.

I think it's just the lure of the lower price that tempts me.

 

LR2 has selective editing, but it doesnt have layers. not that i am aware....checking now.

Yeah, no layers...but it has edit "anchors" so you can go back and make changes to specific edits.

 

FWIW I think that the sharpening output Lightroom gives with the "Sharpen for: screen" export feature is really good. You only have the on/off and low/medium/high controls but overall I think it usually does a damn fine job. I can't speak for sharpening for print output as I hardly ever print anything.

 

FYI - It looks like planet Kelbywood still has their LR2 new feature videos and info available to anyone.

http://www.photoshopuser.com/lightroom2/

 

another reason for lightroom...is something Im doing right now.

exporting a catalog of all the work I did on my laptop while I was traveling to my desktop...including all edits.

 

BTW - one of the reasons I had wanted to get CS3 before was for borders and watermarks. Not really a compelling reason to shell out $300+. This was solved by using LR2/Morgify. It's donationware that adds to and enhances the export features of LR. Well worth it IMHO. It also has some sharpening, resizing and other options.

http://www.photographers-toolbox.com...lr2mogrify.php

 

^^It sure would be nice if they had a full-up sync though.

On a related note, I recently discovered that even if you have LR set to keep all the edits in its single database file, you can still export the settings for an individual image as a .xmp file and then import the settings from the .xmp onto a single image on a different machine. This has come in handy because I'll often screw around with an image on a train while going to/from work and don't want to retype all the same settings values on my desktop when I get home.

 

I agree...exporting a catalog and importing a catalog works, but it would be nice if there was a feature where I have both computers and on the same network where I could choose to sync one with the other and just have it do everything for me.

 

I do this all the time - for backing up sets of pictures.
Backing up up the entire catalog is overkill for me.
Note you do lose the history when you do this, though - the xmp only saves the final set of settings, so to speak.

- Frank

 

If it is a shared drive, and you aren't updating the catalog at the same time,
then theoretically you could mount a disk (or two) to two different computers
as the same drive letter and I suspect it would work fine. (on windows anyway)

- Frank

 

If you want to any sort of interesting photo editing, you have to have photoshop.
You can do some spot correction and stuff in LR, but that's it. Hell, it doesn't even have a freakin' Lens distortion correction, which is the only reason I ever open up LR.

It still annoys the hell out of me that I can't easly do a precise 'crop for zoom' and
select a 1024x768 pixel rectangle for my web site/facebook, but i've learned to stop whining about it.

But in terms of your answer, Take a look at what you want, short term and long, and see if either program is worth your $$$. It's not unlike new cameras - new features are always there, but will you use them?

- Frank

 

I might be eating my words...I'm banging my head against a wall to get this catalog to import the way I want.

It freaking exports in a million folders. When I get all into one nice and tidy folder LR now tells me the media is missing....but I can't a way to reconnect the media...like in FCP.

I dont want a million stupid folders upon folders...argh.

 

For me, the one completely and utterly inexcusable thing about Lightroom is the fact that you still cannot adjust crop boundaries while viewing at 1:1. I can't for the life of me fathom why this is or what Adobe's excuse is for not yet implementing it.