Adobe Lightroom (1 Viewer)

[DBK]

I have found a few mentions on here of Adobe Lightroom although generally in the context of organising files.

However, I am interested in anyone's experiences of it for editing images. I first heard about it from this guy, who uses it on his images. The link is to his latest blog issue but if you look on his site you will find some amazing shots taken in South America.

http://www.whileoutriding.com/europ...n-overnighter-amongst-wild-garlic-and-fairies

I already have Photoshop Elements 12 and am wondering how Lightroom differs and what it does I can't do on PSE. I've read a few reviews but am not much the wiser.

 

[DBK]

I'll take that as a no then!
Looks like I will have to venture into these dark waters alone...

 

[bungy]

Just got back into photography after a few years break and gone straight back to lightroom.

If you shoot a lot of RAW pictures then personally I wouldnt use anything else (on windows that is) but if you dont and JPEG is your main format then it is still good for file managment - but expensive

It doesnt have all the wiz bang editing features that PSE has, but the RAW editing is very powerfull. Tried PSE on 30day trial and didnt get on with it, think it was the RAW editing that was a bit weak for my 'wants'

Have a play with the adobe creative cloud - you get 30days free trial of lightroom etc

Ive signed up to it now so get Lightroom with mobile app access (lightroom mobile) so you can sync 'catalogues' your working on between devices, Photoshop CC and also Bridge (Media manager) for £8 a month. Always at the latest version etc think its good deal

licensing allows you to load each program on 2 machines but you cant use them both at the same time. So ive got the main PC/home server with one copy and all the master folders etc, a laptop that goes in the van and Android tablet and Phone with Lightroom mobile all synced up - bit of overkill but Im paying for it so ill use it all

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[DBK]

Thanks for that and I agree about PSE and RAW files - it is a bit underwhelming. However, half way through this trip I switched the camera so it saves a JPEG and a RAW image. This did mean the SD card filled up very quickly and I had to buy another! But it means I have a lot of RAW images I would like to play with when I get back home.

Have you got the monthly subscription package?

 

[JeanLuc]

I downloaded a copy of Lightroom and tried it for 28 days. I thought it was an excellent product and has some very capable editing features as well as its file organising ability. For photographs only, rather than a wider application to graphics projects, it would probably be my first choice if starting from scratch. However, as I already have Photoshop Elements that came with a free copy of Adobe Bridge (an image file organiser) I decided not to pay the extra for Lightroom and uninstalled it. As I said above, Lightroom would replace both of these for photograph organising and editing. Photoshop has many more functions for image creation which are not strictly necessary just for picture editing.
If you are a Nikon user, you might consider 'Nikon Capture NX' which is similar to Lightroom but obviously, dedicated to Nikon cameras.

 

[JeanLuc]

Surely, PSE uses adobe camera raw (ACR) plugin to convert RAW files? This is the same as used by Lightroom and pretty much an industry standard. You use ACR to edit / amend the RAW file as a step in importing the file to PSE. ACR is continuously updated by Adobe so the limitation may be an old version of PSE (like mine) which will only work with older version of ACR. As Bridge (no longer available) was a professional tool as opposed to the amateur PSE, it will work with newer versions of ACR and offers me more functionality in adjusting RAW images.

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[bungy]

Thanks for that and I agree about PSE and RAW files - it is a bit underwhelming. However, half way through this trip I switched the camera so it saves a JPEG and a RAW image. This did mean the SD card filled up very quickly and I had to buy another! But it means I have a lot of RAW images I would like to play with when I get back home.

Have you got the monthly subscription package?

I have yes, for what I want it worked out a no brainer

 

[bungy]

Surely, PSE uses adobe camera raw (ACR) plugin to convert RAW files? This is the same as used by Lightroom and pretty much an industry standard. You use ACR to edit / amend the RAW file as a step in importing the file to PSE. ACR is continuously updated by Adobe so the limitation may be an old version of PSE (like mine) which will only work with older version of ACR. As Bridge (no longer available) was a professional tool as opposed to the amateur PSE, it will work with newer versions of ACR and offers me more functionality in adjusting RAW images.

it does, but PSE only uses a cut down version, where as LR and PS use the full blown version which gives a lot more control and available adjustments to correct camera specific 'issues' and lens problems (amongst other things), quite a good comparison here

I shoot mainly in RAW so wanted a lot more control as i bought a bridge camera which adds a few more problems then my old cannon set up before I sold it all (wasnt used for some time and was getting on a bit so it went....)and when I came back top photography decided on the Fuji Finepix HS50 EXR as it gave me lots of scope for 'playing'!!

 

[DBK]

Many thanks for the replies. I think I'll give it a go and will report back.

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[DBK]

Just signed up for the Adobe CC thing and downloaded Lightroom, which I believe is Lightroom 6. With the benefit of about 15 minutes experience I think I am going to find it very useful. I am impressed by the idea of presets to enhance images very quickly and hopefully give them a simliar look and feel.

This is a somewhat washed out image of Albarracin n the Spain I took a few weeks ago.

This is the same image with the "Punched" preset in the Landscape section applied.

There isn't a huge difference between them, andon a small screen you may not notice anything! But it is subtly sharper and brighter. There are other presets which apply a stronger impact but I am still taking things slowly.

Haven't begun to look at how to use it to organise images yet or installed Photoshop which comes with it for my £8 a month. With Photoshop it may be possible to remove the out of focus almond branch in the top right hand corner, if not I will just crop it out. The powerlines could go as well. I also haven't tried the mobile app yet either.