Lightroom, what is good about this app?
mod
So I'm trying lightroom out here again, as I've heard a lot of people really like it, but I sort of fail to see what its useful for.
The first thing I notice is you have to import photos into it before you can actually do anything, instead of just browsing a simple directory structure like DPP/Bridge. To me this is really annoying and I'm not sure why you would want it to work this way.
Then it has some pretty limited editing tools, I would assume one would rather just use photoshop for any real editing work, so that pretty much nullifies doing much outside of simple exposure/white balance tweaks.
I asked Pedro why someone would actually use this and he says:"u can publish directly to facebook and flickr and shit"
It seems like a pretty slow and bloated program if that is all it is useful for. I can't imagine there isn't some other great advantage to using it, so someone let me know!
The first thing I notice is you have to import photos into it before you can actually do anything, instead of just browsing a simple directory structure like DPP/Bridge. To me this is really annoying and I'm not sure why you would want it to work this way.
Then it has some pretty limited editing tools, I would assume one would rather just use photoshop for any real editing work, so that pretty much nullifies doing much outside of simple exposure/white balance tweaks.
I asked Pedro why someone would actually use this and he says:"u can publish directly to facebook and flickr and shit"
It seems like a pretty slow and bloated program if that is all it is useful for. I can't imagine there isn't some other great advantage to using it, so someone let me know!
Replies
dick nugget
Think of it as a cross between a photo manager and photoshop. If you are happy just using photoshop to edit occasional images then it's probably not for you. If you want to manage all you images then it's great.
Here's my workflow:
Plug in camera to import the images.
Import the images with some metadata/keywords - Edinburgh, rollerderby etc.
Once all the images are in I assign a 0 Star rating to them all.
I white balance the first image if required, then propagate to others if required (for indoor stuff)
I then quickly assign 2, 3, 4 star ratings to everything - this takes about 10 minutes for 500 shots.
I process my favourites shots, with a bunch of presets I have
For me it's much better than a Picasa/iPhoto + Photoshop combo.
http://www.prophotoshow.net/2009/09/08/mastering-tone-dynamic-range-with-lightroom-video/
The editing tools are not limited either, they are pretty powerful.
Not for everyone, perfect for me in 95% of cases.
Unless theres something I'm missing then please also fill me in.
I do love the UI an the simplicity of the program and the non-destructive editing, but i'm going to find it hard to muster up £200 when the trial runs out. Adobe products are also nearly twice the price in the EU compared to US prices.
Someone recommended LightZone as a cheaper alternative: http://www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone/
Haven't tried it myself yet though.
It copy's your RAW photos as DNG files for better future compatibility, it organizes by date automatically on import moving everything to a centralized location.
The color correction tools are very powerful and much more intuitive than Photoshop, Its a hell of a lot easier to adjust color and levels for fixed ranges or specific colors. For example you can adjust the saturation of only the reds in a photo with a simple slider, which is much easier than Photoshop. It also has calibration profiles for different cameras and lenses so you get more accurate end results. I find its tools to be like color grading for film
I like its "Turn down the lights" (L key) option that blacks out everything except the photo so you can see things better without the influence of the surrounding UI.
If you are not using RAW or high dynamic range images in Lightroom then its abilities are wasted.