Its been quite a while since I have used this site, I'm much older and I'm much more advanced in my photography techniques :) I'm currently on working on getting enough images to have leftovers to post on here every day if i get busy and what not. Im getting a Canon T5i for Christmas and so I plan on starting January 1st, 2014. Yeah, I know, typical new year resolution right?
But anywho, I've been using photoshop at school, but my friend has lightroom at home, and she swears by lightroom and my teacher swears by photoshop. I'm really torn between these two; I've been looking up the differences and I really think I want photoshop because you can do more photo manipulation and more artistic manipulation, but I wanted to get opinions from everyone on here first!
So Pros? Cons? Opinions? Stories? I want to hear it all!
A great many photographers who have Photoshop use it in conjunction with Lightroom these days, although that's by no means a requirement. This is why Adobe's low-priced photography subscription package includes both Photoshop and Lightroom.
Lightroom has excellent organisation features which are appealing to many photographers. You do get some library organisation with Adobe Bridge, which is included with Photoshop, but it's more for general media organisation, whereas Lightroom is optimised for photography.
Lightroom and Photoshop work very well together, with initial editing of raw files done in Lightroom (this is the same functionality as in Adobe Camera Raw, which comes with Photoshop, but possibly a bit better organised), and then for any advanced editing the files can be sent to Photoshop directly from Lightroom for more advanced editing, compositing, etc, before automatically going back into Lightroom when you've finished in Photoshop.
If you are considering the latest Photoshop CC subscription version, rather than buying an outright version of an older Photoshop release, bear in mind that Photoshop alone costs $19.99 a month, whereas Photoshop + Lightroom costs $9.99 a month, so not only is it a good combination, it's cheaper too.
To summarise, I think your decision really should be between Lightroom alone, and Lightroom + Photoshop working together, at which point it boils down to whether Lightroom alone has enough functionality to do what you want.
@brittanyyingling - What Alexis said. I definitely think the $10 subscription plan is worth it to get both, but you can definitely get by with just Lightroom for most stuff.
For me, I find the Lightroom-Photoshop combination a little unwieldy as I move from one to the other and back. And since using just Lightroom (or Camera Raw) is like clapping with one hand, even if you are not into compositing, I have settled on the Photoshop/Camera Raw/Bridge combination. Mini-Bridge (was it introduced in CS5 or 6, I don't remember) works well for the one-application look without clicking out to Bridge, but I must admit, probably because it's what I learned initially, I do find myself clicking out to Bridge and saving room on the main Photoshop screen by not opening Mini Bridge. Not having to import images into the Lightroom database is a bit of flexibility I use a lot, but some might say it leaves me open to disorganization. :)
But whatever works for you. But please don't limit yourself just to Lightroom (Camera Raw). There's so much in big Photoshop, useful stuff to produce the greatest results, that Lightroom (Camera Raw) has no chance of replicating.
If you do want to operate with both, the excellent book by Scott Kelby, Photoshop for Lightroom Users, is excellent, particularly highlighting all those things in Photoshop that Lightroom just can't begin to address. Even just for photographers.
@brittanyyingling I use both - I would say 80% of what I do I do in lightroom, but I do have to use photoshop for some things.
You mentioned your teacher - if you are in full time education Adobe do a student discount. Because my daughter is in full time education we get the full adobe CC for £15 a month (not sure what that equates to in dollars). Worth checking out.
I think it is a matter of each to their own and no one person's preferences or workflow is going to be like anyone else's. I have tried so hard to like Lightroom but I find that it spends more time in getting in the way, irritatingly so, particularly when it comes to where it thinks my photographs should go as opposed to where I want them to go. In the end I found the advantages of using Lightroom were outweighed by the disadvantages so I uninstalled it. My workflow is more manually intensive as I prefer to download my photographs where I want them to go, put what extra Metadata I would like to use in my photographs using Bridge, do my Raw processing in DxO Optics Pro and then final adjustments / manipulation in Photoshop.
Lightroom has a very easy intuitive single photo processing workflow but it has limitation. For example you can't blend exposures in it. It's not uncommon for photographers to use both.
Thank you guys so much for your responses! I think I'm going to do both of them, seems more worth the money and I get both, and I like certain things from both of them. So hopefully this all works out! Thanks! :)
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Lightroom has excellent organisation features which are appealing to many photographers. You do get some library organisation with Adobe Bridge, which is included with Photoshop, but it's more for general media organisation, whereas Lightroom is optimised for photography.
Lightroom and Photoshop work very well together, with initial editing of raw files done in Lightroom (this is the same functionality as in Adobe Camera Raw, which comes with Photoshop, but possibly a bit better organised), and then for any advanced editing the files can be sent to Photoshop directly from Lightroom for more advanced editing, compositing, etc, before automatically going back into Lightroom when you've finished in Photoshop.
If you are considering the latest Photoshop CC subscription version, rather than buying an outright version of an older Photoshop release, bear in mind that Photoshop alone costs $19.99 a month, whereas Photoshop + Lightroom costs $9.99 a month, so not only is it a good combination, it's cheaper too.
To summarise, I think your decision really should be between Lightroom alone, and Lightroom + Photoshop working together, at which point it boils down to whether Lightroom alone has enough functionality to do what you want.
But whatever works for you. But please don't limit yourself just to Lightroom (Camera Raw). There's so much in big Photoshop, useful stuff to produce the greatest results, that Lightroom (Camera Raw) has no chance of replicating.
If you do want to operate with both, the excellent book by Scott Kelby, Photoshop for Lightroom Users, is excellent, particularly highlighting all those things in Photoshop that Lightroom just can't begin to address. Even just for photographers.
You mentioned your teacher - if you are in full time education Adobe do a student discount. Because my daughter is in full time education we get the full adobe CC for £15 a month (not sure what that equates to in dollars). Worth checking out.