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Archive 2012 · Lightroom Advantages...?

  
 
James_N
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p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · Lightroom Advantages...?


splathrop wrote:
Okay, I think I am better oriented. Two more questions. Are there raw adjustment tools in Bridge that are not present in Lightroom? Are there any in Lightroom not present in Bridge?



Here are the differences between Bridge/CS4 and Lightroom 3 as far as I can tell:

1. Browser vs database. Adobe Bridge is a file browser while Lightroom is a database (at its back end it is running SQLite; an open source database). What this means in practical terms is that Lightroom allows you to edit and manage images files that are stored off-line. By comparison, Bridge works with a much wider range of digital assets but can only keep track of images that are physically connected to your computer. For example, lets say you have a desktop computer and a laptop. You can take a copy of your Lightroom database on your laptop and do basic editing, add metadata etc to the Lightroom catalog(database). then sync the changes back to your desktop. You cannot do this with Bridge since it needs the images to be physically present in order to do anything. Images stored off-line cannott be edited nor tracked/searched in Bridge. So if you have images stored on external drives that are not always connected to your computer Lightroom's file management is superior.

2. Match Total Exposure - this is a biggie that most users aren't aware of and it is only available in Lightroom. For photographers like me who shoot lots of events this is a huge bonus.

Here's how Martin Evening describes the function:

"You can use this command to match the exposure brightness across a series of images that have been selected via the Filmstrip. Match Total Exposures calculates a match value by analyzing and combining the shutter speed, the lens aperture, the ISO speed at which the photos were captured, plus any camera-set exposure compensation. It then factors in all these camera-set values, combines them with the desired exposure value (as set in the most selected image), and calculates new Lightroom exposure values for all the other selected images. I find that this technique can often be used to help average out the exposure brightness in a series of photos where the light values were going up and down during a shoot, which is probably why the chief Lightroom architect, Mark Hamburg, also liked to describe this as a "de-bracketing" command."

3. Virtual copies - a Lightroom feature that allows you to make multiple copies and editing treatments with little additional overhead space (each VC uses about 2 Kb). Both Lightroom 3 and Bridge CS5 allow the use of Snapshots - a picture of the editing history at a particular point but only Lightroom has Virtual Copies. I don't remember if Snapshots are present in Bridge CS4.

4. Crop Guide Overlays - Lightroom has six different crop overlays compared to only the Rule of Thirds overlay in Bridge CS5. I don't recall any crop overlays in Bridge CS4.

5. Bridge reports Subject Distance as calculated by the lens/camera body while that functionality was removed from Lightroom 3.x.

6. Targeted Adjustment Tool - a neat feature in Lightroom that allows you to make Hue, Saturation, Luminance adjustments in Lightroom. This tool is included in Adobe Bridge/ACR CS5 but is not in earlier versions.

If none of this appeals to you I'd say keep using Bridge. I still use Bridge for "one off" images but for large batches I prefer to use Lightroom.



Jan 14, 2012 at 06:32 AM
splathrop
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p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · Lightroom Advantages...?


James_N, thank you for that useful information. I think I will give Lightroom a try.


Jan 14, 2012 at 10:55 AM
ohsnaphappy
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p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · Lightroom Advantages...?


I think this debate is heavily dependent on what kind of photographer you are. For example, a wedding photographer might approach postprocessing much differently than a landscape photographer. I could see a landscape photographer spending a lot more time in lightroom and not necessarily needing Photoshop. A portrait photographer on the other hand, is going to need to retouch faces, sharpen eye lashes, and remove zits, and for those kind of tasks Photoshop makes life much easier. So unfortunately there is no one right answer, or a one-size-fits-all approach. Keep this in mind for everything you read on the forums, different photographers have vastly different opinions because they approach their work differently.


Jan 15, 2012 at 01:39 AM
Geofn
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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · Lightroom Advantages...?


jamesf99 wrote:
I have both, but rarely use LR; there's no reason to when you have PS.


I'm exactly the opposite. I also have both, and I seldom use PS. I can do 98% of all my editing directly in LR. I only need PS for those occasional images that require really extensive processing.



Jan 15, 2012 at 03:08 PM
Alan321
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p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · Lightroom Advantages...?


Unless I missed it, nobody has yet mentioned that Bridge/Ps edit your images and in so doing change the image file contents perhaps forever, whereas Lr pretends to edit your images but actually stores a list of edit instructions separately and does not alter the original files. This means your original files are safer in Lr, especially if you happen to forget to make a duplicate file to work on in Ps.

Lr still does what it does quickly enough that you'd think the edits were being done in real time, so the pretend aspect does not slow you down.

- Alan



Jan 16, 2012 at 12:05 AM
James_N
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p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · Lightroom Advantages...?


Frankly I don't see how that is a major consideration. If editing a raw file, the Bridge/ACR/Photoshop workflow is exactly the same as editing in Lightroom i.e. no changes are written to the file. If you look at the Camera Raw Preferences in Adobe Bridge (Edit > Camera Raw Preferences > General) you will see that there are two options for saving edits either to the Camera Raw Database (default setting) or to XMP sidecar files. That's no different from what happens in Lightroom.

For rasterized/rendered/bitmapped file formats like PSD, JPEG, and TIFF the editing instructions from Bridge/ACR are written to the file header space and can easily be reversed by right-clicking an edited file in Bridge and selecting Develop Settings > Clear Settings (the same effect as manually deleting an XMP sidecar file). Since the editing instructions are saved to the file header the actual pixel contents of the file are never affected.

When sending a rendered file from Lightroom to Photoshop you're given the option to use a copy of the original file with the editing instructions "baked in"; you can do the same in Bridge/ACR by pressing the ALT key which changes the "Open Image" button in ACR to the "Open Copy" button. So either way the original file is not altered.

Even in a Photoshop only workflow, destructive editing can be avoided by copying the background layer, using adjustment layers, and/or Smart Objects. These options make it simple to press F12 to revert the file to state it was in when first opened in Photoshop.


Alan321 wrote:
Unless I missed it, nobody has yet mentioned that Bridge/Ps edit your images and in so doing change the image file contents perhaps forever, whereas Lr pretends to edit your images but actually stores a list of edit instructions separately and does not alter the original files. This means your original files are safer in Lr, especially if you happen to forget to make a duplicate file to work on in Ps.

Lr still does what it does quickly enough that you'd think the edits were being done in real time, so the pretend aspect does not slow you down.

-
...Show more



Jan 16, 2012 at 03:36 AM
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