What is the advantage(if any) to using LR2? It seems to me that Bridge in CS4 does the same thing now. What am I missing? I like LR but do I need it? I don't process 100s of files at once but I would like to work as productivly as possible.
If you don't work with large numbers of images LR is not that compelling. It will however give you DAM functionality (ability to search, keyword, catalogue, rate, sort images even when they're on a non connected hard drive) and generates simple web pages faster than Photoshop will allow.
I work with thousands of images per week. LR is essential for me.
LR "imports" all images into a database. Bridge is a browser. I very rarely use Bridge as I import everything into LR and use LR to open an image in Photoshop. For me, LR replaces Bridge. Others use may vary.
flash wrote:
LR "imports" all images into a database. Bridge is a browser. I very rarely use Bridge as I import everything into LR and use LR to open an image in Photoshop. For me, LR replaces Bridge. Others use may vary.
Gordon
Ditto for me. I haven't used Bridge since I got LR. For many, LR can function by itself for post processing, but for me, I really do very little PP in LR, prefer to do everything in CS4 with layers. I really like LR's organizational abilities, collections, search features, etc.
as others have pointed out, Bridge is just a browser, a powerful browser but just a browser. It can access any images on any destorages devices you have in or attached to your computer. It accesses them directly to create the thumbnail view. Bridge is really designed to connct data (image files) to different Adobe programs --
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign , Acrobat, Premiere, etc. -- and sub-programs like Adobe Camera Raw.
Lightroom on the other hand is a stand alone database centered program. Once a photo h (raw, TIFF, JPEG, PSD formats) has been imported into the Lr library, a catalog entry -- like a card in a real world library's card catalog -- containing a thumbnail, any LR generated processing instructions, and where the file is stored. It doesn't make a difference whether it is on Hard disk drive, on a CD-R or on DVD, etc. you can still access see its catalog entry -- something you can't do with off line images in Bridge.
Beyond the Library module in Lr there is the full fledged develop module (Adobe Camera Raw) -- there is also a quick, not as full featured basic interface in the Library module; a slideshow generating module; a print module; and finally a web gallery module.
After being heavy duty Photoshop user for years I switched to Lightroom as my primary iamge processing tool a couple of years ago. I still use Photoshop CS4 but nowhere near as much as I used to and now it gets used for specialized tasks that lr does not cover. Using Lr saves me hours of time each week and each iteration gets better.
LR does lack some Photoshop features like the ability to work in layers and to softproof
Right now my advice is not to buy Lightroom 2.x but instead download the free beta version of Lightroom 3 which is available from http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/ That beta will be open to the public between now and possibly sometime in the Spring of 2010. if you are encountering problems use the Lr3 beta forums.
I love LR for organizing and quick processing. Much faster to work on multiple images than Bridge, and great for a database. It's all I need for processing on 95% of my images. The graduated filter tool is great for darkening overexposed skies.
For tricky images, involving blending layers, I then use CS4. For me, both LR and CS4 are indispensable.
hfillmore wrote:
I love LR for organizing and quick processing. Much faster to work on multiple images than Bridge, and great for a database. It's all I need for processing on 95% of my images. The graduated filter tool is great for darkening overexposed skies.
For tricky images, involving blending layers, I then use CS4. For me, both LR and CS4 are indispensable.
I have used LR since the original beta along with Bridge.... For the longest time I had a really hard time trying to fit LR into my work flow.....I tried to use LR but always ended up abandoning LR and using Bridge..... My problem was I was just blind as to what LR can do as I didn't take the time to sit down and understand it. Once I did, I never looked back...... I now use LR to do all most all of my editing and if I need to do more on a particular image, I just go into PS with the "edit in" selection in Lightroom..... There are just so many features that save time and if you don't use LR I think you're really missing out...... To me, LR is what Bridge should be......
I have recently switched from Capture 1 Pro to LR 2.5. Does anyone have any hard data or experience on maximum library sizes in terms of image numbers and or database file sizes?
