Hi all,

Just seeing who has used bridge and then switched to lighroom. When bridge came out I went to a half day seminar and developed an fairly efficient workflow for weddings.
My flow is dump the card, tag the keepers green, then sort by keepers, make adjustments as needed (drop, wb, exposure, ext), gray card the formals during the shoot and use the wb tool to adjust the first formal image and then paste settings to all the other formals, select all the keepers, batch to jpg, then select all and batch rename starting at 001. I then use cs3 for special effects and removing goodies.

I saw we have another half day seminar coming up on lightroom workflow. I think I'll go with my trial version. Just wanting to make sure it's a good return on my investment time/money wise.

Thanks,

ryan

Hi Ryan:

Lightroom has been the single greatest digital investment my company has made. It beats all cameras, lights, lenses...you name it.

I'll admit, I never liked Bridge [started with CS2]. It seemed like a big, cumbersome PITA. I'll admit the CS3 version got better, and having a much stronger computer helps as well, but LR is another world completely. It absolutely makes ARC look antiquated and it's work flow inefficient.

I still use Bridge for my processed files that need PS work [we do a lot of graphic work to our products]. But for initial review, sorting, processing, and photo galleries, LR has been a huge time saver for us.

>rw

coffee-black wrote:
Hi Ryan:

Lightroom has been the single greatest digital investment my company has made. It beats all cameras, lights, lenses...you name it.


+1000000

LR 2 rocks.
My old workflow was dump cards, DPP for culling, WB, etc. CS3 for straigntening, cropping, some editing. Then BreezeBrowser pro for resizing/sharpening for web gallery.
Any portfolio images would be copied out for more work. I'd have RAW files, lo res JPGs, hiRes Jpgs.
Bridge would go through 100 or so images and crash out. Frustrating. I did find it faster than DPP for going through images though (fiirst pass)

With LR I still dump, import into LR, cull the bad and put the rest in a collection. 5 star the best (rating transfers out to vista - damned handy that!) Straighten, crop, whiten teeth, gradients, some spot retouching, vignettes are all now done in LR - and not on 8 bit JPG files. One export for web (resizing/sharpening are built in) and one more for hi-res.

Now for portraiture the presets in LR are a godsend and a half! Seniors used to tke me 5 or 6 HOURS between Bridge and CS3. Last senior took 75 minutes. And I had more images with 'effects' - that translated into a 20% higher average sale.

I still see potential to save mroe time yet. Still working on how to do the catalogs - one for everything is very cumbersome, one for jsut weddings, anotehr for seniors...perhaps one for each month of the year....don't know the best way yet.

Besides LR being faster overall, I do the vignetting and teeth whitening and such that was such a time sucking PITA with CS3 that i'd skip in on proofs. So my work is better and done in less time. Can't beat that!

Ryan,

Since the idea of editing images in batches I've always believed it's all about what you get used to. Capture One was the first one I used, then I went to Raw Shooter. When Adobe jumped on the bandwagon many thought it was a new revolution that never existed before. Well, I've used most of the converters and I still believe it's all about what you get used to. I want to like Canon's DPP because I think it has superior image output for Canon files, but could not get used to it.

Although today I use LR as my primary *I* don't think you gain anything extraordinary by moving from Bridge (assuming you're using ACR in conjunction with Bridge) over to LR. This is especially true with the newer Bridge and ACR. I will also admit that I never got used to using Bridge, but I was decent at using ACR. Many judge the differences based on older versions of ACR/Bridge. To me the workflow is nothing more than what you think is best. Same with C1, Bibble, DPP, NX,.......

I would suggest you go to the seminar and see for yourself.

yes!!!

To add a little more. I am using bridge w/cs3 and use acr set to nikon standard beta for most of my work. I just switched from the canon camp to the D700 so I figure I might as well look at software to get the most out of my new toy/investment.

I HATED Lightroom when I got the first Beta, and I was using a Bridge based workflow at the time. Now that I KNOW how to use Lightroom and what LR really is...I Deleted Bridge!!!! So much faster, and efficient! bridge is just a sorting/viewing program, Lightroom does everything Bridge does and 100x's more in the same, if not less time! Get the Scott Kelby book on LR or go to a seminar and you will see the Light! (no pun intended)

It's hard to remember a time before Lightroom. Those dark and depressing days are gone from my memory.

Honestly though, Lightroom is amazing. Just make sure your comp can handle it, as LR steals a lot more resources than Bridge.

Chris Cooke wrote:
I HATED Lightroom when I got the first Beta, and I was using a Bridge based workflow at the time. Now that I KNOW how to use Lightroom and what LR really is...I Deleted Bridge!!!! So much faster, and efficient! bridge is just a sorting/viewing program, Lightroom does everything Bridge does and 100x's more in the same, if not less time! Get the Scott Kelby book on LR or go to a seminar and you will see the Light! (no pun intended)

I wouldn't recommend going that far... Bridge is still useful when you simply want to browse a folder or card of RAW files (without having to import/create a catalog etc), or do a quick batch rename... But yes to what everyone else said, Bridge is the better of the two tools for total workflow, by far.

Chris Miller
www.imagineimagery.com

cordellwillis wrote:
Ryan,

Since the idea of editing images in batches I've always believed it's all about what you get used to. Capture One was the first one I used, then I went to Raw Shooter. When Adobe jumped on the bandwagon many thought it was a new revolution that never existed before. Well, I've used most of the converters and I still believe it's all about what you get used to. I want to like Canon's DPP because I think it has superior image output for Canon files, but could not get used to it.

Although today I use LR as my primary *I* don't think you gain anything extraordinary by moving from Bridge (assuming you're using ACR in conjunction with Bridge) over to LR. This is especially true with the newer Bridge and ACR. I will also admit that I never got used to using Bridge, but I was decent at using ACR. Many judge the differences based on older versions of ACR/Bridge. To me the workflow is nothing more than what you think is best. Same with C1, Bibble, DPP, NX,.......

I would suggest you go to the seminar and see for yourself.

I wouldn't say Adobe "jumped..." They "bought" the bandwagon and moved it light-years forward with respect to interface and usability. I will agree, though, the theories are not novel. To me, when first using LR, I thought is was very reminiscent of Bibble; it simply put it in a wonderfully user friendly package. [from the development/library side].

But, add the slide show and photo gallery [which my company uses constantly for on-line purchase catalogs], then add all the adjustment tools of the "2" version...and it makes for a significant work flow advantage.

In order to process 100 raw images, sort them, adjust burning/dodging, etc, add your copyright logo and put them in a gallery, you would need Bridge, ARC and PS. The work flow, though mostly automated with some scripts is very cumbersome and time-consuming. With LR, it is one program done in 1/4 the time. To my company, that is significant.

I am curious to see where Eric is taking Bibble 5. If he simplifies the interface and makes it less "quirky" he'll have a very good product.

>rw

I'm going to go against the grain here..

Me personally, I don't see all these time savors in LR that everyone else does. I tried both betas.. I even bought LR 2 because SO many people raved about it. I found the application ran slower than Bridge/ACR, and the tools cumbersome. For example, in ACR, if all a shot needed was WB, I can go from one shot to the next with the WB tool. In LR, I'd have to click (or use the shortcut key) every time for the WB tool. I also found copying shot settings easier to do in ACR than in LR. I also don't like the way LR grouped the different settings panels together.. the tab'd way imho is better in ACR. With CS4 and the new ACR features, it was a no-brainier for me.. the gradient raw adjustments alone makes it better than LR.

The one thing I did like about LR was the dual-monitor functionality. But they limited what it could do, which was kind of a bummer.

I liked DPP's layout.. better than CS's, but the lack of shortcut keys and adjustments made it not worth it. I also found ACR to do a way better job with detail than DPP in my comparisons.

Different strokes, different folks. It's all opinions.. there really is no true "best" software out there because there will always be someone that thinks something different is better.

I'd say hit the seminar and see what works best for you.

Lightroom is the single most important element of my workflow and crucial to my business. I tried ACR, it was nice. I hated Canon's RAW editor. Aperture is nice also. However, time and time again, I keep coming back to Lightroom. Just make sure your system can handle it. Exporting and importing use up multi cores and editing the pictures becomes easy once you get enough RAM. Invest in 8GB's of RAM and at least a Core 2 Duo - you should be fine.

I rarely use Photoshop now. They even added the capability to burn and dodge in way - the new LR brush and gradient editing tools are extremely handy. Now, the only reason I ever open up PS is for adding textures and softening skin.

Wow-great info guys. I've been playing with the trail and I think im liking it. I just need to learn more. Im going to the seminar with the trial copy. Monies are tight after selling all my gear and starting over. So im trying to make a good investment.

Here are a couple of my first observations. Im using the Nikon standard profile and pics look great. Noise reduction is a lot better than I thought. I think it's even better than NX2. Speed is great, my dual core is tweaked and I have 4gigs of high speed ram. NX2 on my system was painfully slow. I would change the noise reduciton and it would take 5 to 20 seconds to apply the one change. Im not a huge fan of auto correct but lightroom does a great job.

Well im off to shoot another wedding. I live in Oregon and were in a compete ice/snow storm. I'll try to get the bride and groom outside for some fun show pics. I havne't shot any weddings out in the show so it should be interesting