With the amount of advances that have happened in LR over the last few years ... what do you STILL use PS for, that is either not an option in LR ... or PS does a better job (iyo) than LR?
EB-1 wrote:
Why use LR? I find the single-user db anathema. Modern PS is obnoxious enough.
What does LR do (at the pixel level that you can see) better than PS?
EBH
I wasn't suggesting LR did anything BETTER than PS. I was asking if PS did anything BETTER than LR ... such, to the degree that folks have certain use cases for using PS, instead of LR.
That's not relegated to pixel comparisons, it might be workflow preferences / capabilities ... e.g. blending modes on layers, etc. or channel masks, complex masking, LAB, etc.
I used to use PS extensively, LR not at all. I've been using LR of late (a few years), and have (workflow convenience), gotten away from PS. Just wondering if folks had any use cases for PS that they were particularly keen toward (vs. LR).
With the amount of advances that have happened in LR over the last few years ... what do you STILL use PS for, that is either not an option in LR ... or PS does a better job (iyo) than LR?
The out of camera jpegs from the last few years are so good that most any software can do what is needed to finish an image to ones taste. I can see where photoshop might be essential to those making digital art or those shooting portraits that need quite a bit of work.
I use both LR and PS extensively. Probably 80% of my images have a round trip to PS.
PS is great or required for combining multiple images, precise control for masking and selections, retouching, filters, geometric transformations (e.g. liquify, puppet warp, split warp), guides & measurement tools, CMYK, sharpening, blend modes, custom brushes, plugins, etc. I also like the way some adjustments work better in PS (selective color, color balance) compared to the tools in LR. In some situations, I find the layer stack, and ability to group layers, extremely helpful especially in complex edits.
Technically, any processing you do in LR can be done in PS because of the common camera raw engine. But LR is great for syncing edits, many times I'm not sure exactly which image I want to use without doing at least some processing. LR / Camera Raw is also great for algorithms that work best on the raw data (denoising, capture sharpening, highlight recovery). I try to do as much as possible in LR.
LR sometimes gets super slow with large panos. I haven't noticed the same slow down in PS. However PS is really slow to save files, especially when they balloon up with the layers and you need PSB compression turned on.
EB-1 wrote:
Why use LR? I find the single-user db anathema. Modern PS is obnoxious enough.
What does LR do (at the pixel level that you can see) better than PS?
sbay wrote:
I use both LR and PS extensively. Probably 80% of my images have a round trip to PS.
PS is great or required for combining multiple images, precise control for masking and selections, retouching, filters, geometric transformations (e.g. liquify, puppet warp, split warp), guides & measurement tools, CMYK, sharpening, blend modes, custom brushes, plugins, etc. I also like the way some adjustments work better in PS (selective color, color balance) compared to the tools in LR. In some situations, I find the layer stack, and ability to group layers, extremely helpful especially in complex edits.
Technically, any processing you do in LR can be done in PS because of the common camera raw engine. But LR is great for syncing edits, many times I'm not sure exactly which image I want to use without doing at least some processing. LR / Camera Raw is also great for algorithms that work best on the raw data (denoising, capture sharpening, highlight recovery). I try to do as much as possible in LR.
LR sometimes gets super slow with large panos. I haven't noticed the same slow down in PS. However PS is really slow to save files, especially when they balloon up with the layers and you need PSB compression turned on....Show more →
Thanks for the input. +1 for color balance ... it was a fav of mine for really dialing in the WB in tricky / mixed lighting, etc. and the way it worked.
Kinda reminds me of something I read long ago (paraphrase) ... "There's only three things you can do in PS. But, there's a 1,000 different ways to do them."
That said, I guess I've adapted my LR use (e.g. color balance) to making luminance masks and adjusting HSL for Shadow / Mid / White on individual filter layers, and using the mask % to dial in the balance of them, etc. when needed for tricky stuff. Different way than color balance on a layer, but it gets me there well enough that I'm not (seemingly) not missing the color balance layer in PS these days.
Appreciate the insight to knock the dust off some cobwebs in my gray matter.
I was at an Adobe presentation a few years back where the Adobe representative said that, essentially, LR and the Photoshop/ACR combo used the same underlying “software engine.”
These days most photographers I know use Lightroom as their primary tool, though most of them also will use Photoshop to do things that they either can’t do as well/easily in LR. Some still like to print out of Photoshop, too. Unless I’m missing something, Photoshop has more power for things that are font-related and for stuff like making borders.
We’re kind of a two-software household. My wife is a dedicated Lightroom user who virtually never goes to Photoshop. I’m a full-on Photoshop/ACR user who only rarely goes to Lightroom. (For some sorting and selecting purposes, I think Lightroom is easier to use than Bridge.)
Honestly, the main reason that I don’t move to LR, or more likely combine it with Photoshop, is that I’ve developed a workflow over the years that his PS-based, and I haven’t had a good reason to retrain myself. Also, from my perspective as a PS/ACR user, ACR gives me a lot of the features of Lightroom for adjusting/editing the raw files. (I open in ACR, do a lot of initial processing there, then open the raw files into LR as “smart layers.”)
With the amount of advances that have happened in LR over the last few years ... what do you STILL use PS for, that is either not an option in LR ... or PS does a better job (iyo) than LR?
Photoshop: it's all about layers. If they got rid of Photoshop, I'd use GIMP or some other application which supports layers.
With layers we can make corrections, change their order and specify their intensity. Adjustments on layers are non-destructive: they can be enabled or disabled at any time.
With Lightroom and other tools which do not support layers, all of our edits are recorded in sequence: if we go back several steps we lose whatever we adjustments we have made in the meanwhile. With Photoshop layers, our creative process is entirely asynchronous: we are not locked in to the order in which we work.
How about you have more flexibility with using external plugins and your ability to turn on/off different variations in layers? I guess you could do this using virtual copies in LR but it would pretty confusing.
Kenneth Lee wrote:
Photoshop: it's all about layers. If they got rid of Photoshop, I'd use GIMP or some other application which supports layers.
With layers we can make corrections, change their order and specify their intensity. Adjustments on layers are non-destructive: they can be enabled or disabled at any time.
With Lightroom and other tools which do not support layers, all of our edits are recorded in sequence: if we go back several steps we lose whatever we adjustments we have made in the meanwhile. With Photoshop layers, our creative process is entirely asynchronous: we are not locked in to the order in which we work.
The layers metaphor is so natural for me at this point that I hardly think about it. Yet I recall that some aspects of it were not obvious at first, particularly the way that masks work on layers. Perhaps that is why some figure out Lightroom more quickly? (At the same time, most of the people that I know who rely on Lightroom came from Photoshop, so I assume that they understand the layers concept.)
As an aside, one thing that baffles me about some Photoshop users is that they still bring images converted from raw in ACR into Photoshop as old-fashioned “dumb” layers. I always import tham as “smart layers,” which retain their live link to the raw file and. can thus be reopened in ACR from Photoshop for further editing in ACR. My workflow allows me to move back and forth freely between the two applications, which is quite powerful.
IME, LR and ACR have virtually identical raw processing capabilities. LR adds some sorting and cataloging, some limited auto masking capabilities and a few AI enhancements that aren’t in PS. But from a detail, targeted adjustment and workflow perspective, I find C1 vastly superior to LRc. PS still does things easily that neither LRc or C1 do; Dan mentioned fonts, printing and borders, I can add panorama, HDR and collage… Hence my workflow is C1 to PS then out. Could I live with just PS? Probably just fine, but I enjoy the ease and automation of my C1 raw conversions over what ACR can do. That said, LRc’s AI NR and automatic people and wire removal are compelling and useful assets — I hope C1 adds something similar soon. However since I have the Adobe photo package and C1, I have all of the aforementioned advantages of each at hand, and am therefore not constrained 🤷🏼
LR does 99% of what I need. The only things I use PS for are analysis like measuring object size or noise. I rarely use it for editing. I used to consider myself a relatively advanced PS user. But it seems like every time I open PS now I end up yelling at the screen because I can't find what I'm looking for in all the bloat.
LR doesn't support true layers the way PS does. But LR uses masks in much the same way to make isolated and reversible edits.
Seems like LR has been consistently expanding into PS territory over the years. While PS hasn't offered any truly new features.
Every new version release just pushes me closer and closer to abandoning Adobe entirely. The only reason I continue using LR and PS is that they grandfathered my $10/mo subscription rate. At this point I'm continuously weighing $10 against the effort of migrating and learning a new workflow.
jeffbuzz wrote:
LR does 99% of what I need. The only things I use PS for are analysis like measuring object size or noise. I rarely use it for editing. I used to consider myself a relatively advanced PS user. But it seems like every time I open PS now I end up yelling at the screen because I can't find what I'm looking for in all the bloat.
LR doesn't support true layers the way PS does. But LR uses masks in much the same way to make isolated and reversible edits.
Seems like LR has been consistently expanding into PS territory over the years. While PS hasn't offered any truly new features.
Every new version release just pushes me closer and closer to abandoning Adobe entirely. The only reason I continue using LR and PS is that they grandfathered my $10/mo subscription rate. At this point I'm continuously weighing $10 against the effort of migrating and learning a new workflow....Show more →
There’s also the large collection of images you already have edited using LR which you would not be able to further edit if you abandon LR. I quite often go back and red edit or update some images.
chez wrote:
There’s also the large collection of images you already have edited using LR which you would not be able to further edit if you abandon LR. I quite often go back and red edit or update some images.
You can retain your LR edits by using .xmp sidecars. The trouble I've run into is finding an alternative application that consistently reads them correctly. Darktable reads some of the xmp editing metadata some of the time. Sometimes it reads it incorrectly. Or at least I haven't figured out how do make it work yet. One reason I haven't migrated to DT.
CaptureOne does much better using the LR xmp data. But I don't see any cost benefit to C1 over Adobe.
With the amount of advances that have happened in LR over the last few years ... what do you STILL use PS for, that is either not an option in LR ... or PS does a better job (iyo) than LR?
Work in layers, like taking someone's face from another photo where their eyes are open and pasting it into the better group photo where they're the only one who closed their eyes. Sure, I can get AI to 'open' their eyes, but I've found AI changes facial features too much, etc. And it's so easy to do correctly in PS. Also, adding text to images.
PS has better tools to analyze exact color/tonality of an image and to make finer adjustments. But honestly, the amount of images I finish in PS is now probably 0.00001% of what I run through LR. I mean, up until a few years ago I was still using CS2 for the rare times I needed PS. But I am thankful for the many advances Adobe has made with LR to make it more of a 'one stop shop' at least for the type of work I do, which is mostly people related events. Improvements to masking in LR is basically another version of layers. If Adobe adds a LR feature to allow me to take a selected portion of one image and apply it to another one, then tweak it with various scaling/warping tools, I wouldn't complain.
The whole issue of moving from one raw converter to another will always have some bumps and likelihood of losing edits. It's certainly a reason keeping me with Adobe. But I do save edits to xmp so it's available with the file independently of the catalog database, but that's more me being worried about DB corruption. I also output all edited images so that I have those files available as a starting point if I ever did leave Adobe and had to rework certain images. But TBH, even now with files I previously processed through LR, if it's been years and I'm revisiting them, I'm highly likely to re-edit them because my editing preferences have changed.
Jack Flesher wrote:
IME, LR and ACR have virtually identical raw processing capabilities. LR adds some sorting and cataloging, some limited auto masking capabilities and a few AI enhancements that aren’t in PS. But from a detail, targeted adjustment and workflow perspective, I find C1 vastly superior to LRc. PS still does things easily that neither LRc or C1 do; Dan mentioned fonts, printing and borders, I can add panorama, HDR and collage… Hence my workflow is C1 to PS then out. Could I live with just PS? Probably just fine, but I enjoy the ease and automation of my C1 raw conversions over what ACR can do. That said, LRc’s AI NR and automatic people and wire removal are compelling and useful assets — I hope C1 adds something similar soon. However since I have the Adobe photo package and C1, I have all of the aforementioned advantages of each at hand, and am therefore not constrained 🤷🏼...Show more →
I’ve used the rather impressive ACR tools that can select objects, people, main subject, sky, and much more quite a bit since the upgrade that provided them. Features like this are one of the reasons that i now probably do most of my post-processing in ACR before importing the smart layers into PS.
Back in the day, I thought of ACR as basically a tool to convert raw files, then later to do some preliminary sharpening and, of course, adjustments to color, curves, contrast, and so forth. Then i began to understand the power of the cloning tool (i.e. for spot removal and similar) and general NR.
When the very powerful masking features were added a while back, I was quickly hooked, and they have gotten more and more powerful recently. And the new AI Denoise feature (I know, I’m becoming a broken record) is really amazing.
Anyone who is curious should take a look at the masking features in ACR, the ways they can be combined, and the many ways you can alter the selections. They are quite sophisticated.
I bought Photoshop 4 when it first came out in 1997 and I have since traversed up through every subsequent version. I learned how to use it by reading, visiting AOL forums (remember those?), asking questions, and massive amounts of trial and error....lot's of error. I still don't know all that much about how to take advantage of all the things it can do. I just barely get by. I use Adobe Camera Raw to process and color correct my raw files and then do final minor adjustments in Photoshop. Were I still "in the biz" I might try harder to make it do more things for me but at this stage of the game for me, I just don't see the point.
Until reading some comments in this thread I thought ACR was some sort of "plug in" borrowed from Lightroom that is available in Photoshop. No? Do I only need to rent Photoshop and forget about Lightroom?
I absolutely can not for the life of me wrap my head around the user interface of Lightroom. The most aggravating part for me is that it demands I create a catalog when all I want to do is open a file. One file! But nooooooooo.
TLDR.....Give me Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw and I could care less about Lightroom.
LarryBeemer wrote:
I bought Photoshop 4 when it first came out in 1997 and I have since traversed up through every subsequent version. I learned how to use it by reading, visiting AOL forums (remember those?), asking questions, and massive amounts of trial and error....lot's of error. I still don't know all that much about how to take advantage of all the things it can do. I just barely get by. I use Adobe Camera Raw to process and color correct my raw files and then do final minor adjustments in Photoshop. Were I still "in the biz" I might try harder to make it do more things for me but at this stage of the game for me, I just don't see the point.
Until reading some comments in this thread I thought ACR was some sort of "plug in" borrowed from Lightroom that is available in Photoshop. No? Do I only need to rent Photoshop and forget about Lightroom?
I absolutely can not for the life of me wrap my head around the user interface of Lightroom. The most aggravating part for me is that it demands I create a catalog when all I want to do is open a file. One file! But nooooooooo.
TLDR.....Give me Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw and I could care less about Lightroom.
According to the Adobe you are supposed to use LR for photography, so they make the costs such that it is cheaper to buy PS+LR than PS alone. You can install PS and the Bridge and not install LR. That's what I do.
Coming from the original version of windows (and DOS before that) and all the way up to Win 7 I was firmly entrenched in the ways of Microsoft. My first attempt was when LR first came out. Man it took a bit to finally realize I had to abandon the file open/save concept. What did it for me was when I came to the realization that LR is a database. One points it (via the import) to where they keep their photos so their hard drive location is remembered and it then maintains all of the edits done to any of the photos. There is no save because it continually records to its database (catalog) as you edit while the original files are left pristine ie not touched.
That said, there are plenty of people who just don't need or want a powerful database that maintains additional information of all their photos, including keywords, grouping, searching, etc. For those, PS and ACR do the job very well. While I do use PS sparingly for some specific edits, +95% of the time I'm in LR.
Also, adding text to images.