Yet again, I have to say clearly that this is only a tiny fraction of what Lightroom can do, but hopefully this list will provide you with an idea of the type of editing functions that Lightroom can perform. But, for the sake of comprehensiveness, here is a basic rundown of SOME of the most common editing tools in Lightroom.Īll basic Adobe Camera Raw adjustments (exposure, fill light, contrast, vibrance, saturation, blacks, etc.)
The easiest way to find out what Lightroom does is to download the free 30-day trial of the software to see if it does what you want. Landscape photographers, for example, would almost never come home from a shoot with 1,000 photos from a morning shoot. Lightroom is especially popular with portrait photographers because it helps to sort through hundreds or thousands of photos with ease. The list is LOOOoong, but I can see what photographers would ask if Lightroom can be used on photos other than just portraits. If you don't mind spending a lot of time trying to sort through your photos, you don't have a large library of photos, and you want to do extensive editing on your photos, then Photoshop is probably more suited to your style of photography. If the most in-depth edit you do to your photos could be done with presets (as mentioned in yesterday's post), or you simply do blemish removal or basic cloning, then Lightroom is the clear winner. So the decision for choosing Lightroom or Photoshop depends largely on how much you like to digitally alter photos. The most common edit that requires me to go from Lightroom to Photoshop on is when I need to use layers. However, when I shoot landscape photography or HDR, I almost always round-trip into Photoshop, because I like to push pixels around more with landscape photography. When I shoot portrait or wildlife photography, I RARELY feel the need to round-trip (pass photos from Lightroom to Photoshop to make more extensive edits). In addition it offers a robust and speedy cataloging feature that lets you keep track of your photos and videos with the greatest of ease. Lightroom offers 95% of the editing functionality that photographers use most commonly in Photoshop, and it makes those tools readily available. It would take me several hours to go through a wedding shoot using only Photoshop. Photoshop Elements has limited cataloging functionality, but it still doesn't meet most photographers' needs.
Also, the full version of Photoshop does not have have any ability to catalog photos and keep them organized. Even today, some common edits for photographers are time-consuming and cumbersome using Photoshop. There is no program on Earth that is more powerful for editing and manipulating photos than Photoshop however, Photoshop was originally created to service graphic designers–not photographers.
Lightroom is easy to learn, powerful, and it will also help you organize and categorize your photos.Īlthough I recommend Lightroom as your first program, many photographers still choose Photoshop first. My recommendation is to buy Lightroom first.
Obviously, the answer to this question is BOTH! I don't know any professional photographers that don't own both however, the reason you are asking this question is probably because you are wanting to buy your first editing program, so which one should you start with? Can you use lightroom for more than portrait photography? Say landscape? And what can you do with Lightroom that you can't do with Photoshop CS6?” Photoshop or Lightroom… which one is best? Michael Bates wrote on the Improve Photography facebook fanpage, “I'm new to the world of photography so forgive me if this is a dumb question.
This prompted MANY readers to ask whether they should buy Photoshop or Lightroom, and whether Lightroom is useful on photos other than portraits, or if it is just a portrait photography tool. Yesterday, I wrote an introduction to Lightroom Presets.
To see the up-to-date article comparing Photoshop vs Lightroom, check this post. What program is she using? The world may never know…