Photoshop CS3 vs Adobe Lightroom

As I post this question I am downloading the CS3 beta version to check
it out. I have the CS version and could easily be cooerced into
upgrading providing the advancements are strong enough. Being able to
edit jpegs as though they are RAW is just about enough to get me to
switch.

However as I am glancing around in the Adobe website I see this item
called Lightroom being marketed at photographers. When I glance over
the features I see most of it seems to mimic Photoshop features.

My question is:

If I already have and use Photoshop in either version, what would the
benifit in having Lightroom be, if any??

 

1. Getting a pretty good catalogue program
2. Getting a much better version of CameraRAW
3. Getting RAW support for newer cameras your PS version does not
support at all.
4. Getting the ability to edit JPEGs (and TIFFs) non-destructively

 

For completeness, since the question was about either version:
1, 2, 3, 4 apply when comparing with PS CS.
1 applies when comparing with PS CS3. (Arguably 2 applies a bit,
because it is easier in some cases).

 

so if we do not need album, organizer, file sorter, we won't need LightRoom
if we have CS3??
Love the idea of being able to process jpegs
does this mean you load JPG images from camera direct to CS3 and you can
adjust them before saving??
in batches?? we can abandon the Canon or Windows uploader?
I thought Bridge was supposed to be a sorter/file organizer?
I like everyting in one program much as possible
and would prefer to spend my $ on InDesign or Illy as a companion to PS over
LightRoom.

Is Lightroom supposed to be like Elements? a PS lite for photographers?
less art capable and more photo friendly?

If both programs use RAW why are they not the same in PS CS3 and LR??
seems kind of cheap for Adobe not to use the best RAW in CS3 considering the
expensiveness.
And so many redundant features?

 

Probably not. And if you don't need to edit you don't need Photoshop
either.

You can always do that. The idea with non-destructive editting is that
you don't save the file; the edits are saved separately.

It is, but different from Lightroon. Bridge is more a file browser,
Loightroom is more a catalog program.

That's saying you prefer apples over oranges. If you need InDesign
and/or Illustrator, you need them. You can't use Lightroom instead.

No, Lightroom is not a kind of a PS Lite and Photoshop Elements is
certainly no match to Lightroom.

The RAW converters are very much the same, and because Photoshop CS3 is
still in beta, nobody can say that they won't be completely the same
when Photoshop CS3 comes out.

 

I have been using PS CS exclusivly since I got my Rebel. I couldn't
even FIND my Canon software on my computer. The Lightroom cataloging
system bears more investigation though. I just bought my SECOND 500
gig external!

 

On Mar 2, 5:42 pm, "KatWoman" <>
wrote:
[snip]

[snip]

There have beens hints in an Adobe forum about extra features in the
ACR 4.x that will ship with the released CS3. (I believe the
differences between the raw conversion features in Lightroom and ACR
4.x will be to do with user interface convenience, workflow support,
etc, rather than specific editing capability. It appears that Adobe
intend to synchronise the metadata held by these products, and perhaps
provide equivalent controls for that metadata).

Johan-Wilde: "I saw "Spot Removal" in the "Synchronize". Is that
something in ACR4 I cant find, or an feature that should be
implemented? Would be a great feature inside ACR!"

Tom Hogarty: "Nice catch on the "Spot Removal" item in the Synchronize
menu. It's a feature that has yet to be implemented but will be
available for the full Adobe Camera Raw 4.0 release."

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=72&catid=626&threadid=1224592

 

so many things to think about
brave new world
the new features sound great

 

, "KatWoman"

So does that silver Merc 500 Sport
and in fact, it takes you just as far
as a Volkswagen, or a Japanese.
Maybe faster, but the volksie also
reach the destination - cheaper.

Dave

 

Sometimes the extra speed makes something viable.

I recently had a time-critical task involving between 100 & 200 poorly-
cropped JPEGs. It would have taken too much time to do them all in
Photoshop itself.

But, (in fact, too late for this occasion), my test showed that I
could open them all in ACR 4.0, (which handles JPEGs), and crop them
all individually within the time limits, then save them as JPEGs,
without actually using Photoshop itself. So perhaps next time I'll do
that.