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34 Comments
- redrabbit, on 04/17/2009, -0/+21I'm sorry, but you might want to re-evaluate what LR is intended for. It serves a completely different need than PS, and both are used by photographers to complete their workflow. They weren't meant to be substitute products, but complimentary. LR is meant to be a non-destructive (key feature) RAW editor and (more importantly), workflow manager and organizer. It is MUCH easier in LR to organize your photos, rate them, comment and tag them, export the ones you want to work on into PS as tiffs, and then bring the edited photos back into LR where you can prep them for printing, with the ability to easily revert to the pre-PS photo if needed. Unlike iPhoto (for example), the changes you make to your photo are recorded through metadata, so a new photo isn't saved every time you make a change in LR, and a lot of space isn't wasted as a result. Honestly, though, and some photographers might disagree with me, but if you aren't shooting in RAW, and in heavy amounts, then you probably don't need LR.
Looking at LR as a "good alternative to PS" is a mistake, IMO. - frontaxle, on 04/17/2009, -1/+17Hello Help desk? If my wife walks into the room and turns the light on, will that destroy my image collection?
- Thumper13, on 04/17/2009, -0/+12No offense but you simply do not understand the purpose of LR then. They are not competing products. In fact they play together very nicely. LR handles a bunch of things better then PS, and PS does things LR just can't do....that's why you use them together.
I do find myself working in PS less since I got LR though. Really only for hard core edits. LR is very powerful if you understand it. - squeevey, on 04/17/2009, -0/+10please elaborate.
If Lightroom is only READING the raw file...then how is this messing up the encoding on the raw file?
Nothing is being written to the file. It's written to the library, or to the sidecar (xmp). - aliguana, on 04/17/2009, -0/+7rubbish. Potentially, if you use Canon's software or Nikon's you might keep colour fedelity, BUT this is vastly outweighed by those software's being... not much cop. Lightroom has Canon (etc) profiles you can switch too, and work fantastically.
- SurrealDream, on 04/17/2009, -2/+9Can't stress the folder organisation thing enough really. I'll import my photos to my disk and then spend a while naming the folder, organising the file tree etc until I know i won't need to change anything (ie, make a folder format that's standard : Rohan_Bday_3rd etc) and THEN place into lightroom. And NEVER touch that folder again. Lightroom allows you to delete and rename files within itself, so let it do that.
And because I'm the kind of person who likes keeping original files just in case something happens, or I want another shot at editing something, I NEVER overwrite the original files. I place all the edited files in a subfolder called (whodathunkit) "edited", upload them to flickr or whatever and delete them after a few days if I know I won't want the edits for a while. And if I DO want the edits, why I can just go into lightroom and export them again. Or even get them off flickr. Why have 2 sets of files on your disk?
...my 2 cents. - inactive, on 04/17/2009, -2/+7These are really helpful.
- brainflakes, on 04/17/2009, -0/+4Um no, not really! DNG (apart from one or two cameras such as the G1) will contain *exactly the same* raw image data as the original. Yes you may lose a couple of metadata fields, and you can't process it with the camera's original raw software anymore, but the quality will be identical.
Your analogy is only true for shooting jpeg instead of raw. - redrabbit, on 04/17/2009, -0/+3IRT rahga:
I'd disagree. There are plenty of situations (especially in photo journalism) where shooting in JPEG is ideal. You get faster write speeds, and for sports and war photography, that is key. Also, remember that newspapers are pretty much the quality equivalent of toilet paper, and when it really comes down to it, you're not going to notice anything by not shooting in RAW if the photos are just going to end up there (as opposed to a framed photo from a wedding). You also got to factor in the extremely tight deadlines photo-journalists work under, and ask whether it's really worth it to add to the amount of post-production time by converting from RAW. - Thumper13, on 04/17/2009, -0/+3Absolutely a myth. There are TONS of plugins that help you get the exact same colors you would get from the camera makers software. Also, you can get much better results witth the multitude of plugins freely available. I'm a Nikon shooter and their software stinks!
- BossKey, on 04/17/2009, -0/+3Terrible post. The analogy is ludicrous. When you convert to DNG, you do not lose the vast degree of image quality that you do when going from negative to print. A DNG more than qualifies as a negative. It still has the original color range and dynamic range and the data inarguably still qualifies as Raw. Your post is sheer scaremongering. You can even embed the original raw in the DNG if you want.
Why don't you read the informed debate to an anti-DNG article, involving several people in the article comments who more than know what they're talking about:
http://www.openraw.org/node/1482
By the end of the comments section, the *author* of the anti-DNG rant writes: "DNG is the best hope for the future if certain problems can be addressed - and I think this is doable." - squishiful, on 04/17/2009, -0/+2People use lightroom?
- battleroyalex, on 04/17/2009, -0/+1Oh that's cool gotta download plugins to get a program to function the way it should.
- Biscuitz, on 04/17/2009, -0/+1Lol, hardly.
- Biscuitz, on 04/17/2009, -0/+1You too, I meant as far as photography. BLAH
- BossKey, on 04/17/2009, -0/+1You don't modify your raw file with DNG, either. The XMP metadata is a separate block from the image data.
- Biscuitz, on 04/17/2009, -0/+1I meant as far as Photography, sheesh. Good job taking that way further than it needed to go... same with the rest of yah!
- tobiasproject, on 04/17/2009, -1/+1i agree - RAW's are your negatives - so to speak.
- battleroyalex, on 04/17/2009, -1/+1The other 2 replies make sense, your stupidity shines through and the fact Ive been dug down 8 times and you have been dug up 8 times tells me no one knows what the hell they are talking about.
Cannon and Nikon both produce RAWS that are encoded to work with their software. If you tried to open a cannon RAW in a Nikon program the picture would be ***** outputting it as any other format. When using lightroom and outputting it as a Jpeg or any file other than RAW the colors get completely ***** up because Adobe does not know how to encode the RAW file to any other file. I find using the software that comes with the camera very useful and if you need more than that you should really work on your photography skills not your editing skills.
PS this is why both Nikon and Cannon have an option to OUTPUT FILE TO ADOBE, so the colors do not get *****. - rasser, on 04/17/2009, -0/+0Agreed, these tips all seemed rather obvious to me, but then again I've been using LR for over 2 years now, so...
- superkendall, on 04/17/2009, -4/+3Danger!! Do NOT CONVERT TO DNG. That s horrible advice, as you are basically throwing away the "real" RAW file. DNG may capture most of the data in your RAW image but not all - when you throw away a negative in favor of a print, no matter how high quality the print?
Sidecar files are not that hard to keep track of next to files (since you generally move sets of images anyway). - WBWB, on 04/17/2009, -2/+1Surprised to see something with such a niche subject matter make it to the front page. Lightroom is a cool program though. These are good tips but I was hoping for some big revelation that I didn't already know.
- GroundIsSound, on 04/17/2009, -4/+3actually just started using this program. thanks for the good article.
- meierm01, on 04/17/2009, -2/+1Absolutely! This is horrible advice, IMO.
The benefit of RAW+XMP is that you NEVER modify your original RAW file. - gilg, on 04/17/2009, -5/+3G. have to admit... shamefully, I had no idea Adobe even has this tool. looks pretty neat though.
- myrddin70, on 04/17/2009, -3/+1Lightroom is an amazing tool. I have been using it off and on for about a year. Great Article!!
- rahga, on 04/17/2009, -2/+0If you aren't shooting in RAW and in heavy amounts, you probably don't need lightroom, because you probably aren't a photographer. When I do a event shoot with 200 or so shots, Lightroom makes it easy to make bad shots look decent, throw away the horrible ones, and make the good shots look really good. Cropping, white balance, and "levels" are easier to work with when using Lightroom rather than individual files in PS and the menus.
Sadly, though, I do production work for a newspaper. It pains me to see our actual editorial photographers shoot JPEG and use crummy tools day in and day out. - freakFlag, on 04/17/2009, -2/+0Steep learning curve is an understatement ....
- cre8tivate, on 04/17/2009, -3/+1Once again, a Photoshop evangelist thinking Photoshop is THE killer app of the graphics world. Who could possibly need anything but Photoshop? Open your eyes and you may discover a world of fantastic software tools designed for specific purposes beyond general graphics.
- inactive, on 04/17/2009, -6/+2nice post
- vsaint, on 04/17/2009, -8/+3Never get shampoo in your urethra while attempting to masturbate in the shower while using lightroom.
- S4MF1SHER, on 04/17/2009, -6/+1The first rule of Lightroom is: you do not talk about Lightroom; the second rule of Lightroom...
- Biscuitz, on 04/17/2009, -8/+1I have Lightroom, but I never use it. I experimented once with it, and after realizing I could do the same stuff in PS.. I left it alone. However, I do think that LR is a good alternative to PS for anyone that doesn't know how to work PS.
- battleroyalex, on 04/17/2009, -11/+1#1 mistake using lightroom in the first place... RAWS should only be used with the companies software or the encoding gets screwed.
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