Lightroom, Photoshop, or both

[John B]

Is there any advantage to using Photoshop over using Lightroom? My photo instructor essentially said Lightroom is an over-simplified version of Photshop CS3.* Adobe is offering deals on buying both programs together. I certainly don't intend to buy CS3, but I do have Elements 5.0 somewhere.

What does Lightroom do that Elements doesn't, and vice versa?






*He's a commercial photographer and takes thousands of pictures a week, and a pretty heavy user of CS3. His requirements would certainly be different than mine, or anyone else on this forum.

[gbacklin]

You can perform major surgery with Photoshop, that being it has just about all you can think of at your disposal. Now that is a lot of stuff, if you are going to need to that level of work on your photos. I do a lot of photo restoration, so it is very helpful to me and I have had it for years.



But truthfully, I just picked up Lightroom 2, and I wouldn't be without it for general photo work. The process of working with the pictures and getting consistency is very logical with this program.

These two pictures below were taken at different times and the sun had moved making Marissa's skin tone different. (She had to straighten her hair ) With Lightroom, I was able to get these to look similar in skin tone, within around 10 minutes. I could have also done it with Photoshop, but why use a scanning electron microscope when all I needed was a magnifying glass.





I hope this helps

Take Care,
Gene

[jdd]

Gene's nailed it.

[sekhmet]

John, your photographer friend, who is dealing with thousands of photos is exactly the sort of photographer that Lr is designed to help. One major aspect of the program is the digital asset management library module. It's tops.

The Develop module is astounding.

If I were you I would buy both, given the great discount - IF you are into spending the time with the Ps learning curve. It is a behemoth.

Lightroom is wonderful. If you are only into buying one - get that one.