Lightroom

[Villainess]

I've heard some of you talk about Lightroom - can you give me some more details? Does this minimize the editing in Photoshop or allow you to edit multiple photos at once? I'm thinking about downloading the trial to test it out but wanted some thoughts on it first.

Also - I've heard mention of Firefox - what is this?

Thanks so much for your help! I'm currently going through my trip photos and would like to share soon as you guys helped me improve my shots tremendously and I have learned so much from all of you!

[fitzperry]

Firefox is an internet browser, like Explorer only much better. The primary advantage is that you can open multiple webpages in "tabs" within the same window. I currently have 17 open. :lmao:

Lightroom is primarily for RAW conversion and photo organization. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "minimize the editing in Photoshop" but it is not a replacement for Photoshop. You can do color and lighting adjustments, cropping, some sharpening and such, and there is a dust removal tool but for major edits you still need Photoshop or something similar. LR will do batch processing. I think you can still download a free trial if you're interested in trying it.

[Master Mason]

Firefox is an internet browser, like Explorer only much better. The primary advantage is that you can open multiple webpages in "tabs" within the same window. I currently have 17 open. :lmao:

Lightroom is primarily for RAW conversion and photo organization. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "minimize the editing in Photoshop" but it is not a replacement for Photoshop. You can do color and lighting adjustments, cropping, some sharpening and such, and there is a dust removal tool but for major edits you still need Photoshop or something similar. LR will do batch processing. I think you can still download a free trial if you're interested in trying it.


yep what she said. Except the newer versions of IE will also allow you to open tabs as well.

[Groucho]

Like MM says. I'm a huge Firefox fan, but IE7 can do tabs also. But Firefox has better security, more advanced features, a nicer IMHO user interface, etc, etc.

There are also many great extensions for Firefox that make it even better. FxIF lets you see the exif info when you look at a picture on a web page's properties. AdBlock Plus means that you don't see web advertisements any more (this alone is worth the switch!) PicLens is available for both browsers but while we're talking extensions on a photography forum, it's worth a mention - it gives you quick full-screen viewing of countless galleries, Google image searches, etc - really terrific stuff.

As for Lightroom, it's worth mentioning that it's really at its best when used with Raw photos, which DSLRs and a few high-end PnS cameras can record photos in. It makes "processing" them pretty quick and easy. It does work fine with JPGs, though, and has a very good tagging system that works just as well with jpgs as raws.

[Alztybrn]

In a related question...I do plan on purchasing LR soon, but I hear version 2.0 will be coming out soon. Is it worth waiting for? Can I purchase the current version, and then just update when 2.0 comes out? Will that be financially stupid?

[jann1033]

if someone who presently owns light room will invite you, you can get the beta version till august , the new one is supposed to come out in June ( i think). don't know if i just was besieged with trying to learn digital when i tried 1 or if this new one is tons easier to use but i love it,

it think the trial goes till June
and i use photoshop tons less now, mainly to clone out sensor snot ( can't figure that out and no "help" in the beta) and i like the presets, almost as much as alienskin, just not as many in lr.

i loved foxfire till the last update, now i keep getting a script error every time i open it and no amount of repair or uninstall seems to fix it..and my website doesn't work on it, the text and images get all wacked out so now i am forced to use IE. course i can't get the muti tabs to work in IE so hmm could it be an operator error?;)

[GrillMouster]

Lightroom (LR) is a workflow solution for photographers that includes a RAW editor (that also works on jpg and other file formats), keywording, tagging, organizing, printing and presentation tools. Nearly all of these functions are already available in Photoshop (with Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw). Therefore, if you already own Photoshop, and you don't routinely process several images at a time, LR might not be worthwhile. The professional wedding photographer who goes through 1,000 images after each wedding would net more efficiency from LR than would a family snapshooter who ocassionally post-processes an image here and there. LR is organized so that the tools photographers use most often are immediately available, making it easier to process, catalog, locate, print, and present images. For the most part, LR is designed for global edits, not selective editing. In version 1 you can spot clone for dust spots, blemishes, etc., but Photoshop is still a better tool for selective editing. In LR 2.0, Adobe has added a great intutive masking tool for selective dodging and burning. That new addition, along with several other improvements, will bring LR 2.0 that much closer to being a Photoshop replacement for many photographers.

If you really want LR, wait for the post-announcement upgrade: if you purchase LR 1.0 after the official announcement of LR 2.0's release date, you're eligible for a free upgrade to LR 2.0. At that time, the price of LR 1.0 will drop, so it will be like buying LR 2.0 at a discount.

That's how I upgraded to Photoshop CS3. In order to qualify for the upgrade price for CS3, I would have needed PS 7.0 or higher, but I only had PS 5.5. So, I bought the CS2 upgrade on Amazon for next to nothing and got the CS3 upgrade for free. I just called Adobe, and they gave me instructions for sending proof that I purchase the CS2 upgrade after the official announcement of CS3. Then, when CS3 came out, the price of CS2 dropped even more on Amazon, and I was eligible for a refund of the difference, because it had been less than 30 days since I purchased CS2.
BTW, I was an early adopter of Lighroom, snagging it at the special introductory price of $197 last year. I noticed that all retailers except for Amazon immediately upped the price of LR 1.0 when the special introductory period ended. For whatever reason, Amazon kept the $197 price tag for about a month later. Keep an eye on that site for price drops.

[SWDopey]

it think the trial goes till June

You've all done a great job of describing what Lightroom's all about, so I'll just clarify this one... the trial of the beta is 30 days, but anyone who owns version 1 can send you an invitation which allows you to run the beta version until the end of August. If you need an invitation, drop me a PM with your email address and I'll send it over.

The date of June was floating about briefly when the beta was announced as Scott Kelby posted it on his website, but then got his hand slapped as they never said that. The release could be any time between now and probably the beta expiring. No official announcement has been made.

Definitely download the trial and have a play - it's a great piece of software. But I'd put off buying 1.x as 2.0 is now so close.

Victoria

[Groucho]

and i use photoshop tons less now, mainly to clone out sensor snot ( can't figure that out and no "help" in the beta) and i like the presets, almost as much as alienskin, just not as many in lr.
On LR1, you just hit "N" or click the little icon with two circles with a line between them that you see in the develop module (it says "remove spots" if you hover over it). Once you're there, you can use the slider to adjust the size of your circle, or use the bracket keys, which is faster. Click once on the bad spot, then drag to a spot that isn't damaged but is similar (like another piece of sky). That's all there is to it!

i loved foxfire till the last update, now i keep getting a script error every time i open it and no amount of repair or uninstall seems to fix it..and my website doesn't work on it, the text and images get all wacked out so now i am forced to use IE. course i can't get the muti tabs to work in IE so hmm could it be an operator error?;)
Your profile is probably corrupt for some reason. Go to Start, Run, then type the following: "firefox -profilemanager", without the quotes. This brings up the Profile Manager. Create a new profile and make it the default. Start Firefox with it and you should be back in business. If you're feeling a little tech-savvy, it's fairly easy to bring your bookmarks and cookies over from the old profile, too.

You can find more info about the profile manager here (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager). Good luck!

[Villainess]

Thanks everyone! I have 5000+ photos from our trip and it is a bit daunting going through all the keepers, making minor adjustments and trying to salvage others - using those as an opportunity to improve my photoshop skills. The pics were taken as jpgs but I think I'm ready to switch to RAW where LR would be more useful.

[cajunrose]

I LOVE LR. I use it for every picture that hits my computer. I love that I can upload pictures directly from my card to LR and it automatically (if I tell it to) saves them to my external. Right away, I have a back up on my external.

It saves a ton of space on my computer. It edits a copy of the picture rather than you having to save and resave for your edits. (don't know if I'm technically correct here, but I know I don't have to save pictures over and over).

I like it's cataloging feature. I can put a 'copy' of the picture in as many catalogs as I want and it doesn't save it mutiple times...it just saves a copy. For example, I took pictures of my daughter pre-k graduation yesterday and also took some of her with her best friends. I put the pictures in "Graduation 2008" "Raelee with her Friends 2008" "Raelee school pictures" and it really only had ONE picture saved. HUGE space saver and great way to find pictures quickly when you need to.

It is VERY VERY quick to catalog pictures, sort through them, delete the ones you don't want. I edited 800 pictures last week in about 20 minutes (not including cropping). They were sorted, deleted the ones that needed deleting, edited for exposure, color, etc. I had them uploaded to my family in a matter of an hour for them to see.

I shoot in JPG. The only reason I do is because with my Fuji s5, I nail exposure every time. I wasn't that way on my D50...that camera I needed RAW on. I find no benifit to shooting RAW on this camera. That said, I LOVE LR even for JPG pictures. It is very easy to bring out the blown out whites and to bring light into shadows on the same picture (dappled shade). I LOVE that feature.

I still use photoshop for nearly every single picture (I batch large groups though). I haven't figured out LR's sharpen feature at all...or clone. For those things, I use Photoshop.

I didn't mean for this to get so long. I just :love: LR though!

Stephenie

[Furgus]

Why do I sense a RAW vs JPEG discussion coming up....? :)

I love LR too. I use it for pretty much everything but Printing...PS is way better on printing then LR IMHO. I am waiting to see the release date for 2.0 and hope to upgrade as soon as it comes out.

[DueyDooDah]

Here are three tutorials showing LR 2.0 beta's new features. They are long, but quite good. Jann, one of them (I think #2) shows how to get the snot out.

Tutorial #1 (http://www.workshopsondemand.com/ps_lightroom/lrb2_p01/)
Tutorial #2 (http://www.workshopsondemand.com/ps_lightroom/lrb2_p02/)
Tutorial #3 (http://www.workshopsondemand.com/ps_lightroom/lrb2_p03/)

BTW. The two monitor feature is absolutely wonderful (if you have two monitors.)

[jann1033]

thanks groucho that fixed the script part...i'll mess with the bookmarks etc tomorrow when i have a less tired brain...:lmao:
I'll check out the tutorials for the clone tool as well, thanks..whoo,,,just looked over the tutorials(much better than the ones i looked at before btw so extra thanks for that...)and i haven't even begun to touch the features...that program is really amazing

[MarkBarbieri]

Why do I sense a RAW vs JPEG discussion coming up....? :)


Bah! My way is the only way. Anyone that does it differently is an ignorant fool. There are no real world advantages to the other way. The so called advantages are just minor theoretical nit-picking.

Does that some up the debate reasonably well?

[Furgus]

Bah! My way is the only way. Anyone that does it differently is an ignorant fool. There are no real world advantages to the other way. The so called advantages are just minor theoretical nit-picking.

Does that some up the debate reasonably well?


Like a Glove.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fToRej14lCQ)

[Groucho]

Bah! My way is the only way. Anyone that does it differently is an ignorant fool. There are no real world advantages to the other way. The so called advantages are just minor theoretical nit-picking.

Does that some up the debate reasonably well?
Hey, you ignorant fool, it's "sum" not "some"! :rotfl2:

I will say that exposure is only half (or less) of the beauty of raw for me, penalty-free white balance adjustment in post-processing is also an enormous benefit, plus you get a bit more actual information to use, since it hasn't already been though the whole sharpness-contrast-brightness washing machine. IMHO, there has to be a good reason not to shoot raw, not the other way around. And the only good reason is lack of storage space, and with the dirt-cheap memory cards and hard drives, that doesn't cut it any more. :teeth:

[jann1033]

Hey, you ignorant fool, it's "sum" not "some"! :rotfl2:

I will say that exposure is only half (or less) of the beauty of raw for me, penalty-free white balance adjustment in post-processing is also an enormous benefit, plus you get a bit more actual information to use, since it hasn't already been though the whole sharpness-contrast-brightness washing machine. IMHO, there has to be a good reason not to shoot raw, not the other way around. And the only good reason is lack of storage space, and with the dirt-cheap memory cards and hard drives, that doesn't cut it any more. :teeth:

i am feverishly trying to think of another just to further the debate although i too caught the sum/some so maybe the debate could be something about grammar instead:rotfl:

[DueyDooDah]

...so maybe the debate could be something about grammar instead:rotfl:

Oh, I don't think we want to go there. I have to hold back so often, it hurts.

[Alztybrn]

Has anybody heard an anticipated release date for LR 2.0?

[jann1033]

Has anybody heard an anticipated release date for LR 2.0?
when i downloaded the beta( right when the beta was released) it said on the download page the beta was good till aug ( if you got it with an invitation, see one of the posts above for one) and the release was expected in june but someone said that is not longer the adobe stance so who knows:rotfl2:so i'd guess this summer, fall or winter (lol). the beta so far is working great so guessing sooner than later.

[Alztybrn]

Well...here is my dilemma. I am heading to the world in 11 days :cool1: :cool1: :cool1:

I got a Canon 30D about 4 months ago and really have a pretty good handle on it. I really want to shoot my WDW trip in RAW, but I am wondering what to do about conversion. I have played around with LR 1.0 free trial, as well as the beta version of 2.0. I have full intention of purchasing the 2.0 version when it is released.

But...what do I do in the meantime? I could upload everything to the 2.0 beta version, but I do not want to run the risk of losing any pics in changing from beta to the new 2.0 version.

Should I just shoot in jpeg (really do not want to do this) or gamble with the beta version of LR?

[Master Mason]

Well...here is my dilemma. I am heading to the world in 11 days :cool1: :cool1: :cool1:

I got a Canon 30D about 4 months ago and really have a pretty good handle on it. I really want to shoot my WDW trip in RAW, but I am wondering what to do about conversion. I have played around with LR 1.0 free trial, as well as the beta version of 2.0. I have full intention of purchasing the 2.0 version when it is released.

But...what do I do in the meantime? I could upload everything to the 2.0 beta version, but I do not want to run the risk of losing any pics in changing from beta to the new 2.0 version.

Should I just shoot in jpeg (really do not want to do this) or gamble with the beta version of LR?

I am unclear on why you think you would lose any pictures by using the beta??? Your not going to alter your RAW files even using the beta, and you then export them as jpegs, so even if there is some error in the beta, all you've lost is a little time.

[Alztybrn]

I am unclear on why you think you would lose any pictures by using the beta??? Your not going to alter your RAW files even using the beta, and you then export them as jpegs, so even if there is some error in the beta, all you've lost is a little time.

I guess as long as I have everything backed up in a couple of spots I will be OK....another words...the worst that can happen is that I lose the edits I made to the pics when I make the move from beta to 2.0?

[jann1033]

i just recently read they think the catalogs will transfer but don't guarantee it so i am downloading to my f drive, converting/editing in lightroom then saving as jpg back in to my f drive. you could also save as tiff files ( on your folders in your hard drive) which is what the finished edits are in lightroom then you wouldn't lose anything if your catalog wouldn't transfer, still being able to have the raw the partly finished ( tiff) and the fully edited jpg. Adobe doesn't recommend you use the beta as your only source for your photos which is why i am not downloading straight to lightroom.

[Alztybrn]

i just recently read they think Adobe doesn't recommend you use the beta as your only source for your photos which is why i am not downloading straight to lightroom.

Would you recommend downloading to Picassa then to LR for editing/conversion? That way there is still the original files in Picassa if need be?

[Master Mason]

I guess as long as I have everything backed up in a couple of spots I will be OK....another words...the worst that can happen is that I lose the edits I made to the pics when I make the move from beta to 2.0?

If your worried, make a back up copy of your original RAW's, then do what ever you want in the beta, and then export them to JPEG's. The worst thing that could happen is the edited RAW's somehow become unusable, but you still have your originals, you might also lose any cataloging etc.

But the original RAW's and the JPEGs you exported will still be completely fine.

And that is worst case, I think that really all you would lose would be the catalog information.

[AndrewWG]

I would say that if you are that worried about the beta causing problems, then just use the software that came with the Canon. I have not used it for my 30D, but I have heard that it works just fine. Probably not as slick as Lightroom, but hey, it works and it is free.

[Alztybrn]

Thanks for all the advice...I really appreciate it!

[mabas9395]

Thanks for all the advice...I really appreciate it!

I just figured out where your user name comes from. Love it. :rotfl2:

[SWDopey]

June was a date Scott Kelby put on his website - and was told to take it off again, because the team never said June. That would suggest it's not June. The beta expires on the 31st August. That would suggest it'll be released before then. That gives you a 2 month window - take a guess! Those who know can't say.

With regard to your pictures Alztybrn, try this for size....

Back up onto DVD BEFORE they reach the beta, just in case anything did go wrong. Whilst it *shouldn't* corrupt your original files, there is the vaguest of possibilities that it could delete them! So make sure you've got good backups.

By all means use the beta to process them, but a few suggestions on that one:
1. Even if the beta catalog will upgrade to the final release, I wouldn't. You could potentially introduce some nasty bugs, as the database structure has had a complete overhaul.

2. Don't expect the new localised corrections settings to appear the same way as in the beta, so if you use them, export before upgrading.

3. Use settings which are saved in XMP, and write to XMP before transferring the files from the beta catalog into a new final release catalog, by selecting all in Grid mode and hitting Ctrl-S/Cmd-S. Things that aren't included in XMP and are therefore best avoided for the minute - virtual copies, collections (use keywords instead), flags, history states.