Posted: 6/10/2010 12:24:04 PM EDT
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I am about to graduate but realized I should probably take advantage of Adobe's 80% off for students deal. If you had to pick one, which would it be? The Photoshop CS5 extended version, or lightroom 3?
Or neither? I've never used photoshop or digital editing tools. I used to be a film guy... Thanks, and I promise this will be my last question this week. ETA: I'm not a professional photographer. I've taken several courses from high school-college, and did work as a photographer in a studio many years ago, but don't know how much software I really need, if that helps. |
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I use both Lightroom and Photoshop.
I shoot RAW and Lightroom really shines when in a RAW workflow. Most of the touchups I do are done in Ligthroom. Occasionally, there will be something that I can't fix in Lightroom (i.e. clothing tag showing on a model) and so I do my basic edits in Lightroom and then push it to Photoshop for those final edits. But I think the average photographer will get along fine with Lightroom or Aperture. Download them. They're both free to try out. |
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I am NOT experienced with photography or photo editing. It's a hobby I just started dabbling in. I have downloaded GIMP and Photoscape so far. Both were free. I've only made it as far as experimenting with desaturate to get B&W and Unsharp Mask.
Unsharp mask seems incredibly useful as long as you don't go crazy with the amount setting. Still playing with it. Anyway, I don't want to derail the thread, but does anyone use these programs? I'm interested to see where this thread goes. |
| I am a professional photographer for many years just switched to digital.I use a blend of these programs,a real oldtimer for the basic stuff and if you shoot right Jasc 7.0 does all I need.For shots near screwed I shoot a RAW + jpeg image for everything and the RAW in PS 4 if it needs repairs and the jpeg lightly tweaked in Jasc 90% of the time is GTG.Use Lightroom 2.0 in my laptop for the days files at a wedding if I am doing a down and dirty slide show for view during a reception dinner.Big deal is getting a color monitor setup machine like Spyder and make all images sent to a lab 300dpi at 6500 kelvin |
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I think for most photographers, Lightroom will be more useful (in general) than Photoshop.
Lightroom has so many functions, and it is geared directly at photographers. LR catalogs, organizes & allows you to easily keyword, label & sort all your photos, as well as doing any minor (and a little bit of major) editing to your photos. Photoshop is very specialized... it can do heavy editing one picture at a time. Photoshop will not give you most of the organizational tools that LR does, although PS will come with Adobe Bridge, which can do some of the things LR does. I can't stand bridge, however... when compared to LR. I make a living from photography, and I would say that over 95% of post processing is done in LR. It is only the occasional major fix that causes me to dump the file into PS to do things like merge two pictures, take a face from one picture and move to another, etc. For those things, if I absolutely HAD to, I could use Gimp or some other free program. For instance, I would say that a wedding where we took about 1000 pictures, we would weed those down to 300 to 400 photos and rarely would we need to bring more than 5 of those photos over to photoshop to do major corrections. |
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Lightroom 3 is fantastic, and does most of what one needs, BUT..... ..considering the cost benefits you get for being a student, you are going to save way more money on CS5 Ext, than you will with LR3. The two programs really compliment each other so well, and MOST folks that have LR3, are going to want PS at one point or another. As inexpensive as LR is even without student discount, I would highly reccomend going ahead and getting CS5 now, so your software costs down the road are much lower when you are ready. The great thing about Lightroom is the cataloging/fiile management abilities and Camera Raw workflow. BUT, CS5 has Camera Raw as well, and it also includes Bridge for file management (it's just not as good or powerful as LR is) Editing is certainly faster in LR than in straight PS, but if you aren't a pro taking tons of images all the time, it probably won't hamper you too much at all. Everything that can be done in Lightroom processing wise, can be done in Photoshop CS5. So yeah, I say get PS and learn it, and then when you are able, get LR, as the cost to you with no discount will be far less than if you had to buy PS, which you would eventually want anyway. |