Lightroom 3

[picsfor]

yes, knowledgeable man - just American SOH 

Prefer Martin Evening myself...

Good post thought...

[Graham]

        I know what you mean about Scott Kelby (Why does he reffer to himself as Scatt? ) but for folks like me with a fear of such things he does have a "Come on in, It's fun" sort of attitude.
        As you may know I'm having problems with Bridge in CS3 at the moment and had pretty much decided, on what seems to me to be good advice, to "Upgrade" to CS5. And now Lightroom3 comes along ( I have LR2 and ,er, don't use it ) .
        So. CS5 or LR3?..... or both!
                                You know , I think I know the answer.
                                               Graham.

[picsfor]

Graham - if you don't use LR2 why keep it or even think of upgrading to LR3?

You could flog your LR2 and use towards the cost of upgrading to CS5.

LR2/3 is very much about cataloguing you images and performing everyday photo fixes - a real work flow workhorse.

I don't use anything else except for HDR or Panorama's - but that doesn't mean it is right for you.
Simon, my friend and work colleague at Eastbourne uses Bridge and PS and prefers it to LR. But then, his work flow is totally different to mine as are his style of pictures and processing.

I'm more than sure you'll gain a great deal from CS5 - it's just that CS5 doesn't offer enough for me to warrant a purchase.

[Graham]

   Hi Andrew thanks for the reply.
                                            The reason I'm considering LR is because , seeing what it does and can do, I believe it's the way for me to go. It's just a case of getting used to different softwear which I always find daunting.
                                            There's lots of features on LR that I think "Yes, that's what I want Bridge to do!" It would seem that the new version is more intuative in the import stages which caused me some confusion when I first loaded the programe and I'm afraid I just reverted to my old Bridge ways rather than persevering.
                                            I'm sure that once I got used to it there would be no looking back. The problems I'm having with Bridge now may just be the kick up the a£$e I need.
                                                             Graham.

[picsfor]

Graham,

if you've not tried LR3 retail version (not beta) pop on over to Adobe and download the trial and have yourself a months worth of free play.

For me the big benefits are non destructive editing (always), efficient file management, and great processing tools with a never ending step back option allowing you to under something with a simple click or reset the whole photo from all your editing with another click. Keyword and Metadata insertion as well as the nice new watermark on output feature that is as simple as it gets. Aber's will tell you about its great new printing suite and like me Jonathan has now discovered how much nicer your images look and just how quick it is over the previous version or Bridge. If you use Flickr you can upload straight to Flickr from LR3.  The export option is just so great - really does cover all angles - image size, image quality, and image size shown as you vary the parameters and so on!

Did Jonathan mention the great NR feature? Well it also works in reverse so you can actually add grain to an image with a slider. How much more fun do you want to have with a picture?

The downside is - it is so easy to experiment, save that version as tif, jpg etc and then reset the photo and start on a different tac. You really can lose yourself in single picture.  
It's addictive  
Oh yes - Geo-Tagging would have been nice.
it's fun  

[anglefire]

I don't understand how the files can look any different using LR3 or ACR in Bridge or CS5 - as it is the same basic engine?

And the NR and grain features are all part of CS5. As is the lens correction feature that is now in ACR 6.1

[picsfor]

You've answered your own question - 'the same basic engine'.

Both products have been slightly tweaked according to purpose.

LR is about speedy work flow and image management from the camera to the client.
CS5 is about image manipulation with ACR and Bridge as bolt on's to fulfill the camera to client process.

Both can do the same thing. Bit like cars - a 1.6 engined family car will pull a caravan but not as well as a 3.0 engined 4x4 - but the 4x4 is not as suitable for a runabout.
Horses for courses. 

[anglefire]

I was thinking of the actual RAW conversion side - doing the same thing in both LR3 and ACR 6.x should give the same result.

[picsfor]

Creating a same looking image can be created a multitude of packages if you know how to use them to their fullest - not just these 2 packages.

How they go about though is some what different - bit like a petrol engine and a diesel engine...

ACR is the RAW conversion bolt on for PS, LR has the RAW conversion embedded within the whole program. Example in the difference is that ACR is not designed to handle jpg's and GIf's - LR is and in the same lossless manner that ACR handles RAW files.

[anglefire]

ACR does handle Jpg and Tiff files. And AFAIK the settings applied (As long as the sidecar files are updated) in LR3 are used by ACR and vica versa,

I agree that the way its done in LR3 is sometimes slightly different, but ultimately, its just a series of numbers.

[Jonathan]

I'd pay good money if they promised I didn't have to listen to Scott Kelby....

I quite like Scott Kelby and I have a few of his books. I think he's an aquired taste but I like his sense of humour and the light hearted way he gets things across.

Oh yeah. Scott Kelby the Photoshop expert...........

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2010/06/digital-photography-book-reflections.html

[Colin]

Oh yeah. Scott Kelby the Photoshop expert...........

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2010/06/digital-photography-book-reflections.html

He's American so he must be an expert.  Didn't you know that's where all the experts come from.

[Hinfrance]

Before I download this trial (I always like to know what I am missing ) can someone answer these questions for me, bearing in mind Andrew's comment "efficient file management"

1) Does LR still have to take over your entire image file system to work? Bibble, for example, allows you to use its internal catalogues or the computer file system, and will open several catalogues at once.
2) Notwithstanding the answer to the first question, will LR catalogues handle two files with the same name but in different directories? Again this is something that Bibble has no trouble with, and even Picasa isn't phased by this issue. I don't have files with identical names in any recent folders, but the long tail of legacy naming means that this a a deal breaker for me.

I will probably have a play at some point. I want to see if the NR is up to DXO's standard for one.

[picsfor]

Before I download this trial (I always like to know what I am missing ) can someone answer these questions for me, bearing in mind Andrew's comment "efficient file management"

1) Does LR still have to take over your entire image file system to work? Bibble, for example, allows you to use its internal catalogues or the computer file system, and will open several catalogues at once.
2) Notwithstanding the answer to the first question, will LR catalogues handle two files with the same name but in different directories? Again this is something that Bibble has no trouble with, and even Picasa isn't phased by this issue. I don't have files with identical names in any recent folders, but the long tail of legacy naming means that this a a deal breaker for me.

I will probably have a play at some point. I want to see if the NR is up to DXO's standard for one.

1. LR does not take over the image file system at all and is non invasive. It creates it own catalogue and allows you to add files to the catalogue  from their current location or create new folders and move them to those new folders or add 'copies' to the new folders. When you install it, it will go and search you system for images and offer you the chance to choose what you want to do with those files, so in your case leave them where they are and add them to the catalogue from that position.
Does it allow you to open several catalogues at once? Not sure - LR2 couldn't but this feature was much debated in the LR3 beta trials but wasn't enabled if it allowed. The thing with LR is - the way it works you don't really need multiple catalogues open at once... but check the forums at Adobe for certainty.

2. Yes it can handle duplicate file names in different directories - i know from first hand. LR works with the date format as its first level of file separation which means the likely hood of you creating 2 files on the same date with the same name are almost impossible (note i say almost). It does allow you to create your own folders and file system but I've learned to use the date system in conjunction with keywording etc. But in fairness I've put a lot of effort into getting this all sorted out.

Can't comment on DXo's noise standard but i know a lot of people are pleased with the version that came with LR3.

If you want to give it a try, do so, but do yourself a favour and do so when you've got time to try it properly. If you got a large collection of images, it might take some time cataloguing them all and then there is the case of looking around the interface. The interface is fairly self explanatory and simple to work with, but has so many options that you need to give it a good play to test it fully. Some of the tools look a bit different from PS and take a little getting used to but are fairly simple once acquainted.

My personal line is save all original files to an EHD with files copied onto the main HD as .dng files and added to the catalogue. The originals EHD are backed up to a second EHD whilst all the .dng files are backed up via Time Machine. When i delete a file off the main HD the original is still left on 2 EHD's for archiving if needed...

[Hinfrance]

Thanks for all the time typing Andrew.

I'm afraid the answer to question 1)  is still a yes then. That's a shame. when I meant takes over, I meant you have to physically import every file into LR before you can work on it. This is major no-no for me. I don't want to use an image editor as my DAM. It would have to be an order of magnitude faster than 2.6 to make this viable (rendering thumbnails even on 'minimal' was dog slow).

I couldn't help noticing also that LR keywords are in a proprietary format, so useless to any recipient who doesn't have LR to read them. To use Bibble or DXO I just navigate to where the files are and open them - simples:)

2) is a major improvement. LR 2.6 (the last one I tried) certainly couldn't.

3) Everyone is raving about the NR, so it'll be worth a look just for that I reckon.

I have downloaded but not run it yet as I am in the middle of a closed Beta and have a load of old photos to restore. That'll keep me busy for the foreseeable.

As you say, it represents a rather challenging and complete change in the way that I work; I have never managed to get on with previous versions, but I'll give it a go at some point. I'm a bit of an old dog; new tricks don't come easily.