Curves: Lightroom vs. Photoshop

just bob wrote:

I own both LR v2 and CS4 but have many reason why CS4 works better for me, metadata templates and scripting, to name a few biggies. And I’ve always felt CS did everything Lightroom did until I happen to come across this article and the excerpt below, saying "In Lightroom, unlike Photoshop, Curves is nearly foolproof". I admit I’ve struggled to put Curves to good use.

"In Lightroom, unlike Photoshop, Curves is nearly foolproof. Just grab that little donut in the upper left corner, and mouse over an area of your image. Tap the down arrow to darken that tone, up to brighten. The Curves will follow."

Full article:
http://www.popphoto.com/Features/How-And-Why-You-Should-Use- Adobe-Lightroom
Lightroom should suit my style a lot more: import files, review/select/sort, export, is all I do in my Sports and PJ work. But I don’t like the "flow" in LR, besides the metadata and scripting shortcomings. The whole idea of "Modules" and you can’t do that in this module just puts a cramp in my style. Bridge and CS4 just work for me much better, but in the back of my mind I keep thinking LR is where I should be working.

Just waiting for something special to sway me to LR….

CS4 has that also. Lightroom is intended as a cataloging system first, photo manipulation second. If you are someone who takes a lot photo and doesn’t do a lot of manipulation of them, then Lightroom is the best for you.

John Passaneau

"John Passaneau" wrote in message

CS4 has that also. Lightroom is intended as a cataloging system first, photo manipulation second. If you are someone who takes a lot photo and doesn’t do a lot of manipulation of them, then Lightroom is the best for you.

Agreed. Just cannot do the metadata and filtering and scripting in LR. And the module thing annoys the heck out of me. Also I love ACR in Bridge, though most hate it. Been working in with it since CS2. CS3 Bridge and ACR were horrible but it’s all come right again with CS4.

just bob wrote:

"John Passaneau" wrote in message

CS4 has that also. Lightroom is intended as a cataloging system first, photo manipulation second. If you are someone who takes a lot photo and doesn’t do a lot of manipulation of them, then Lightroom is the best for you.

Agreed. Just cannot do the metadata and filtering and scripting in LR. And the module thing annoys the heck out of me. Also I love ACR in Bridge, though most hate it. Been working in with it since CS2. CS3 Bridge and ACR were horrible but it’s all come right again with CS4.

Yup were on the same page, I started with CS2 also and CS3 bridge did stink. But someday someone will need to help me see why I have any need to even look at metadata. I haven’t felt the need yet. I don’t shoot large numbers of photos at one time so scripting is not something I use often also.

John Passsaneau

Outside of studio shooters with large numbers of images made under identical conditions that require minimal and identical processing Lightroom I could never understand why one would use Lightroom.
That is not a large group of users.
I believe Lightroom exists to compete with Aperture as in and of itself it is a very limited program. Aperture is not much different. I do not know of any worthwhile function in Lightroom that a knowledgeable user cannot perform in Bridge/ACR, granting that Bridge still contains a few structural bugs.
Lightroom exists because Adobe still caters to Mac users although they are an ever shrinking group of imaging professionals.
There are too many Mac users out there who are abysmally ignorant about how platform neutral imaging software really is and how imaging software is somewhat crippled on the current Mac OS due to the OS itself as well as software and driver developers simply ignoring the Mac platform and its 3% market share. The most glaring example of the mess that is the Mac OS is that even Adobe, which is staffed by orthodox Mac fanboys, could not develop a 64 bit version of CS4 because the development tools do not exist. The Adobe dodge was to tell Mac CS4 users they can print a 16 bit image directly, and if you do not understand what nonsense that is you are probably using a Mac.
Anyway, apart from having to learn some arbitrarily different names for the same thing, I have never noted any advantage in using PS on a Mac or a Microsoft platform (except that Microsoft hardware is much cheaper and an order of magnitude faster because you can get what you want instead of what Apple sells).
Snowleopard, or whatever Apple is labeling the next service pack sold as new OS (see Win7 for a similar example), primarily exists to take the Mac OS into the 64 bit world but it is already many years behind Microsoft in this regard.
Yes, just as it trailed Microsoft in memory management the Mac OS is years behind Microsoft in 64 bit development. People who pay twice or more what their hardware is worth do not want to know the truth about their OS of choice: in many ways it is structurally inferior to the abomination that is Vista.
The point of the anti-Mac screed is that Lightroom is mostly a sop to the Mac base and is the kind of crippleware that is the essence of the Mac OS and hardware. Simplicity/minimalism too often disguises inferiority. Sizzle sans steak.
Does anyone use a Mac outside of the U.S. in numbers larger than you can count on one hand? Does any other civilized country rely on private health insurers?

On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:22:49 -0700, just bob wrote:
….

style. Bridge and CS4 just work for me much better, but in the back of my mind I keep thinking LR is where I should be working.

Curves, as it exists now in LR, is not a reason to switch. There is no access to individual channels in LR, which limits their usefulness tremendously. This could change in the future.
—
Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com

just bob wrote:

I own both LR v2 and CS4 but have many reason why CS4 works better for me, metadata templates and scripting, to name a few biggies. And I’ve always felt CS did everything Lightroom did until I happen to come across this article and the excerpt below, saying "In Lightroom, unlike Photoshop, Curves is nearly foolproof". I admit I’ve struggled to put Curves to good use.

I’ve not used LR since the beta version and I use CS3, rather than 4, but I find curves quite useful in a number of ways, both in RGB and in LAB modes.

-Raf

—
Misifus-
Rafael Seibert
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiii
home: http://www.rafandsioux.com