How many use LR

[allanrube]

I have used Nikon software (Capture 4.3. NX, NX2) since buying a Nikon 7 years ago. Recently, I bought a Sony Nex-7 and am thinking of a Fuji 100s. That means using LR 5.3 for me.
However, LR is so foreign to the workflow I have been using. I have learned a lot in the last few months but still do not feel comfortable with collection organization vs the subject folder organization I am used to. I also wish it could be used without its library function.
I know PS CC has the same raw conversion as LR but I am uncomfortable renting the software.

So, I am asking - those of you who do not use a proprietary software (Canon, Nikon) which software do you use for raw conversion?

If you use PS do you have the CC version?

[Don Lacy]

Allan, I use ACR in PS CS6 I had no desire to go to the cloud when
I upgraded from CS5

[allanrube]

Allan, I use ACR in PS CS6 I had no desire to go to the cloud when
I upgraded from CS5

Have you thought of what might happen when you buy a new camera?

[Gavin Slabbert]

I too use PS CC and also was hesitant, but at $9.99 it became more cost effective for me to go that route than what it costs me to keep heading along the upgrade path. I was really concerned about spending 3 - 4 months in the african bush without internet connectivity and still being able to use my product, but to date I have had no issues (after a couple of calls to Adobe to adjust the re-sync window)

i use LR, but not for editing, I only use it for images selection and as a database for my images.

Gavin

[allanrube]

Thanks Gavin. I like LR for initial editing but the entire catalog system seems foreign to me - very foreign.

[Diane Miller]

The catalog system is LR is actually very straightforward and was designed for photographers. You can import your existing file structure, and then import new images using that one or any file structure you wish. The catalog is just a database that lets LR find and organize things easily and powerfully. You don't even have to know it is there!

Keywording is simple and very flexible, and Collections are a great on-the-fly organizational tool for specific uses. You might drop images you are thinking about posting here into a Collection, for instance.

You can still buy it as a stand-alone product -- they just threw it into CC to sweeten the pot.

I have several tutorials on LR3 that try to explain how it is set up -- things you need to know to use it. They are still relevant, although RAW conversion made a significant improvement with LR 4.

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0012627/a...be-Lightroom-3
http://www.adorama.com/alc/0012766/a...troom-3-Part-2
http://www.adorama.com/alc/0012808/a...troom-3-Part-3
http://www.adorama.com/alc/0013613/a...troom-4-Review

The current version of LR is upgraded every so often to include new cameras (along with ACR). And you can always go through Adobe's DNG converter if you haven't upgraded to the latest LR.

[allanrube]

Diane, first thanks for the tutorials. I always appreciate when people help others.

I disagree that the catalog is "just there." The problem could be that I am thinking of my workflow and can't seem to find it easy to use LR with it.
1. I don't organize by "shoots." Rather, I organize by species or subject. If I shot 4 different birds this morning, I would put the files from this morning into 4 different folders. If I went out tomorrow and shot birds again, I would want to put some of the files from tomorrow with those I took today. I know collections would be better for a LR users, but when I make tiffs for PS work, or move files around I get confused. I don't mean I don't know the steps in LR; I just find them confusing.
2. When I generate web pages for my site, or when I want to resize to post here or FB, I have an action in PS. This action saves the resized images to folders on my desktop. I don't know how to do this easily in LR. I am not saving it can't be done, but like everything else I learn how to do in LR, it seems confusing.
3. If I were to make an analogy, LR is like an iPad while my NX2-PS method is like an Android tablet. Those who use LR or an iPad always say it is superior. Those who use a non-cataloged based system or an Android tablet say it is wonderful you are not trapped into the iTunes method of doing things - you can customize so many more things.

[Diane Miller]

The catalog is "just there" -- LR uses it, you don't. What you use are the well-planned organizational features of the interface.

Here's what I would do in your situation:
First import your existing folders into LR. (Don't do 1:1 previews -- it would take a long time and a of of disk space. Just do the smallest ones.)
After a shoot, import it with LR's Import dialog. Let it go wherever it is easy to find relative to the folders to which you will move the content.
When it's imported, go through the folder (filmstrip) and do any desired deletions, and mark selects if desired.
Then select all the frames of each species and, using the folder structure on the left side of the frame, drag and drop into the desired folder.
When you have emptied the folder from the shoot, delete it (ctrl-click on it for a menu).
This basic organization doesn't use collections.
Do ALL file and folder moving from within LR's Folders panel -- it will move, delete, etc in your folder structure on the computer, just like using Mac's Finder or Windows' Explorer. But if you use those, LR won't be able to find the files and you'll have to show it where they are.
Occasionally you'll need to Sync a folder -- if you use Photomatix or DPP or non-PS programs that create a new file in an existing folder. This isn't a problem with PS which will round-trip files back to LR.

From LR you can export a JPEG to post here in a snap -- and save the settings as a preset. You can do it directly from a RAW file, a PS file or any file you have cataloged in a folder.

[Don Lacy]

Have you thought of what might happen when you buy a new camera?

Adobe has promised to update CS6 for new cameras only for the time being. I am hoping they either abandon the cloud only service or another player steps onto the field in the future

[Diane Miller]

Adobe DNG should continue to be updated and enable us holdouts to hold out until we can't run CS6 any longer due to OS upgrades that will eventually be forced on us. That lets us work with both CS6 and LR.

[John Chardine]

Allan- I was a staunch non-believer in Lr and have used Photo Mechanic (PM) for the last several years. PM does not create a catalogue or database (yet; they are said they are working on one for years). All this changed when I became a Creative Cloud member and ended up with Lr5 whether I liked it or not. Coincidentally, I had just done a wedding shoot of 2000+ images and decided, rightly or wrongly, to give Lr another chance with this project. I was blown away. The shoot took me no time to process, certainly WAY less then using Photo Mechanic and ACR/Photoshop. Since then I have shifted my workflow to Lr to the point where I hardly ever use Photo Mechanic or even Photoshop! It is truly an outstanding program and I would recommend to anyone not using it to have a close look at Lr5. Like anything, there is a learning curve associated with the software and it's a good idea to do some planning before you build your catalogue. However, because it is so widely used my the global photographic community, both amateur and professional, there is a vast array of self-help documents and videos available on the web, which makes learning efficient and fun.

As Diane essentially said, forget collections. They are a nice feature but I don't currently use them. I probably will in the future. As mentioned, Lr works with your folder structure and this is where some planning before cataloguing pays off. Here are a few things I REALLY like about Lr:

1. The Catalogue. It scales very nicely to large image collections with no reported slowdown with VERY LARGE image inventories. Having all your images in one catalogue gives you access to all of them. I found with PM, where you point it to a folder of images to view the previews, I found I was forgetting my older images. Now I have access to them, I'm using them again. It's quite surprising what you forget you have! I have invested in keywording my collection of over 100,000 images and this has paid huge dividends in finding images, which can be done in multiple, powerful ways. Again, I'm finding stuff I forgot I had! The file management functions in Lr are powerful enough that you do not need to do anything outside in the Finder or Explorer. However, if you do, it is easy to synchronize the folders to the catalogue.

2. Batch processing. Before Lr I would sometimes open a large number of images in ACR and process them before saving. Although a bit cumbersome, it worked way better than processing each image, one by one. I often wished I could do this with more images at once. Lr essentially has the feature built-in. having access to all your raw images in Lr is for me like having 100,000 raw images opened by ACR (not recommended!).

3. Lr logic. I really love the logic of having your raw images accessible via a catalogue, processing/optimising selected images but never having to save a tif or a jpg. All the processing in Lr is saved in a sidecar file as a set of instructions. The sidecars are very small (e.g., 8k). The only time you need to save anything you do it in Export. As Diane mentioned, if you need to process in an external editor like Ps, files are automatically named and saved back to the "parent" folder and Lr automatically imports to the catalogue. This is very slick. Before I understood how Lr worked in this respect, I found it quite confusing.

4. Export. I love the convenience and flexibility of Lr's Export function. It blows Ps actions out of the water (as anyone knows who has built Ps actions then can be very finicky, especially when saving to a specific place on your hard disk. The Export function in Lr takes the place of Ps's Save for Web and Devices, Save as, looks after watermarking, etc etc and all of the settings can be saved as presets (almost everything you do in Lr can be saved as a preset).

5. Print. The print module in Lr is superb and is virtually a RIP (Raster Image Processor) unto itself.

6. Keywording. I did most of my keywording in PM before I started using Lr but now I do it all in Lr. It is very easy to use and that means you are more likely to use it! Adding keywords to filenames or embedding images in a labyrinth of folders does not cut it.

7. Develop module. Although Lr's Develop module is based on the same engine as ACR, I think it is superior to ACR in terms of the sliders and general functionality.

I could go on but I hope you get the point. There are still some nagging issues with Lr which Adobe refuses to fix and I'm not fan of Adobe to begin with, but just before converting to Lr it dawned on me that 100,000s of amateur and professional photographers can't be all wrong, and then I found out there weren't.

[arash_hazeghi]

I use DPP for Canon and Capture One pro for my Fuji X-E2 mirror less system. When I had Nikon I used Nx2 with great results (on PC)

[John Rowell]

I use Photo Mechanic in the field for renaming files and adding basic copyright and other information that I want embedded in the RAW file while they are being transferred to the external drives I take on a trip. They are then imported into LIghtroom and final processing on Photoshop CC. The catalog works great for me, as I prefer to have a separate folder for each day and then I use collections and keywords to find the images I'm looking for.

Allan, I understand the frustration when working with actions on images, but I don't always run these into Lightroom at all. Like you, I either save them to the Desktop or to a temporary folder and they just never get imported back into Lightroom. On the other hand, any file opened in PS from LR can be saved back to the same folder in LR by hitting S.

Meant to add that I went with PS CC to take advantage of the discount. I kept PS6 on my computer just in case, but just don't think that Adobe will go back to a full purchase plan.

[David Stephens]

I use DxO Optics Pro 9.1. It's based on Batch processing and it does no cataloging, which I prefer. It's big shortcoming is no local adjustment tool. It's very strong at lens correction and noise reduction.