BP4U Photo Tips

Which do you prefer: Lightroom or Photoshop?

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QOTD from Melanie: "Hello! I'm new to the group and I'm new to the world of editing my photos. Question: Lightroom or Photoshop and why? Thanks for your input!"

Spiffy Pix Photography: If you're just starting out, I would definitely recommend Lightroom over PS. LR does most of the common tasks that PS does, but it's a lot easier to use and a lot less expensive. If you find that you need to do a lot of cloning or masking (things you need to learn about PS), I would consider PS Elements first. Again, a lot less expensive and does most of what you'll need PS for.

Photoshop cs6 - $650
Elements - $99
Lightroom - $150

I would def get Lightroom. :)

Amber: I have Lightroom and love it!! If I could use it to edit my sessions all the way through, I would. I find I still have to jump over to PS for cloning and masking too that Lightroom just can't do. I use both out of necessity, but love Lightroom WAY more!

Ashley: I have been wanting to make templates and design my logo which doesn't seem to be something Lightroom does. (please correct me if I'm wrong) does elements do that? Or should I just make the jump to ps?

Jenna: I use Lightroom exclusively. It has sufficient tools for healing and cloning (e.g. removing facial blemishes or making spot adjustments) for me. I've even used standard LR tools to clone myself out of a second-shooters photo at a wedding. It's a lot more powerful than people think!

Selena: Like Jenna, I too use Lightroom exclusively. I was trained in an actual darkroom, and I tend to stick to the traditional way of doing things with a modern twist. Which is Lightroom in a nutshell. ;) Lightroom will let you play around with your shadows and highlights, whites and darks, each individual color tone, etc. I love it's cloning and blemish tools and use them frequently for little touch-ups like whitening teeth or making eyes pop.

All in all though, I think your choice is going to come down to this one factor: are you into traditional photos or creatively enhanced photos? Photoshop will allow you to fosture any and all creativity you can think of. I don't like Photoshop because there is far to many different options and tools. It's very overwhelming to me and I find that lots of it's options are unneeded. If you're just starting, I highly recommend Lightroom. It's a great professional editing system that will always give you top-notch edited/enhanced photos everytime without so much hassle. Plus as the first woman stated, it's much cheaper then the full version of Photoshop.

Suz: Lightroom but if u need to do cloning or touch ups on infants it's nice to have ps but I'd much rather have Lightroom its an awesome program for our good

Andrea: For the last 6 months I've used Lightroom only because I couldn't afford photoshop and now I finally purchased it and can't wait to learn but all my work up to today is all Lightroom and I'm happy with what you can do and it's a great way to ease yourself into the editing world

Kelsey: Lightroom for sure! It cuts your editing time down by a ton!

Fiona: I use Capture One and Photoshop. Fantastic. I couldn't get along with Lightroom. Capture One is very popular in fashion and studio photography and with high level retouchers.

Brian: Ashley, I'm a graphic designer more than a photographer. If you're looking to design a logo, Photoshop isn't ideal for that. It can certainly be done, but logo design is usually done using a vector based software like Adobe Illustrator. I use both Lightroom and Photoshop. I can say that PS can do pretty much everything LR can, LR can't do everything PS can. As a previous poster said, LR is easier and cheaper.

Kimberly: Both!

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