kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

Hear! Hear!

My feelings exactly. And There are plenty of pros who want nothing to do with LR.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

:thumbup:

TheDman Loc: USA

Agree completely. I have the 9.99 PS/LR deal, but never open LR. I like to get my photos off the camera, on the hard drive and get right to editing them. I don't want to spend more time importing, exporting, synching, keywording, rating, etc. Seriously, RATING my own photos? WTF?

LR solves a problem I never had by adding complexity I don't want.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I've been trying to learn Lr4 as another skill or tool but I've been using Ps CS6 for almost two years. I'm still learning Ps as no one can ever truly master everything it can do. But the Lr Library / Database business is driving me nuts as I am so used to just Copying and Moving files and folders with Windows. I got so confused in class with Lr that I'm studying on my own. At my adult ed photography school there are say ten Photoshop classes (most different ones), and only one Lightroom. Since I'm comfortable with Ps CS6 should I even bother with Lr4?

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

I would say no. If you don't need the database management or do web publishing there is no need. The develop module is just a small subset of PS's tools.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

They're heading toward LR6 now anyway so LR4 is ancient. You have learned already that the LR cataloging librarian is driving you nuts. If you copy and move with Windows Explorer you should be using Bridge that came with your PS CS6 instead because it's a big fancy powerful Windows Explorer if you use it in Folders mode. Cut/Paste and Copy/Paste and dragging things around act just like Windows Explorer. But you can transition a photo directly to Camera Raw and then Photoshop by using Bridge while you can't do that in Windows Explorer.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, even my friends ask why Lr4. I got it on ebay for only $35. And as you see I already use Ps CS6. Why pay a lot to just see if I want to use a program? So I figured go cheap for now and if I like Lr I can then buy a current version. Though as I am finding and you and others are pointing out, why mess with Lr if I know Ps CS6. I may or may not ever actually use Lr for my own images. Right now I am just doing the lessons in a couple of books. Yes, I know Bridge is similar to Windows Explorer, and use it that way, sometimes even when I am not even doing anything in Ps or the Raw Editor. Bridge shows me a thumbnail of nearly all image formats. But Windows only seems to show thumbnails or jpg and tif files, not the RAW dng or psd files that I am mainly working with. That was partly my point, and it seems at this point to met that Lr may be easier in some ways but much less powerful than Ps in others. Again, for me the Lr Library is not intuitive.

So I am more and more thinking that I may only learn Lr to know how to use it but not really work with it with my own workflow and images. I then can at least discuss it with classmates and possibly help other classmates. Just like on the UHH the students at my adult school come to photography with different backgrounds, experiences, and skill levels. So I am often helping others with camera use and composition skills since I have been doing photography since 1978 and have used many types of cameras, from film 35mm to 8x10 view cameras, to medium format, to digital. And others help me with the software at times.

I am waiting to get more feedback from a friend who sort of pushed me towards Lr5 since she uses it. But lately she went for the Ps CC $9.99/Mo package. So I am waiting for her to actually use Ps in her regular work flow and see if she drops Lr or only uses it for cataloging. If she goes Ps CC / Bridge I may just bail on Lr4. But if nothing else setting up for Lr has gotten me to organize my photos more and get them all together on a 2TB External HDD and a second 2TB Back Up External HDD. My poor old PC can't handle it all with its 320GB HDD. Also I now see I can organize them more in Bridge than I had been. Lr is giving me ideas for other applications.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

As I think has already been said before in this thread, if you go with the PS CC $9.99 package you get LR 5.x (whatever version they're currently on) along with the package, so you don't have to make a choice at this point.

It seems that most people who learn LR and stay there tend to brag about it and encourage others to use it as if it's wonderful and a complete solution for everybody. Meanwhile those who jump ship and learn even a little about Photoshop, find out about it's enormous layer-based power and the simplicity and power of Bridge. Then they have a tendency to see LR users as being the dark ages with an inexpensive utility-only package and being clueless about what they're missing in the world of pixel and layer based editing.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I started using Ps CS6 first so I already know it is more powerful for editing and file handling. Not an expert yet, if ever. But I can do most of the regular things I want to do with the Camera Raw processor plus some CS6 processing. The tricky fancy stuff, there I have to seek notes, references, and tutorials, and when possible human help.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Nothing wrong with that! We all have to start somewhere and work our way up. I'm not an expert user either but I had a leg up because I used Paintshop Pro for years before and Paintshop Pro tends to do a lot of the same things by cloning Adobe products somewhat but not enough to get sued over it. My user experiences transferred right over to Photoshop. And my LR experiences transferred right over to Camera RAW. I'm getting faster as time goes on and as something comes up that I don't know how to do, I go to a tutorial and learn the new thing I need to accomplish my task. That's likely much slower than taking classes but it doesn't required all the head banging to absorb more than I need as I go along.