goolgol Loc: Sydney, Australia

I learned LR from a Scott Kelby book whch worked well for me. A little patience and a systematic approach will go a long way to improving one's learning curve. I for one love the program and do most post-processing in LR with occasionally turning to PS. Besides the fact that LR is great for cataloguing, the non-destructive aspect of it is a very powerful feature.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

yes make copies but the are the same size as original. With sensors getting larger and files, both jpg and raw approaching gigantic, you are chomping up some serious space. True, disk space is cheap but that is still a waste of space for protection. LR creates virtual copies. There is only one master file and you can not edit the raw file. I can have a single photo and one version in color, another B&W and yet another in Sepia, LR simply creates a very small sidecar file with the changes for each with a single master. That's one darn smart program. I often save each shot I take in both color and B&W.

Just think, you buy new camera with a 50 MPIx raw file and you are going to savecopies?

steveo52 Loc: Rhode Island and Ocala Florida

I'm a late entry into the discussion I love LR and I came to it screaming/dragging my feet because I had been using Aperture and loved that program. Apple had other ideas so I had to jump ship to LR. For me the key to learning LR was subscribing to Lynda.com for a couple of months and watched videos and practiced what I learned from the videos. I'm not a pro photographer just someone who enjoys taking photos!

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I completely agree. I hope our conversation has been civil. If there was one "right" way or one "best" way to post process, or one "right" camera or one "best" camera for everyone at a given price point, how dull and boring would that be?

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

You don't have to use the catalog feature of LR. After I finish editing, I delete all of the files (from LR) I had been working on. Each time I use LR I simply browse to where my photos are and import those that I want to edit. The only thing I give up with this method is there will be no HISTORY if I re-edit a photo. I can live with that. If your files are well organized there is no problem locating any particular image.

GPS Phil Loc: Dayton Ohio

You seemed to have missed my point, I know very well what light room is, I have it and had it installed on my PC for 2 years, I have Scott Kelby's book and spent several hundred dollars on classroom training, I think it is the best, no argument from me, it's just not the best for me.
Are we still allowed to try something and not like it?

anotherview Loc: California

This discussion can help understand the differences between Lightroom and Photoshop: https://photographylife.com/photoshop-vs-lightroom

jimward Loc: Perth, Western Australia

I bought LR as part of Adobe Creative Suite, back in the day when you could actually buy PS(!). I could already use PS, so I got a book from the library to help me get to grips with LR. It didn't get into photo editing until Chapter Nine, which told me that LR was, first and foremost, a cataloguing program, at least in the eyes of that particular author.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

It is first and foremost a raw exposure editing program. The Develop module is the heart of Lightroom. The cataloging ability is secondary.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

Of course you may not like it and I did not miss your point. You were rather nonchalant about how easy it was to make copies by duplicating the entire file. I simply wanted to emphasize to others how LR made having multiple copies without duplicating the entire file. I think that may be a strong requirement for their work flow.

The good or bad part of LR - it is incredibly powerful tool and with that power comes with education as we both know. Others hear about the power, like the original poster, and carp because they did zero homework.

A.I.R. Loc: Carmel IN

I would assume deleting the catalogs will not effect the files in my picture folders?Would you recommend going first to my pic folder and organizing files THERE before importing into catalog? Or can I go file by file and import them into LR and at that point label and create my catalog and keywords for my images? Doing all the organizing in LR regardless which folder they came from and moving them in correct categories I know #1 rule never move images outside LR after importing them into the catalogs. LR won't be able to locate them. Am I looking correctly to straighten the chaos? Thank you in advance. You have been kind.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If you opt to have LR write changes to a sidecar (.xmp) file, then deleting catalogs will not affect the files in your picture folder. But you will lose any organizational constructs like collections, virtual copies, etc I think.

You can import first, then organize, or organize after importing. I do either pretty regularly. I just covered the Bethpage Credit Union Memorial Day Airshow at Jones Beach in NY, and I came back with 1300 images from two camera bodies. I used On1 to view, cull and rate, then move the images to their destination in my computer. Then I opened LR and told them where they were by going to the Library module and executing Import-Add. I could have clicked on the + at the top of the library folder and added it there as well. Or I could have right clicked on my 2016 folder, or my May folder and merely do a synchronize folder.

In addition to placing the image in it's dated folder using my own folder structure which is organized by year and month, I tagged all the incoming images as they were added to the catalog with the keywords "Jones Beach" Airshow, "Bethpage Credit Union" 2016, and I segregated them into groups based on what they were of - like Canadian Snowbird Demo Team, USAF-F35, Blue Angels, Breitling, Geico Skywriters, etc. Finally, I rename all the images by adding 2016 Jones Beach Airshow to the number assigned by the camera. The whole process, including creating proof-quality images for the keepers, was about 3 hours.

I do not move any files into any categories on my hard drive. LR can quickly create named collections that duplicate the moving of files, but without actually moving them.

Forget Rule #1 - a better rule is that if you decide to move imported images, don't forget to sync the source and destination folders when you open Lightroom.

LR is really good at ending the chaos, as long as you don't have chaos to begin with. You need to be a little bit organized, and LR will help enhance and fine-tune your organization.

People who are disorganized by nature, will only suffer frustration with LR - they simply won't get it.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Why don't you just use Photoshop - much easier given your workflow.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I often see this with my students. Your approach will depend on what you have on your hard drive and where it all resides, and whether you have just raw files or a combination of raw and other formats.

One approach (with an eye on using Lightroom in the future)

1. create a folder structure that is organized under one parent folder, like Pictures
2. then create folders for every year.
3. then do a search, by year, and get each file into the appropriate folder
4. chances are your images are sequential, and can be grouped by date into appropriate folders by name - vacation to Maine-2012, john's 40th birthday party 2014, etc. Do that.
5. fire up Lightroom - point it to the parent Pictures folder, then import, using the "add" option, to avoid creating duplicates in different locations.
6. Once everything has been imported, you will see your folder structure duplicated in the Library's folder view.

This approach will give you a level of organization that can live without Lightroom, but if you are using Lightroom, you can very easily take advantage of it's catalog.

I painted the scenario with broad strokes - there are some nitty gritty details that you will need to address when doing this - so you end up with EXACTLY what you want.

Going forward, LR provides the best image quality and the least clutter if you shoot raw, create PSD files for editing after applying the parametric adjustments provided in LR, then you use another program, usually Photoshop, but you can use On1, PSP, Corel etc to do the detail, layered, pixel-level editing in a working file. Then return back to LR to see the results of your working file edits, and from there you create jpegs, from saved export presets, to send to various destinations. You never need to edit a jpeg, so there is no point in saving them. You can generate them quickly enough when you need to using an export preset that you define and save.

Paul Buckhiester Loc: Columbus, GA USA

I'm really surprised that many think LR difficult. It's true that it is deep with many levels of complexity in some of the modules.
But for cataloging and Camera Raw (Develop), it's pretty straight forward. Certainly no more complicated than Word or PowerPoint.
It seems that some people get frustrated in the learning process and give up, only to have to learn another program. There are many very good free video tutorials on the Adobe site and Lynda.com and CreativeLive have more paid ones. If one prefers books, there are several good ones.
Lastly, the integration of the desktop version with PS AND the mobile version with all the other Adobe mobile apps to help, really sets the CC system apart from the competition. Being able to edit, print, and share raw files (LR mobile builds the JPGs seamlessly) on my tablet and phone is an amazing capability.

My conclusion is that that the Adobe system is powerful and worth the time to learn it.