Soans Pics wrote:
I would live to hear from those of you who are experienced in using these editing programs. I am trying decide which one to use.
Lightroom is different from Photoshop - though they share the same raw editor.
Lightroom also provides a catalog-based file management system - which I find immensely useful. Photoshop offers a file browser which shares many organizational features with the catalog, but it is not a catalog.
Lightroom's interface was conceived with the professional in mind, so it's organization is fast and easy, and editing for proof goes extremely fast, even faster than using ACR, Bridge and Photoshop.
A raw converter, like Lr or ACR, is great at getting to a very good proof, but it is not a good tool for "finishing" an image. Precision masking, local contrast, noise, saturation, tone and sharpening adjustments are difficult with a simple raw converter. Operations involving layers, blend modes for brushes and layers, layer styles, channel replacement (a process often used in image restoration), advanced sharpening, warping, liquify, adaptive wide angle, blur, content aware fill, scale, spot removal, image repair, etc are just a few of the features in Ps that are missing from Lr.
If I had to just use one software application it would be Photoshop. But given that you can get both, along with the Mobile version, for only $10/mo, it makes total sense to use both - files started in Lr can be easily moved to Ps for final editing. Once saved, the new version is automatically added to the catalog.
So it's not an either one or the other proposition. They do work together very well.