It is Ps AND Lr. The ‘versus’ is both of those compared to PsE. And then you have to decide between Lightroom CC and Lightroom CLASSIC CC.

The Lightrooms are image databases. Photoshop is a bitmap editor on steroids.

Lightroom CC is the mobile version that runs on Macs, Windows PCs, iPads and iPhones, and Androids.

Lightroom CLASSIC is the heavy lifting workflow tool for professionals and advanced enthusiasts. It does 80% or more of what we need, more efficiently than Ps. Most importantly, it is COMPLETELY non-destructive. It only exports, displays, uploads, or prints *modified copies* of your original files.

Most users use Lr Classic as the hub. Photoshop, plug-ins, and other imaging apps connect to Lr internally. When you need to use a bitmap editor, layers, text, or special effects plugins, you send images from Lr to the external editor. When finished, you send it back to Lr as a copy.

Those are important distinctions. Adobe split a lot of functions between the Ps and Lr when they built the Classic Lr back in the mid-2000s. Ps had become bloated. It is now about 30 years old!

Lightroom May be a head-scratcher if you don’t understand its role, or the nature of database-based apps. But once you learn its power, you’ll avoid the black hole time sucking nature of Photoshop and get more done!

I have the Panny G9 with the Leica 100-400 strictly for birding and sports. This combo is SO light I hike with it all day! And I'm weak! However, once the light gets dim it does drive me crazy with the high ISO's and noise. So, I spent a few bucks and downloaded AI Clear, which is nearly a miracle in my book and even the high ISO images get looking really good. Also, the zoom is a little stiff which can be annoying. The G9 feels remarkably good my small hand and is incredibly easy to learn to use. If light weight/portability is high on your list of wants, you cannot go wrong. But keep in mind that you will pay for this in low light.

No, I'm not talking about enhancements for the photos your phone takes, but for the apps that enhance your use of your "real" cameras. We do not need another app to add animal ears and noses to our selfies.

I use "The Photgrapher's Ephemeris" to plot positions of the sun and moon at various times of day and locations. Find it invaluable in getting the right location and angle of light for a particular shot. It's only a couple of dollars IIRC, and I wouldn't be without it. There are weather-centric apps for locating areas with potential fog and lightning, but I haven't tried any of them.

"Light Meter" is a Lux scaled incident meter that uses the camera cell for measurements. Helpful in doing studio light ratios and other similar stuff to determine dynamic range in a scene. It matches my old Norwood Director almost perfectly.

"My Light Meter" is an app that can be operated in reflective and incident modes (I haven't bought the incident dome, so I can't speak to its accuracy there). I was genuinely surprised by how closely it matched my Luna Pro on most reflectivity levels, maybe even a little better on dark surfaces.

Finally there's "Shutter Speed", which is a shutter speed measure, especially useful for older film cameras. Like those above, it's very cheap. You can buy a plug in light to connect to your phone for more accuracy at higher shutter speeds, but the basic model graphs a sound recording, which you can use to pick out the points when the shutter opens and closes. I have a bunch of old Compur and Copal shutters I wanted to check, and this has worked very well, especially at slower speeds, where lag most often shows up on a mechanical shutter. I'm slowly working through all of my equipment with it, but so far, I have found it very accurate - comparing very well on a shutter I recently had tested and calibrated. The neat thing is that you can save each camera (or integral shutter lens) after testing any one speed, so you can easily pull up a list that reminds you that 1/500 is 1/3 stop over on your Rolleiflex and your Super Ikonta runs 2/3 stop slow at 1/15, but regains its accuracy below that. For film shooters and old camera lovers, this is wonderful, and reassuring if you're worried about any of your old gear. I plan to get the plug in light at my earliest opportunity, but you have to order it from Germany, in Euros.


What apps do you find useful? I had honestly never thought about it until recently, but I'm sure other Hoggers have some that they use regularly.

Andy