fieldeds

Is there a way to use lightroom for its photo editing features and avoid the use of the catalog?

tsilva Loc: Arizona

no, lr IS the catalog

just use it, it is very powerful and very easy to use with the right guidance (free youtube videos ie, tim grey, ben willmore)

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

You can't avoid the catalog but you typically put the original photos in folders and the catalog accesses the photos from the folders which remain untouched throughout processing.

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

No. Lightroom creates "proxy images" storred in the catalog to which metadata changes are attached. when you "export" an image this metadata is applied to a Copy of your Original image. That is why it is called a non destructive editing program!

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Let's not confuse this person. All that is needed to be done is to have the images in any location to your liking and then to import. The images stay where they are located and no copy is made. Then adjust to heart's content. At this point, the adjusted image is only visible from within Lightroom. When you have something you like, then simply export to whatever format you want to export in. I like to export to a subdirectory within the subdirectory where these images are stored. That way, I have a known place to go to for the exports.

When you import, there will be a record on this import on the left hand side that you can use to navigate back to this location in the future. Be sure to create subdirectories with long enough names that you recognize what you are looking for.

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

Yes, it's called Photoshop Adobe Camera Raw. Same editor as LR, different and clunkier user interface but the same capabilities, and no catalog at all. You do have a browser to find stuff called Bridge.

Most people make the small adjustment to learn how to use the catalog and call it a day. The only people you hear complaining about it are those who have not made the effort to learn it, or just resist learning something new, and used there energy instead to complain about it. Several million professional and amateur users can't be wrong here.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

See JimH123 The answer is yes - if you already have it! There are alternative PP programmes out there without catalogues if you haven't got LR.

It just means you have to Import from where you store the images and export as a renamed image to where you want it. (Usually same place but with a different name just like everyone else does)

LR is NOT compulsory....Having fun is..do things however it makes you happy

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Don't forget, if you move a picture to another catalog then LR will lose track of it unless you use LR to move it.

So, you have your photos filed the way you want them in "Pictures" (assuming you use Windows) and you have a folder, oh-say, "Family Christmas Dinner 2016" and you decide to make sub-folders of each member of the family that you did a portrait of, after you have imported "Family Christmas Dinner 2016" into LR and done some editing. Use LR to create the subfolder(s), say, "Great Aunt Emma" and move the pictures to it, LR will know where they went and can still link up any editing you did past or future.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Why? As others have said, Lightroom is the catalog. From your point of view, what is the downside?

LarryFB Loc: Depends where our RV is parked

The quick answer is YES. However, remember that Lightroom is Primarily a way to catalogue your photos, and secondary a way to do gross post processing (that is simply it is not a pixel editor). Avoiding the extremely powerful catalog capability of Lightroom basically claims that you do not understand lightroom.

Spend time to learn the Library part of Lightroom, which is what it was designed for. There are plenty of professional photpgraphers who use lightroom to organize their photos. They can find a specific photograph in a few seconds. That is POWER.

I recommend that you learn the LIBRARY module in Lightroom and use it. Only then will you understand the awesome power of Lightroom and can use the other fantastic features of Lightroom.

In short, learn Lightroom. It is not really an editor or postprossessing program (although it will do both), it is primarily a cataloging program, Anything else is almost incidental (but very powerful as long as you UNDERSTAND THE LIBRARY MODULE!

MtnMan Loc: ID

Few Lighroom users would agree with your characterization. It was in fact designed as an editing program. While most users now take advantage of Photoshop or Elements for certain types of editing most find 95% of their needs met by Lightroom alone.

However, in a similar fashion the Elements Organizer is a powerful cataloging tool overlooked by many.

mainshipper Loc: Hernando, Florida

Best answer yet. It never ceases to amaze me how much resistance there is on UHH to using LR as it was designed.

NoSocks Loc: quonochontaug, rhode island

Finally a voice of reason and practicality.

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

MntMan,

He is right on the money. It was designed by a splinter group at Adobe, who wanted a streamlined version of ACR, and add DAM (Digital Asset Management) capability to a software application specifically aimed to provide a faster, more efficient workflow for working professional photographers, who often must pour through 1000s of images at a time. While Adobe absorbed Pixmantec (Rawshooter) midway through 2006, it merged its feature set with it's own ACR, and by extension, Lightroom.

What LR is not is an application to produce finished images, though many amateurs and enthusiasts are so impressed with the small amount of effort required to make extensive changes in their images, and the ensuing "quality" in comparison to the input file, a parametric editor cannot, by design, produce a "ready for press" quality image. At best, you have some ability to coarsely apply some fairly limited adjustments to smaller areas of the image using brush, radial and linear gradient masks, the capability is a far cry from being able to use channels, pixel-level accurate masking, layers, smart objects, custom brushes, blend modes for both brushes and layers, selection tools, layer styles, etc etc etc -that make Photoshop - and programs that operate like it at the pixel level - the choice for image finishing.

For the sake of expediency, LR developers focused on the DAM feature set, opting to merely reorganize all of the commands found in ACR into a workflow optimized right column on the LR desktop, containing all the adjustments possible in LR. Adobe develops ACR, and LR adopts the new features and commands into LR. Development on camera and lens profiles etc I believe is shared.

As an instructor, I get to see a ton of output from students and professional photographers. I have yet to encounter a single image that has been processed by only ACR, DXO, Capture One, LR etc etc etc - that could not be visibly improved by a competent hand in a pixel level editor.

No, parametric editing capability does not an image finishing program make. It can be characterized by the difference between an image being good enough, and Great!

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

Thanks!

Those that complain the most loudly are those who for one reason or another cannot wrap their heads around what a catalog is.

Here is an analogy. They have a screw, two pieces of wood, and a hammer. All they have ever used to attach two pieces of wood to each other was the nail, which they had always used the hammer for. They are shown the screwdriver, but since they only know how to use the hammer, and since the screw looks a lot like a nail, they persist in using the hammer to drive the screw into the piece of wood. Then they are unhappy at the effort required, the missteps as the hammer mangles the screw, and the results of a loosely driven screw, not to mention all the hammer dings on the piece of wood. When all they needed to so was examine the screw, the shape of the screwdriver's tip, and how the screw thread, an inclined ramp, could be leveraged to drive the screw into the wood with less effort, less possibility of mangling the wood, no bruised thumbs, and a tight joint, with superior holding power and longer lasting than anything possible with a nail.

I suggest the naysayers embrace the screw and the screwdriver as a new and better way to do things. Not that the hammer and nail is a bad way to do things, but in certain circumstances, the screw is more appropriate and better. And there is no value to using a nail when a screw is clearly a better solution.

When the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

That is my comment to address reason and rationality. . .