lamiaceae wrote:
Same here as far as Lr. I had learned Photoshop CS5 first so trying Lr later I found it too fussy. I could not master the Library/Catalog. I am a fairly advanced Windows user for someone not in a computer field, but Biology. Up to editing Windows Registry keys at times - up thru Win Vista anyway. I am used to creating folders where I want and moving and copying files and folders as I see fit. I'd bet Lr is easier for Mac users to learn. It is very un-Windows like. Oddly Windows 10 is more Mac-like than Win 7 and earlier were.
Same here as far as Lr. I had learned Photoshop C... (
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The thing users don't understand about Lightroom Classic (I don't use the new Lightroom CC) is that it is first and foremost, a database-based tool. It is a big collection of metadata, or data about data. You don't just open an image, adjust it, print it, and save it, as with Photoshop or other traditional editors.
The Library is a set of pointers to your images. You can put them where you want them and tell Lightroom where to find them, OR, let Lightroom organize them and locate them for you. Either way, your images are not IN Lightroom. They are on disk, separately accessible. Just don't move them without using Lightroom's tools to re-link them to the LR catalog!
Lightroom stores FILE LOCATIONS, not images. It also creates "proxies" of all your files — small JPEG copies of images with all your development changes applied — so you can see what you're doing on the monitor.
As you edit, LR stores all your changes as changeable CODE, either in the catalog or in a separate sidecar .xmp file. You can edit the Develop module changes you make as often as you like. Nothing is "saved over" the original files. You have to Export, lay out a Book, Print, or Upload, to actually apply changes, and then just to a COPY of the original file.
Unlike Photoshop and other bitmap editors, Lightroom is a PARAMETRIC editor. It is best for making global changes to an image such as exposure, contrast, sharpness, clarity, noise reduction... It does allow cropping, limited bitmap editing for spotting, red-eye correction, graduated filtering and radial filtering and such, but if you really want to edit pixels, Photoshop is the tool.
Photoshop is a black hole time sucker. Lightroom is a WORKFLOW tool that can do 80% of what most professional and advanced photographers need:
Cull Edit an event, session, or job, etc.
Rate selected images for priority attention
Organize images and apply your own plain language metadata
Develop raw files to bitmap images with easy control over image qualities, cropping, etc.
Work COMPLETELY non-destructively, even with JPEGs
Change your mind as many times as you like
Make as many virtual copies as you like and treat each one differently
Export developed images in many different formats, bit depths, color spaces
Resize pixel dimensions on export, for virtually any need
Map your images, based on GPS data in the EXIF metadata
Lay out simple photo book files for print
Create simple slide shows
Print to any size or combination of prints you want to print, either to a locally connected printer, or to a file for a lab
Upload your images to a website for printing, sharing, etc.
In addition to all that, LR can connect seamlessly to external apps such as Photoshop, the NIK collection of plug-ins, and other image editing applications such as On1 Resize, Affinity Photo, etc., so you can use additional tools.