“I think Lightroom will be to photographers what Photoshop is to photographs.”
—Reid Thaler
Digital Photography Review forum post
May 23, 2007
This excellent quote succinctly clarifies the difference in focus between Lightroom and Photoshop. I only wish I had come up with it!
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Note: I will be out of contact until August 26. Any comment you leave before then will be read upon my return.
I think I noticed somewhere here that you catalogue all your images - umpty thousands - in Lightroom? How effective/efficient is that - could you find a particular image quickly in, say, five year’s time, i.e. without relying on memory? Is it a matter of using lots of keywords?
I think that by definition, I’d have to say no, as I’d still have to remember the keywords.
Some of the beta testers are big keyworders and are gaga about the upcoming 1.1. release, but I don’t use keywords much. I organize the pictures in a YYYY-MM/DD-description/* hierarchy, and a memory about the rough date and the description of the event are generally enough for me to find something quickly. —Jeffrey
At present I process in Lightroom, edit metadata in XnView and, for the time being, catalogue images in IMatch. I also find Copernic Desktop Search quite handy, since it indexes image metadata; but I feel the work doesn’t really flow at all!
An overview of your Lightroom workflow would make an interesting subject for your blog.
Peter
I’ve had Lightroom for several months and I regret to say that, while quite good at processing raw files, it lacks many functions that a photographer like me desires:
- first of all: BROWSING (the use of the library approach makes browsing very clumsy and almost impossible)
- second: geometric corrections. No way to correct lens distortion, barrel or pincushion, no way to correct perspective. Only solution is to go to Photoshop, if one has it
- third: a minimalist interface without buttons and icons (a la Windows). Commands are sometimes difficult to find. Background color is also questionable.
- last but not least: price. The recent ACDSee Pro 2 is very capable and quick at picture processing, raw included, but is also a very good browser, and is cataloging capabilities are excellent. It costs about five times less than Lightroom 1.2.