Adobe Lightroom vs. Photoshop CS4?

[spressomon]

I'm sure many of us here can help answer your question(s). Would you care to elaborate on what you mean by stacking photos? Do you mean creating an HDR or HDR type image from several of the same shot at different exposures?

Or, do you mean creating an image similar to a double exposure on film?

Or do you mean something entirely different?

Stacking several bracketed shots of the same subject at different exposures.

 

[Tucson T4R]

I use Photoshop and yes it does support stacking photos.

 

[spressomon]

I use Photoshop and yes it does support stacking photos.

Thanks Brad.

 

[GunnIt]

Terry,

This is a great point. I've always dismissed Capture NX due to the fact that it's always been regarding by many as too slow and not very feature rich. I just checked out the latest and downloaded a trial version from Nikon. I'm curious to see what Nikon specific benefits I can realize with it. The website states that it can make certain The for many of their lenses. I also like the Dlighting feature they point out; although, I think that's well covered in Camera Raw now and probably to a greater extent in Lightroom.

Would you mind elaborating on how it helps you save time in post-processing as you mention. Each person is different and what may only take one person 10 minutes might take someone else 30 minutes depending on what they want to accomplish, so I'm curious to understand how you use the program and how it saves you time.

I'd be grateful for any help you can offer.

The beauty of CaptureNX is that it allows you to quickly make adjustments in only a portion of the photo using the control point. With the control point you can control the size of the area that you wish to correct, then adjust brightness, contrast, or saturation. You also have a bunch of other options for other adjustments within the control point including a color picker.
Here is an example of an edited shot using the control point to enhance specific areas of an edited photo. I probably have spent less than 5-min in this edit

The photos below demonstrate how you can use CaptureNX for distortion-related corrections with Nikon lenses. These are the choices that you have for correcting a Fish-Eye lens. The first photo is the original. The other 2 are variations of corrections using a single click. The Last is a crop of the third photo. The horizon needs a bit of straightening in all these shots.

 

[tdesanto]

Stacking several bracketed shots of the same subject at different exposures.

I thought that's what you meant, but wasn't sure.

This is supported in versions CS2 and higher. It's called high dynamic range (HDR).

Here's a great article on the subject.

I've used it and it's a very good tool.

 

[tdesanto]

The beauty of CaptureNX is that it allows you to quickly make adjustments in only a portion of the photo using the control point. With the control point you can control the size of the area that you wish to correct, then adjust brightness, contrast, or saturation. You also have a bunch of other options for other adjustments within the control point including a color picker.
Here is an example of an edited shot using the control point to enhance specific areas of an edited photo. I probably have spent less than 5-min in this edit

The photos below demonstrate how you can use CaptureNX for distortion-related corrections with Nikon lenses. These are the choices that you have for correcting a Fish-Eye lens. The first photo is the original. The other 2 are variations of corrections using a single click. The Last is a crop of the third photo. The horizon needs a bit of straightening in all these shots.

Wow, thanks Terry. Those are some great examples. You've really got me thinking about this. So, I'm assuming you're using the Nikon DX 10.5 fisheye?

 

[GunnIt]

Wow, thanks Terry. Those are some great examples. You've really got me thinking about this. So, I'm assuming you're using the Nikon DX 10.5 fisheye?

Yes, the 10.5 DX. I.m now shooting the D700 so will not be using this lens on this camera. The performance of the DX lenses on the D700 is poor at best. Luckily I still have all my "prime" lenses from when I was shooting film.

 

[nwoods]

What about Bridge? It comes bundled with PhotoShop. For years I used ACDSee for my photo album management, and then with CS3 it came with Bridge and I find that better in almost every respect. With the photo management, labling, tagging, sorting tools in Bridge, I find Photoshop to be pretty complete. I love the hooks into Photoshop as well, so that I can automate and batch many functions for processing and converting my RAW images into web gallery ready images. Also, the translation from Bridge into Camera Raw is very good, and allows batch processing of RAW images simultaneously.

I think Lightroom is like Bridge on steriods, but if you prefer the functions that PhotoShop adds, Bridge will work well for your management needs I think.

 

[tdesanto]

Luckily I still have all my "prime" lenses from when I was shooting film.

This is why I almost can't wait to get a D700. For years my combo was Fuji Velvia 50/ Nikon F5/ and my bag of prime lenses.

I'm just saving my pennies and hoping that a D700X comes out next year with HD Video capabilities to take on what Canon already offers.

 

[GunnIt]

This is why I almost can't wait to get a D700. For years my combo was Fuji Velvia 50/ Nikon F5/ and my bag of prime lenses.

I'm just saving my pennies and hoping that a D700X comes out next year with HD Video capabilities to take on what Canon already offers.

My F5 is sitting in a drawer and I still have a brick or two of Velvia in the fridge.

You will be very happy with the D700 and the only reason that I might wait is that the price in going to come down. I have decided that the D700 will be the last camera that I buy for a long time. From this point forward the new cameras will have bigger, newer, bells & whistles (like HD video, etc). The D700 has everything that I need to take good photos and I'm going to try to wear out the shutter.

 

[Lost Canadian]

The beauty of CaptureNX is that it allows you to quickly make adjustments in only a portion of the photo using the control point. With the control point you can control the size of the area that you wish to correct, then adjust brightness, contrast, or saturation.

LR2 now features a control point style feature as well called the selection brush. It allows you to make the same type of spot adjustments to things like exposure, contrast, saturation, brightness, sharpness, and clarity, plus it you can choose the desity of each brush, its flow, feather and size. On top of that you have the gradiant filter option which you can use to make the same types of adjustments as the brush but over a larger, even area, in a fashion akin to a gradiant filter...sort of.

I had been using NX2 and LR1 but as soon as LR2 came out it made NX2 pretty much useless to me. The only thing missing from LR IMO is the distortion control, but I guess adobe wants us to use CS for that.

 

[tdesanto]

Thanks to all for all the great input. I continue to appreciate the caliber of knowledge and talent here.

I just upgraded my system to Vista 64 last night...wow, that was the fastest and easiest install of windows I've ever done. I got it started during the 1/2 time of the Giants/Cowboys game last night and it pretty much did the install on its own by the time the 4th quarter rolled around. That was so, so, so much simpler than any of my 100+ installs of XP I've done. This is my second system with Vista (one I bought and one I built) and I have yet to understand what all the complaining is about.

So, I'll be downloading PS CS4 and Lightroom tonight!

Good stuff.

 

[Streakerfreak]

This is my second system with Vista (one I bought and one I built) and I have yet to understand what all the complaining is about.

Same here, the only issue I have seen is that I had to buy a whole new printer. Not really that big of a deal, it would have had to happen eventually. It has not let me down yet. Dell on the other hand....

 

[bigreen505]

As usual I'm a little late to the party here. I generally recommend Lightroom as a great solution for most people, but I personally don't like it as I find it generally lacking.

On the whole I am very impressed with CS4 and I have to say that this version of Bridge doesn't suck, or at least not as much as previous versions, and I have been using it for general DAM stuff.

What makes LR great is that it is an all in one ingest, metadata, process and DAM solution. However, I don't find it all that great at any of them though IMO it has the best and cleanest workflow. For raw conversion I much prefer the output of Capture One, though I don't love the interface or workflow it forces.

DAM is still an area I don't know where to go. I really liked iView3, but I don't have faith in Microsoft developing it further. I don't like the way that Adobe handles DAM, but I believe they are committed. Hence my dilemma.

To answer your question, I consider CS4 necessary and LR2 nice if you decide you want it. I'm pretty sure that anything you can do in LR you can do in CS4.

 

[HEDLUX]

LR2 free month trial

You can download a free month trial of LR2... I did it the other day and it
is very nice! You will know pretty quick if it will be useful for you.
great for dealing with lots of photos at the same time ie: weddings, trips and such. Very low learning curve if you have photoshop experience...
Brian