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Adobe Lightroom

basesloaded190

basesloaded190

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
2,693
5
Wisconsin
i was looking at my schools software website and i can get lightroom for under $100. i downloaded a trial version and am playing around with it right now. i am a beginner when it comes to photography and editing. is this too much for me right now? should i just play around with iphoto or is this a really good deal and i should just get it and teach myself how to use the software to its fullest?
 
Get it if you can afford it. It's much "better" than iPhoto and you'll probably want it eventually, unless you go for Aperture etc. which is pretty much the same area of program.
 
Get it if you are thinking about shooting in RAW at all. It makes shooting everything in RAW easy if you want to. The organizational tools are nice too. It may be overkill for you but it's an incredible deal at that price...just know its gonna take a little time to learn (I think it's pretty intuitive).
 
I would only get it if you plan to shoot in raw and use it as an editor. IMO I would go with Aperture and not LightRoom.
 
basesloaded190 said:
i was looking at my schools software website and i can get lightroom for under $100. i downloaded a trial version and am playing around with it right now. i am a beginner when it comes to photography and editing. is this too much for me right now? should i just play around with iphoto or is this a really good deal and i should just get it and teach myself how to use the software to its fullest?
Click to expand...

If you don't want it, buy it and send it to me :)

Really -- that's a great deal. But, $100 is $100. If you are shooting a LOT of pics that you want to edit and especially if you use RAW, then get it quick. If not, then save your $100 and put it towards a Time Capsule or something.
 
see i plan on buying a camera in the next couple of days, and im going to be going on some trips in the near future. i was planning on shooting a bit in raw for the editing purpose. after my 30 day trial for lightroom is over i planned on trying aperture for 30 days. for $100 less, i think if i like lightroom(which i have so far) i dont' see why i wouldn't just get that for the price
 
basesloaded190 said:
i was looking at my schools software website and i can get lightroom for under $100.
Click to expand...

If you need it, It's a great deal but do NOT select which way to go based on price. You can easily sink hundreds of hours into using this kind of software. So the cost divided by the number of hours used is say a buck or less. Would you waste an hour of your time to save a buck and then do it again and again hundreds of times? If you think in those terms you will get what you need, not just whatever is cheap. The student price of Aperture is only $80 more. $80 is nothing compared to the time you will put into this

That said, Lightroom may just be exactly what you need. I would use it for the full 30 day free trail period. Put at least 1,000 or so images into it and see if you like the workflow. LR seems to be intended for the person who shoots a large volume of RAW format images and wants a well defined "garden path" type post processing work flow. Is that you? The thing is you need to do more than "play" during the 30 days. Use it on your actual images. Aperture looks like more of a "tool box" where there are a zillion ways to do anything with no imposed structure.

There are other options too. Many long time Adobe users prefer Bridge and Camera Raw. It is a great combination and comes with Photoshop.

As a beginner you best bet might be to start out with iPhoto and use it until you find it does not do something you need.
 
i would get aperture in a heartbeat if my school sold it, but they don't sell apple software. the only thing we get is adobe stuff made for both apple and pc. so i guess im going to really get into lightroom and then into aperture and use iphoto, then go from there. i just like the idea of shooting in raw and using that to edit my photos
 
For the record, I prefer Lightroom to Aperture. They are both amazing programs but for some reason Lightroom was more intuitive for me.
I don't know how someone can say the one is significantly better than the other. It's more about what interface feels better to you.
 
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