Lightroom and/or Photoshop?

I am often asked “which should I buy:  Lightroom or Photoshop?”  If you can afford it, the answer is:  BOTH!  If you can only get one or the other, I usually recommend that people begin with Lightroom.  In my humble opinion, it’s way more intuitive, easy to learn & use, fast, non-fussy, photographer-friendly and truly adequate for most hobbyists’ workload.  For all but a few of my family photos, I use Lightroom exclusively.  Especially now that I’ve finally found settings that make my LR edits look pretty darn close to PS edits (no small thanks to Rebecca Lily presets – her Just a Little Something and b/w presets are the ones I usually begin and end with). 

In each of the following groupings, SOOC is first, LR is middle, and PS is last.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alrighty then, if nothing else can be determined from these [above] particular pictures, you can see that I don’t spend oodles of time finesse-ing my family photos in PS.  And that, really, LR does a truly decent job.  So let’s look at a couple of my photos from my professional sessions, where I do put forth the additional time and effort to polish and finesse.  This is where PS is the real workhorse – anything requiring superior sharpening, curves/levels adjustments, selective area adjustments, skin retouching, eye brightening, etc.  In the following images, you will see the greatest difference in the eye detail (sharpness & brightness), because, of course, this little beauty’s skin does NOT need to be messed with!

 

 

 

In this image [above]  you can especially see the PS difference if you look closely at the eyes, freckles, and dress detail.

So there’s my simple offering of a comparison of what LR and PS accomplish for me.  Hope it’s helpful for anyone considering purchasing one or both of these…

Aliso Viejo Portrait Photographer