[Leica] photoshop-vs-lightroom

[abridge at mac.com (Adam Bridge)]

I understand, Bill, but were there never times you didn't, without thinking, 
do something to a file, save it, and then couldn't back out of it?

I'm a big fan of non-destructive edits to ANYTHING. I like being able to 
recover from mind-farts and, as I grow older, they become more frequent.

With Lightroom I can make virtual copies of an image and treat them 
differently. Want to see how it works in black and white? No biggie, I make 
a virtual copy and then shift the image into B&W and play with it. I don't 
save another copy of the image, just the settings I used to make it B&W.

Maybe I want to play with the image in other ways. Same thing. Then I get 
multiple versions of the same image but using very little disk space.

That's the real joy of Lightroom. Changes can be rolled back trivially.

I think the next version of Photoshop will have more Lightroom-like features 
added to it.

I don't expect to see layers in Lightroom. I still sharpen in Photoshop 
where I have a workflow I understand and (ahem) believe in. I think I do a 
better job that Lightroom does. I have never been able to sharpen my 1Ds Mk 
II images as well in Lightroom as I can in Photoshop. For the M8, though, 
Lightroom provides the minimal amount of sharpening that is needed and its 
easy. 

I think Lightroom's ability to do noise reduction is just flat out amazing. 
Mind bogglingly good. And parametric so you can play with it to your heart's 
content without messing things up permanently.

Lightroom is also very good for printing. Much better than Photoshop at 
least for me.

With the new Epson drivers I don't have to fork over mass quantities of 
money for a RIP. (I'm looking at YOU Imageprint...)

Adam

On Dec 27, 2011, at 9:34 AM, Bill Pearce wrote:

> I'm not so sure I understand this non-destructive business. It is supposed 
> to be the end-all answer to our problems, and answer to a question that 
> seemed without an answer, and yet I've been doing the same thing for 
> years. Simple, really, before photoshopping a file, save it with a 
> different name, and do all you want to it, the original remains untouched.
> 
> Oh well, I never said I was smart.
> 
> Bill Pearce