CS3 work flow

[golfer]

Was able to obrain CS3 with lightroom via a student discount. Have neverused lightroom and was wondering where it falls in the workflow for you. Also, it seems Lightroom does most of what bridge does, do you still use Bridge as well. I'm pretty new to this so any thoughts or suggestions would be a big help.

[Mr. Pickles]

If you got CS3, I don't see why you need Lightroom except for some possible better file handling. But I'd think most don't use LR with CS3.

I use LR so I do NOT need to get CS3 and its abilities to do all the RAW/JPG edits available in LR.

[tomrock]

Bridge is for looking at a folder of images -- LR is for managing a library of images.

I have CS3 and I use LR every day. But if I'm doing a quick shoot of something and know I won't want the images in my library in the future, I use Bridge.

[Worm324]

I use both CS3 and Lightroom everyday as well. don't use bridge much at all. Occasionally I'll use bridge for what was said by Tom. Lightroom is awesome for viewing and organizing photos, creating great slideshow's for clients (wish I had some ), and comparing photos side by side is a great feature I use all the time as well. Sometimes I'll go nutz with the adjustments in Lightroom just to see what the image is capable of. Then I'll undo and redo in Photshop. I really don't do that much anymore though.

So I take pics then import them with Lightroom. Keytag them accordingly and weed out the week I then do very minor adjustments in lightroom such as crop, Rotate, and White balance. I then do all my primary editing in photoshop because it's way more powerful and has masking abilities. Lightroom however is very powerful as well for quick adjustments.

[golfer]

I got lightroom as part of a bundle and am impressed with what it can do. I have used bridge with my son's CS2. It seems as though Lightroom almost replaces bridge but I wondered if I was just not using it properly. Are there better file [photo] management properties in bridge than lightroom.

[golfer]

Tomrock, I overlooked your response in my last reply, even though I believe I understand, would you be kind enough share your definiation of folder vs: library of images.

[tomrock]

Originally Posted by golfer

Tomrock, I overlooked your response in my last reply, even though I believe I understand, would you be kind enough share your definiation of folder vs: library of images.

A folder is a directory on your computer -- although the new Bridge that comes with CS3 will look at sub-folders, too.

LR imports pictures from as many folders as you want. They can even be on multiple disks. With LR you can look at All Photographs or drill down to various folders you've imported.

Both Bridge and LR can use keywords to find photos but Bridge has to read XMP files associated with raw files (if you shoot raw) whereas LR keeps all its data in a database. Finding is faster in LR, although it isn't fast enough in version 1.0 LR.

Some people hate LR but for the way I work, I think it's great.

[golfer]

Thanks tomrock for your reply. It sure seems as if Light room replaces Bridge and is more useful too. I thought I was missing something in between. Maybe someone else has more experience with Bridge and can explain its uses beyond Lightroom. I am just not seeing it at this time.

[Worm324]

Golfer,

There is a few advantages to bridge over Lightroom, but there not very big. From bridge you can select several pictures and do a Tools> Photoshop> merge to hdr. You cannot do that from lightroom. Tools > Photoshop > photmerge (to help stitch together a panoramic shot), Is also a nice feature to use in Bridge, that cannot be done in Lightroom.

But again, Overall Lightroom is a replacement for Bridge in almost all other aspects in my opinion. I still use bridge occasionally for those 2 features above though.

Jay

[golfer]

Thanks Jay. That's a big help. I have so much to learn on these programs, I want to spend my time where it will do the most good. Seems like Lightroom and Photoshop are the best areas to concentrate my efforts. So many things, so little time.