Any Lightroom users out there?

[KateD]

I'm going to be upgrading to CS5 later today (with a 10% discount) and just realized that I can bundle Lightroom with it for 30% off of Lightroom (plus an extra 10% off of LR). So the CS5 upgrade plus LR would be less than $400. We've been thinking about getting Lightroom, but even at $210 that's still a lot of money. If we're going to do it, it makes sense to do it now, though.

If you have LR, do you like it? Is it worth the $$?

Thanks

[*Celeste*]

I'm just waiting for the letter from my son's school so I can buy it with an academic discount. I hope to get a book or take a class.

[nikkiARNGwife]

Love it...I use it for all my photo editing

[Ginger_79]

Well, it really depends on what you're using it for. I had an older version, but right now I don't have it installed as my friend (who owns the liscence) wanted it "back".

It is really great for doing basic editing quickly on a lot of photos. Also it has fabulous sorting and archive functions. But I gotta admit I didn't use them much. I liked it and liked working with it. But to get the most out of it and make it worth the money, you need to really incorporate it into your workflow. If you just do minimum editing like brightening up a bit and some b/w conversions than I guess you're as fast doing them in PS.

[ColleenSwerb]

Love it, love it, love it.

[neeceebee]

i use it almost exclusively to edit my photo shoots. It's a fabulous tool and makes editing so streamlined.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by *Celeste*

I'm just waiting for the letter from my son's school so I can buy it with an academic discount. I hope to get a book or take a class.

I am soooooo glad you said that!!

DH said to go ahead and get it, so I decided to check their academic store before I purchased. For basically the same price I was going to pay for the CS5 upgrade and Lightroom, I can get Lightroom and the Creative Suite 5 Design Standard version which comes with Illustrator (which I've been drooling over) and InDesign (!) I have the proof of eligibility already, so all I have to do is scan it. If I'm reading the information correctly, I'll have to wait for it to come in the mail, which means I may be without PS on my desktop for a week or so, but I can live with that.

Thank you!!

ETA: Never mind, I can download it.

[MommaTrish]

I wub my Lightroom.

[heathergw]

Originally Posted by nikkiARNGwife

Love it...I use it for all my photo editing

Ditto

[Stacey42]

I love Lightroom! I do 95% of my editing in it as well as importing, organizing, naming & tagging the photos

[Milmomma]

Its awesome for organizing photos, uploading them straight to my online portfolio and watermarking. I've really had to push myself to do all my editing in it as I'm so use to editing in PS and still do quiet a bit though. LR is faster to batch editing and such. Its worth to have to me.

[Penny Springmann]

I have it and when I use it I love it!

[*Celeste*]

glad i mentioned it!

Originally Posted by KateD

I am soooooo glad you said that!!

DH said to go ahead and get it, so I decided to check their academic store before I purchased. For basically the same price I was going to pay for the CS5 upgrade and Lightroom, I can get Lightroom and the Creative Suite 5 Design Standard version which comes with Illustrator (which I've been drooling over) and InDesign (!) I have the proof of eligibility already, so all I have to do is scan it. If I'm reading the information correctly, I'll have to wait for it to come in the mail, which means I may be without PS on my desktop for a week or so, but I can live with that.

Thank you!!

ETA: Never mind, I can download it.

[MandaT]

Love it.

I'm pretty basic when it comes to editing (I don't do a lot of skin smoothing or spot removals, cloning, etc). I got it over 2 years ago & I don't think I've edited in Photoshop for almost the entire time I've had it. I really like that I can create presets of settings that I use often or coversions I like.

[sprauncey1]

Originally Posted by apphotos

Love it.

I'm pretty basic when it comes to editing (I don't do a lot of skin smoothing or spot removals, cloning, etc). I got it over 2 years ago & I don't think I've edited in Photoshop for almost the entire time I've had it. I really like that I can create presets of settings that I use often or conversions I like.

FWIW, you can do this too in Adobe RAW editor. At least in CS5.

The thing that drives me crazy about PS & Lightroom is that if you own the program for a few years and then get a new camera, they no longer support it for the older versions, so you are forced into upgrading the programs to make it work. I've had to do this twice now. Course now after the fact I know about the work around (convert to DNG through an add-on from Adobe).

Here's the difference I've found in Lightroom 2 vs. Adobe Camera Raw (CS5):

-Lightroom is more user friendly (WYSIWYG), same things can typically be done with ACR but you have to know the button to push or the screen to be on.

-I still don't know how to download and rename my files from my card in ACR, so for now I use ACDSee to transfer the files and rename (date/time file names), in Lightroom I could do this on my import to Lightroom, easy-peasy. I may just not know the right process in ACR to do it there yet.

-Lightroom is a separate program to have open, while ACR is integrated into CS5. That I do love, makes seeing my photos etc easier for scrapping.

If you do get both, I highly recommend buying/borrowing Scott Kelby's books for both to figure out how to use all the cool features they now have. I do love the adjustment brushes and the new noise removal they have in ACR, I'm not sure if it is the same in LR3 since I have LR2.

And yes, the academic versions rock!