I agree. To some extent (and especially when using RAW) the picture still has to be 'developed.' Only now we use an electronic medium rather than chemicals and papers.

There's nothing wrong with the GIMP, unless you ultimately find spending money comforting. If you can do the same things for free, why pay?

Putting PSE8 and GIMP side by side, there really is very little difference...apart from 800mb missing from your available hard disk space and £60 from your wallet.

I forgot about it's amazingly simple to use interface, clearly.
Rarely have I found a piece of software more annoying to use that hasn't been branded with the MS logo.

The Gimp is not the same as Lr, certainly. It's just not comparable.

True.

The GIMP's free, OSS, I can re-write its functions whenever I want and with a bit of know-how it'll do almost anything the others will.

Oh and it came with my OS......

I don't want to have to re-write the functions of the software that I use.
I want it to do what I want, when I want it. I'm willing to pay for that functionality.

Mark

I think we're missing the point. Lightroom is not just about editing images. As Nick pointed out, it also acts as a cataloguing and management system, letting you find stuff quickly and easily. For me, that's the most important part. Being able to adjust my images in the same environment is a bonus to a large degree.

Incidentally, I don't use Lightroom, I use Aperture which is Mac only, but the principles are the same for both. Lightroom is a whole lot more than just Photoshop or GIMP.

Yep, but others don't get that because they are seemingly blinded by their own opinion.
I've used GIMP and didn't get on with it, but I don't go slagging it off because of that.
I recognise that people will always use what they will because they like to do so for personal reasons.
The best I can do is give my opinion on what I know and hope that it helps inform others.
I would find it interesting though to hear which of the GIMP advocates have actually used Lr for any period of time for an informed opinion to be made before they've written it off.

Mark

Another point is Lightroom and Photoshop are designed to be complementary. It's not one or the other. There's plenty of crossover functionality between them, but from experience I would start with LR and move to PS if necessary.

I can't emphasise this enough: if you're serious about your photography, then you need a method to catalogue and manage your images. Lightroom and Aperture gives you the electronic filing system to do that, plus the electronic darkroom to process your images, plus the ability to export or print once you're done.

Photoshop or GIMP can't do all that. If you're happy managing the images yourself, that's fine, but when you get into tens of thousands of images, I prefer to let the computer handle it. I've only got about 8000 in my library right now, and I gave up trying to manage it by hand around the 3k mark.

Lets not lose sight of the fact that Lightroom 2 is £230, Photoshop CS4 is £600. Whereas GIMP, UFRaw and Picasa are all free. Unless you are having to deal with other people's images on a daily basis, it is hard to justify the cost. Add those two pieces of software together and you could have bought a better camera or a nice Sigma 150-500mm...

Picasa for cataloging and editing/retouching, UFraw for RAW processing and GIMP for anything else the first two can't handle.

The free software that came with my camera does most of what the combination you mention above does, but I outgrew it very rapidly. Hence my advocacy of spending some money to save time and disk space.



So, like iPhoto. It creates a copy when you make edits. Bear in mind that LR and Aperture use XML sidecar files to detail edits to images. It's non-destructive. All the edits I make to a RAW image take up a few kilobytes, and don't involve multiple copies of the same image file.

I don't mind people wanting to do stuff at low cost. I try to do the same when I can. But sometimes "free" or "cheap" isn't the right answer.

Bridge is an internal prog shipped with Photoshop (but much improved in CS4) that also catalogues your pics. From there you can open them in Adobe Camera RAW which can process basically the same way as Photoshop or just open them in Photoshop direct. It's been a very hard decision for me but in the end I chose Lightroom. However, as with every piece of software, Photoshop (and Bridge) forged a clear advantage in CS4 and all the tutorials I've seen have backed this up. I'm now in two minds whether to stick with Lightroom or start again in Bridge but I think it's better to stick with one because as one version of software improves, the other catches up and leaps forward - and so on. Simples, it's certainly not......

Have a look HERE for some online tutorials (click on 2009 on the right to see all the tuts, especially the one on RAW).

Best of luck with your decision.

Al

It does.

I can easily make it do more.

Each to their own I say. I havent purchased Lr or use Bridge but then I dont really have a proper workflow. I currently process my RAWs using software that came with my camera and manually file them. I ought to have a better workflow and might make it a new years resolution!

Not a bad idea...

My workflow..

Import batch of photo's with Windows Live Photo Gallery or F-spot / Picasa if I'm using linux. It creates a folder and files them where I want it to.
Process RAW's with Ufraw, export to jpg
Use Photo gallery to upload to flickr or print.

I'll also use iphoto when on my MBP, but it shoves it all into an "iphoto library" making photo's hard to find if you want to upload them from a web browser - it annoys the hell out of me.

Total £ spent - £0.