So are you buying "Lightroom"?

[Vickko]

So are you buying "Lightroom"?

In general, I don't like buying software, and I had it for the 30 day free trial.

There is a $100 discount for the next 7 days.

I shoot an RD1, and am not a heavy "digital darkroom" person.

Is "Lightroom" a "must have"?

Vick

[jpressman]

I've had the trial software for a couple of weeks and I like it a lot. I use a D80 as well as my G2, and it has a lot of useful functions, not just for managing files, but for making adjustments. Far and away better than Iphoto on my Mac. I thought I was going to need Photoshop (which is really expensive), but find that Lightroom does the trick for me. I expect to buy it by the end of the month before the introductory price goes away.

[hopelion]

If you have photoshop, lightroom is useless, lightroom is designed for hardcore shooter.

[Ted Witcher]

It seems like LR is iPhoto on steroids. Management with a pretty good basic set of adjustments and if you need more, it integrates very well with PS (or whatever your editor is, I imagine). I believe it is primarily for the digital shooter, I'm still trying to figure out how best to use it in my film/scan workflow. I'm not sure if it does anything in the management area that, say, Bridge doesn't do; but it is snappy with a pleasant-looking UI and that may be enough for a hundred bucks.

[350D_user]

I don't do raw, I'm pro-jpg. Lightroom offers as much as raw offers... nothing.
GIMP does everything I need.

(anti-raw rant on my blog, fwiw).

[steve garza]

You can buy it for $98.00 with a student ID.....get it while you can.....

[triplefinger]

I tried LR, then Aperture. Aperture is much more suited to my tastes. I disagree that "if you have photoshop, LR(or aperture) is useless". Color controls(esp. w/RAW) luminance, all that stuff... as well as versioning and other organizational tools are great in LR & Aperture.

I like the RAW programs. I shoot R-D1 and *istD and have very little spotting to do. I use Aperture more than photoshop.

[Joe Mondello]

Started with LR beta 1 and by beta 3 had moved over to Aperture.

Lightroom has rown alot since then but I'd sure prefer it if it could handle dual displays as Aperture can.

I vastly prefer Aperture but find that Lightrooms conversions of M8 JPGs is far superior to Aperture's plus it will open M8 RAW files which Aperture can't see.

So now I own BOTH. oy.

[triplefinger]

Aperture DOES handle m8 & R-D1 files!!

check this link. it's easier than it looks. it's a similar fix for the R-D1

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/16559-how-use-aperture-m8-dng-files.html?highlight=apple+aperture

good luck!



Started with LR beta 1 and by beta 3 had moved over to Aperture.

Lightroom has rown alot since then but I'd sure prefer it if it could handle dual displays as Aperture can.

I vastly prefer Aperture but find that Lightrooms conversions of M8 JPGs is far superior to Aperture's plus it will open M8 RAW files which Aperture can't see.

So now I own BOTH. oy.

[mn4367]

I used the last beta and the trial for some time and recently I bought the final version. I've did some tests with other candidates (Bibble, Lighzone, C1, SilkyPix, RawShooter, DxO (with converted TIFFs) and the free RawTherapee). I mostly looked at the details each of the packages was able to pull out from the R-D1 files and my impression is, that Lightroom and RawTherapee gave the best results. The reason for this maybe that both use the code of dcraw to convert RAW data (at least RawTherapee does, for LR I'm not sure) and this little commandline tool is astonishing regarding image quality.

If I find enough time I'll post some results in the forum (they will only be based on results achieved with R-D1 files).

Apart from that LR does it for me. It has an elegent UI, quick to use; image correction features are very good, fine grained and well designed and the database features are sufficient for my tasks. I also very much like being able to do an ad-hoc slideshow.

For me it is also nearly feature complete. Nevertheless LR has also weaknesses, for example the before mentioned limited sharpening capabilities. But that maybe solved by plugin vendors in the near future when the SDK will become available. As a PC user I can't speak for Aperture but among the other software I looked to, LR was the most comprehensive solution. I personally can recommend it very much.

Sure, for some tasks a dedicated image editor like Photoshop is better suited or necessary, but these pure editors mostly will lack the workflow functions of RAW editors.

[Simon Larbalestier]

I ordered Lightroom alongside CS3.
Post Production Software is for me a bit like swapping over enlarger light source heads - they all have different quirks.

[willie_901]

I bought LR the first day V 1.0 was available (I was a beta user for about 3 months)

While LR is not perfect, it has greatly reduced my post-processing time and produces better images than PS (which probably says a lot about my PS expertise).

It is a wonderful organizational tool as well.

[Ted Witcher]

Just as a file management tool, it seems Aperture and LR are about even. Although Aperture has that "Vault" button making simple work of backing up the whole library to an external drive. LR should have the same thing.