While Camera Raw works just fine with the Raw format, it adds a separate step to your workflow that isn’t really needed. Photoshop doesn’t have its own Raw file engine and needs to open a separate window with Adobe Camera Raw to work with Raw files. Metadata is especially important in web design and SEO, and being able to use presets to automatically add metadata is a huge time saver.Ĭollections and Smart Collections in Lightroom are designed to make managing and accessing your photos quick and easy, and Photoshop has no capabilities to handle multiple images in this way. Sure, you could use Adobe Bridge instead, but Lightroom is far superior – see Adobe Bridge vs Lightroom.Īdobe Lightroom also provides everything you could ever need from an image editor in terms of metadata, keywording, and searching. If you use multiple catalogs, you can select “Prompt me when starting Lightroom,” which will automatically allow you to open exactly those photos that you need.Īdobe Photoshop has no such abilities, let alone Photoshop Elements. One source of confusion for beginners using Lightroom is the folder structure, which references your computer’s hard drive, but doesn’t track changes made outside of Lightroom – this can cause ‘missing images’, crashing, or other Lightroom related problems. You can forget about storing your images in folders and subfolders and forgetting where they are. Lightroom’s database and catalog system allow photographers to keep all their images organized. Photoshop is made for exceptionally powerful image manipulation and edits, although you may need a powerful computer to handle large PSD files – see the best laptops for Photoshop.īut how do these differences play out on a practical level?
By using Lightroom, you’ll be able to make edits to just about any image file in no time. Lightroom is a photo editor made for a photographer’s workflow and efficient editing of your photos. We look forward to testing the final paid version of the software soon.The biggest difference between the two programs is what they are designed for.
There are a few limitations of the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 beta then, but for a free public beta it also shows a lot of promise in its cool new features. It's not always quick at rendering thumbnails, either, if you need to scroll through large numbers of images.
If you have both side panels and the filmstrip open at the same time, for example, there's not much space left in the centre for the thing you're actually working on. You'll still need Photoshop CC or CS6 - or Photoshop Elements 12 - for more advanced tasks, but now there are even more day-to-day image improvements you can carry out in Lightroom without having to switch to a different program.Īlthough Adobe is constantly adding to Lightroom's feature set and capabilities, the basic look and feel of the program has changed very little. Most of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5's new enhancements are found in the Develop module, which means Lightroom advances even further into the space normally occupied by full Photoshop.
If you don't have a big, high-res display, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can feel cramped and oppressive. We would prefer less interface and more image. The new editing tools are good, but the Smart Previews could prove the most valuable feature in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 boasts some exciting new features that look set to boost its abilities as an image editor, a cataloguing tool and as a way of sharing and publishing your photos.