Lightroom worth it for a non-RAW shooter?

"Steven Wandy" wrote in message

I have been reading about Lightroom. (Currently using PSCS2.) I rarely shoot RAW format – generally highest quality JPEG that my two cameras will shoot.
Is there any advantages to using Lightroom if I remain basically a JPEG shooter?
Thanks,
Steve

I, so far, am also primarily a jpeg shooter, though that should change in the near future. Lightroom has a lot of great assets for us too. It is able to do a lot of batch work that PS and even the Bridge makes complicated. It doesn’t provide the "creative" options of PS, but definitely allows adjusting photos.
Rob

Only you can answer that. Download the trial and take it for a spin. Personally I will wait for ACR for the image editing controls. The LR interface is just fine. However, I do not like the database use in LR and I don’t like having to covert my RAW image to a bitmap image to do things like noise reduction, good sharpening and lens distortion correction in Photoshop. If I can’t do it all in LR and keep it non-destructive then it is a $50 program not a $199 or $299 one. I think Adobe boffed the pooch.

ljc

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Only you can answer that. Download the trial and take it for a spin. Personally I will wait for ACR for the image editing controls. The LR interface is just fine. However, I do not like the database use in LR and I don’t like having to covert my RAW image to a bitmap image to do things like noise reduction, good sharpening and lens distortion correction in Photoshop.

I don’t there is any program at all that can do lens distortion corrections non-destructively.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

I see no reason why not. CS3 will all if its filters can be done non-destructively. Alls they have to do in record the settings you used and apply them to the image the next time you look at it. Just like the do with straighten and cropping.

ljc

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Only you can answer that. Download the trial and take it for a spin. Personally I will wait for ACR for the image editing controls. The LR interface is just fine. However, I do not like the database use in LR and I
don’t like having to covert my RAW image to a bitmap image to do things like
noise reduction, good sharpening and lens distortion correction in Photoshop.

I don’t there is any program at all that can do lens distortion corrections non-destructively.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

On Feb 22, 2:09 am, "Little Juice Coupe" wrote:

I see no reason why not. CS3 will all if its filters can be done non-destructively. Alls they have to do in record the settings you used and apply them to the image the next time you look at it. Just like the do with straighten and cropping.

Although you didn’t actually say so, perhaps you have already tested CS3’s Lens Correction as a Smart Filter?

I just tested it, (with both pincushion distortion and chromatic abberation), and it works like other filters do as Smart Filters. It can be switched on and off, the parameters can be changed later, and it can be removed. (It is also possible to copy the filter to another image and apply it there).

The results is significantly larger than the original. I THINK that it not only stores the parameters, (as you say), but it also caches a rendered image, perhaps for performance reasons. (It isn’t simply the size of the layer mask – I deleted that). I think there is no reason other than performance to do this – when copying to another another (much smaller) image, it is obviously the parameters that are being copied across, and it has to recreate the (much smaller) cache on arrival.

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

[snip]

I don’t there is any program at all that can do lens distortion corrections non-destructively.

[snip]

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/

Barry Pearson wrote:

On Feb 22, 2:09 am, "Little Juice Coupe" wrote:

I see no reason why not. CS3 will all if its filters can be done non-destructively. Alls they have to do in record the settings you used and apply them to the image the next time you look at it. Just like the do with straighten and cropping.

Although you didn’t actually say so, perhaps you have already tested CS3’s Lens Correction as a Smart Filter?

I just tested it, (with both pincushion distortion and chromatic abberation), and it works like other filters do as Smart Filters. It can be switched on and off, the parameters can be changed later, and it can be removed. (It is also possible to copy the filter to another image and apply it there).

The results is significantly larger than the original. I THINK that it not only stores the parameters, (as you say), but it also caches a rendered image, perhaps for performance reasons.

I think there is another reason: RAW images are not yet demosaiced, and that is the number one reason why you cannot correct lens distortion in RAW data IMHO. The data MUST be demosaiced first, because the correction will have to remap the image. I don’t see any other way of doing this.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

I never said it was perfect. In fact I think the way Adobe implemented live filters if you can call them that is I also don’t think much of their lens correction filters which can only seem to handle very minor lens distortion correction. Anything more pronounced it just messes the photo up. But, then a lot of the photography based features Adobe has added lately have been very poor including their noise reduction, exact and others.

ljc

"Barry Pearson" wrote in message

On Feb 22, 2:09 am, "Little Juice Coupe" wrote:

I see no reason why not. CS3 will all if its filters can be done non-destructively. Alls they have to do in record the settings you used and
apply them to the image the next time you look at it. Just like the do with
straighten and cropping.

Although you didn’t actually say so, perhaps you have already tested CS3’s Lens Correction as a Smart Filter?

I just tested it, (with both pincushion distortion and chromatic abberation), and it works like other filters do as Smart Filters. It can be switched on and off, the parameters can be changed later, and it can be removed. (It is also possible to copy the filter to another image and apply it there).

The results is significantly larger than the original. I THINK that it not only stores the parameters, (as you say), but it also caches a rendered image, perhaps for performance reasons. (It isn’t simply the size of the layer mask – I deleted that). I think there is no reason other than performance to do this – when copying to another another (much smaller) image, it is obviously the parameters that are being copied across, and it has to recreate the (much smaller) cache on arrival.

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in
message

[snip]

I don’t there is any program at all that can do lens distortion corrections non-destructively.

[snip]

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/

On Feb 22, 4:33 pm, (Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:
[snip]

I think there is another reason: RAW images are not yet demosaiced, and that is the number one reason why you cannot correct lens distortion in RAW data IMHO. The data MUST be demosaiced first, because the correction will have to remap the image. I don’t see any other way of doing this.

That doesn’t affect whether you can handle lens corrections as non- destructive metadata-based editing of a raw file.

"Crop", "Align", and "Red-eye" are other features where the data is demosaiced first. So, in fact, are virtually ALL controls in ACR and Lightroom – it becomes obvious when processing JPEGs or Linear DNGs that most of these controls are applied after the demosaicing (even assuming that there IS any demosaicing).

With both ACR and Lightroom, true raw conversion is an optional early part of the whole workflow, and most of the features that people use apply after that. But that doesn’t prevent the settings being associated as metadata with the raw file, or in the case of DNG within the raw file. It is up to ACR or Lightroom to worry about whether any particular metadata is relevant before, during, or after the demosaicing.

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/

Barry Pearson wrote:

I think there is another reason: RAW images are not yet demosaiced, and that is the number one reason why you cannot correct lens distortion in RAW data IMHO. The data MUST be demosaiced first, because the correction will have to remap the image. I don’t see any other way of doing this.

That doesn’t affect whether you can handle lens corrections as non- destructive metadata-based editing of a raw file.

No, but it explains your observations with Photoshop smart filters.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Red eye reduction and cloning out spots in LR is not done on demosaiced images. It is done non-destructive to the RAW data. So apparently at least some things can be.

ljc

"Barry Pearson" wrote in message

On Feb 22, 4:33 pm, (Johan W. Elzenga) wrote:
[snip]

I think there is another reason: RAW images are not yet demosaiced, and that is the number one reason why you cannot correct lens distortion in RAW data IMHO. The data MUST be demosaiced first, because the correction will have to remap the image. I don’t see any other way of doing this.

That doesn’t affect whether you can handle lens corrections as non- destructive metadata-based editing of a raw file.

"Crop", "Align", and "Red-eye" are other features where the data is demosaiced first. So, in fact, are virtually ALL controls in ACR and Lightroom – it becomes obvious when processing JPEGs or Linear DNGs that most of these controls are applied after the demosaicing (even assuming that there IS any demosaicing).

With both ACR and Lightroom, true raw conversion is an optional early part of the whole workflow, and most of the features that people use apply after that. But that doesn’t prevent the settings being associated as metadata with the raw file, or in the case of DNG within the raw file. It is up to ACR or Lightroom to worry about whether any particular metadata is relevant before, during, or after the demosaicing.

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/

Simply my opinion. Smart Objects have their uses but having to convert an image to one in order to apply live filters is sloppy, as you then have more hopes to jump through to edit the image. It comes across as just another hack job to Photoshop. Instead of implementing live filters like programs like Canvas has Adobe chose the easy way and the hack job way.

ljc

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Barry Pearson wrote:

I think there is another reason: RAW images are not yet demosaiced, and that is the number one reason why you cannot correct lens distortion in RAW data IMHO. The data MUST be demosaiced first, because the correction
will have to remap the image. I don’t see any other way of doing this.

That doesn’t affect whether you can handle lens corrections as non- destructive metadata-based editing of a raw file.

No, but it explains your observations with Photoshop smart filters.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Simply my opinion. Smart Objects have their uses but having to convert an image to one in order to apply live filters is sloppy, as you then have more hopes to jump through to edit the image. It comes across as just another hack job to Photoshop. Instead of implementing live filters like programs like Canvas has Adobe chose the easy way and the hack job way.

I don’t think Adobe had any choice in this case. A RAW file is not an RGB file, so there is simply no way to apply a filter – smart or dumb – to a RAW file (embedded as a smart object) without first converting that RAW file to RGB.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Red eye reduction and cloning out spots in LR is not done on demosaiced images. It is done non-destructive to the RAW data. So apparently at least some things can be.

No it isn’t. There is no way you could do that on RAW data, because RAW data are one channel B&W ‘images’ with no gamma correction applied yet either. It seems you do not really understand how Lightroom works. Barry is right: these corrections are stored as instructions next to the RAW data, but when they are applied because you want to use that image for printing or anything else, the RAW data are demosaiced first, and then the other corrections are applied.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Who said anything about a RAW image? By the time you get the raw image in to Photoshop via ACR or LR it is Bitmap and that has nothing to do with what we were talking about and that is why Adobe did live filters in a sloppy fashion. I never one mentioned a raw file in regards to this subject.

ljc

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Simply my opinion. Smart Objects have their uses but having to convert an image to one in order to apply live filters is sloppy, as you then have more
hopes to jump through to edit the image. It comes across as just another hack job to Photoshop. Instead of implementing live filters like programs like Canvas has Adobe chose the easy way and the hack job way.

I don’t think Adobe had any choice in this case. A RAW file is not an RGB file, so there is simply no way to apply a filter – smart or dumb – to a RAW file (embedded as a smart object) without first converting that RAW file to RGB.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Well, you need to try LR then. Because it does allow for meta-data redeye and cloning/healing and it IS NOT converting your image to a bitmap to do it. Maybe you should try it out before you make a bigger fool out of yourself.

Everything in LR is non-destructive except for the export command which exports your image as a bitmap or the edit in Photoshop option which converts the image to bitmap. Any adjustments you make in LR like cropping, straightening, red-eye, cloning/healing, tone curve, black and white conversion, etc. is 100% non-destructive.

If cloning/healing and redeye can be done non-destructively in LR then Adobe could have done live filters in Photoshop without the messy and nasty SmartObject conversion junk.

ljc

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Red eye reduction and cloning out spots in LR is not done on demosaiced images. It is done non-destructive to the RAW data. So apparently at least
some things can be.

No it isn’t. There is no way you could do that on RAW data, because RAW data are one channel B&W ‘images’ with no gamma correction applied yet either. It seems you do not really understand how Lightroom works. Barry is right: these corrections are stored as instructions next to the RAW data, but when they are applied because you want to use that image for printing or anything else, the RAW data are demosaiced first, and then the other corrections are applied.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Well, you need to try LR then.

Actually, I’m writing a book about LR right now.

Because it does allow for meta-data redeye
and cloning/healing and it IS NOT converting your image to a bitmap to do it. Maybe you should try it out before you make a bigger fool out of yourself.

Metadata editting means that the editting is saved as a set of instructions in metadata, rather than carried out on the original file. It does not necessarily mean that these instructions are carried out on the RAW data *before* these are demosaiced. The reason why people like you *think* this is so, is because you see the corrections on your screen, and you think it’s the RAW file you are looking at. That’s not so. You are looking at a preview and that preview is demosaiced data. After these data were demosaiced, all the other corrections were applied to it.

Everything in LR is non-destructive except for the export command which exports your image as a bitmap or the edit in Photoshop option which converts the image to bitmap. Any adjustments you make in LR like cropping, straightening, red-eye, cloning/healing, tone curve, black and white conversion, etc. is 100% non-destructive.

Correct. But non-destructive does not mean it is carried out on RAW data *before* demosaicing. That has nothing to do with it. Non-destructive only means that the RAW data themselves remain intact, because LR makes ‘on the fly’ conversions each time it does something with an image.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Well, you need to try LR then.

Actually, I’m writing a book about LR right now.

Because it does allow for meta-data redeye
and cloning/healing and it IS NOT converting your image to a bitmap to do it. Maybe you should try it out before you make a bigger fool out of yourself.

Metadata editting means that the editting is saved as a set of instructions in metadata, rather than carried out on the original file. It does not necessarily mean that these instructions are carried out on the RAW data *before* these are demosaiced. The reason why people like you *think* this is so, is because you see the corrections on your screen, and you think it’s the RAW file you are looking at. That’s not so. You are looking at a preview and that preview is demosaiced data. After these data were demosaiced, all the other corrections were applied to it.

Everything in LR is non-destructive except for the export command which exports your image as a bitmap or the edit in Photoshop option which converts the image to bitmap. Any adjustments you make in LR like cropping,
straightening, red-eye, cloning/healing, tone curve, black and white conversion, etc. is 100% non-destructive.

Correct. But non-destructive does not mean it is carried out on RAW data *before* demosaicing. That has nothing to do with it. Non-destructive only means that the RAW data themselves remain intact, because LR makes ‘on the fly’ conversions each time it does something with an image.

—

oy
I get a headache thinking about all this

You keep ignoring the fact that Lightroom does red-eye reduction as well as spot cloning and healing and it does so without actually altering the original image. Meta-data editing. So if LR can do these three pixel level edits and use meta-data for that instead of alter the actually image…

This also doesn’t change the fact of what I was saying and that that Adobe did a very sloppy and messing job of implementing live filters in CS3. If the above 3 things can be done without the need for SmartObjects or altering the actual pixels then live filters could have been done in CS3 in a similar fashion. The problem is Adobe wanted quick and dirty instead of done right.

What is the title of your LR book? When will it be published?

ljc

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Well, you need to try LR then.

Actually, I’m writing a book about LR right now.

Because it does allow for meta-data redeye
and cloning/healing and it IS NOT converting your image to a bitmap to do it. Maybe you should try it out before you make a bigger fool out of yourself.

Metadata editting means that the editting is saved as a set of instructions in metadata, rather than carried out on the original file. It does not necessarily mean that these instructions are carried out on the RAW data *before* these are demosaiced. The reason why people like you *think* this is so, is because you see the corrections on your screen, and you think it’s the RAW file you are looking at. That’s not so. You are looking at a preview and that preview is demosaiced data. After these data were demosaiced, all the other corrections were applied to it.

Everything in LR is non-destructive except for the export command which exports your image as a bitmap or the edit in Photoshop option which converts the image to bitmap. Any adjustments you make in LR like cropping,
straightening, red-eye, cloning/healing, tone curve, black and white conversion, etc. is 100% non-destructive.

Correct. But non-destructive does not mean it is carried out on RAW data *before* demosaicing. That has nothing to do with it. Non-destructive only means that the RAW data themselves remain intact, because LR makes ‘on the fly’ conversions each time it does something with an image.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Also, I would like to point out you are the one that brought up raw not me. I was talking about Photoshop CS3 and live filters which has nothing to do with Raw since by the time you get a Raw image in to Photoshop it is not longer a Raw image. The trip from both ACR and LR in to Photoshop makes the image a bitmap image.

I am also aware that LR shows for the preview basically what amounts to a JPG image and that what you are seeing on screen is not the actual RAW data. However, none of this has any effect on the fact the CS3’s live filters is a hack job at best simply because Adobe didn’t want to do it right like so many other features Adobe has added to Photoshop over the last couple of versions.

Robert

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

Well, you need to try LR then.

Actually, I’m writing a book about LR right now.

Because it does allow for meta-data redeye
and cloning/healing and it IS NOT converting your image to a bitmap to do it. Maybe you should try it out before you make a bigger fool out of yourself.

Metadata editting means that the editting is saved as a set of instructions in metadata, rather than carried out on the original file. It does not necessarily mean that these instructions are carried out on the RAW data *before* these are demosaiced. The reason why people like you *think* this is so, is because you see the corrections on your screen, and you think it’s the RAW file you are looking at. That’s not so. You are looking at a preview and that preview is demosaiced data. After these data were demosaiced, all the other corrections were applied to it.

Everything in LR is non-destructive except for the export command which exports your image as a bitmap or the edit in Photoshop option which converts the image to bitmap. Any adjustments you make in LR like cropping,
straightening, red-eye, cloning/healing, tone curve, black and white conversion, etc. is 100% non-destructive.

Correct. But non-destructive does not mean it is carried out on RAW data *before* demosaicing. That has nothing to do with it. Non-destructive only means that the RAW data themselves remain intact, because LR makes ‘on the fly’ conversions each time it does something with an image.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

You keep ignoring the fact that Lightroom does red-eye reduction as well as spot cloning and healing and it does so without actually altering the original image. Meta-data editing. So if LR can do these three pixel level edits and use meta-data for that instead of alter the actually image…

I’m not ignoring it, but I know how that works and it works a little differently than you may think. The best way of looking at it is to say that Lightroom reads the RAW data, and then produces a *NEW* file from those data after demosaicing them. That’s why the original data remain untouched. This new file consists of RGB pixels just like any other RGB image, so Lightroom can make pixel based edits just like any other editor. So essentially, the file *does* get changed. It’s just not the original file. The difference between the Lightroom method and what most other RAW converters do, is that Lightroom doesn’t save this new RGB file afterwards, but discards it after use. Each time it needs the image again, it just reads the RAW data again and goes through the same steps of demosaicing and then making pixel-based corrections like red eye reduction or cloning. The instructions for those steps is what is saved in XML.

This also doesn’t change the fact of what I was saying and that that Adobe did a very sloppy and messing job of implementing live filters in CS3. If the above 3 things can be done without the need for SmartObjects or altering the actual pixels then live filters could have been done in CS3 in a similar fashion. The problem is Adobe wanted quick and dirty instead of done right.

I agree that it’s sloppy, but I don’t agree with the observation that this is because Adobe wanted a quick and dirty solution. Photoshop is completely different than Lightroom. Photoshop doesn’t use metadata editting, it edits pixels. That’s its strength, but also its weakness. If it does non-destructive editting, it must do so by means of layers (like adjustment layers). To make *one thing* -i.e. smart filters – fundamentally diffferent by using metadata editting, without changing the entire program completely, was probably impossible.

Yes, Adobe could have rewritten Photoshop from scratch and make it a metadata editor as well, but that would take years. Lightroom took about three years! And for all we know, this may be an ongoing project already. In the meantime, we have to live with the fact that Photoshop is not a meatadata editor, which means that non-destructive filters have to be done the ‘smart object’ way.

What is the title of your LR book? When will it be published?

The title will probably simply be ‘Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’. It’s due end of April. Do remember that I’m Dutch, so the book will be in Dutch too.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

I don’t know why you are so hot and heavy for lightroom. You really got off the mark of my original comment and that is that Adobe did a sloppy job of doing live filters in Photoshop CS3. Now you can’t tell it can’t be done right because Denaba Canvas (now and ACD Systems product) has done live filters for ages and it works on bitmap images as well as vector and documents.

ljc

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Little Juice Coupe wrote:

You keep ignoring the fact that Lightroom does red-eye reduction as well as
spot cloning and healing and it does so without actually altering the original image. Meta-data editing. So if LR can do these three pixel level
edits and use meta-data for that instead of alter the actually image…

I’m not ignoring it, but I know how that works and it works a little differently than you may think. The best way of looking at it is to say that Lightroom reads the RAW data, and then produces a *NEW* file from those data after demosaicing them. That’s why the original data remain untouched. This new file consists of RGB pixels just like any other RGB image, so Lightroom can make pixel based edits just like any other editor. So essentially, the file *does* get changed. It’s just not the original file. The difference between the Lightroom method and what most other RAW converters do, is that Lightroom doesn’t save this new RGB file afterwards, but discards it after use. Each time it needs the image again, it just reads the RAW data again and goes through the same steps of demosaicing and then making pixel-based corrections like red eye reduction or cloning. The instructions for those steps is what is saved in XML.

This also doesn’t change the fact of what I was saying and that that Adobe
did a very sloppy and messing job of implementing live filters in CS3. If the above 3 things can be done without the need for SmartObjects or altering
the actual pixels then live filters could have been done in CS3 in a similar
fashion. The problem is Adobe wanted quick and dirty instead of done right.

I agree that it’s sloppy, but I don’t agree with the observation that this is because Adobe wanted a quick and dirty solution. Photoshop is completely different than Lightroom. Photoshop doesn’t use metadata editting, it edits pixels. That’s its strength, but also its weakness. If it does non-destructive editting, it must do so by means of layers (like adjustment layers). To make *one thing* -i.e. smart filters – fundamentally diffferent by using metadata editting, without changing the entire program completely, was probably impossible.

Yes, Adobe could have rewritten Photoshop from scratch and make it a metadata editor as well, but that would take years. Lightroom took about three years! And for all we know, this may be an ongoing project already. In the meantime, we have to live with the fact that Photoshop is not a meatadata editor, which means that non-destructive filters have to be done the ‘smart object’ way.

What is the title of your LR book? When will it be published?

The title will probably simply be ‘Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’. It’s due end of April. Do remember that I’m Dutch, so the book will be in Dutch too.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com