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CHAPTER 1: WORKFLOW FOUNDATIONS
Photoshop Replacement?
As you review the list of features found in each of the modules, you may wonder how Photoshop
fits into the picture. The Library module contains many of the features and capabilities you’ll find
in Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw, both included as part of Photoshop. The Develop module
contains tools for optimizing your photos that match many of the capabilities of Photoshop. The
Slideshow, Print, and Web modules contain features that are similar to some of the automation
tools found in Photoshop. In many ways, Lightroom contains the core capabilities of Photoshop
that photographers are most interested in, bundled into a new interface with a more cohesive
approach to the tasks photographers need to perform. This raises the question among many pho-
tographers as to whether Lightroom represents a replacement for Photoshop.
In some respects, Lightroom is exactly that. It provides all the basic features most photographers
need, and might otherwise find in Photoshop. However, I consider it to be very much a supplement
to Photoshop, not a replacement.
The key area where Lightroom leaves room for Photoshop is in the depth of adjustments you can
apply with Photoshop. Lightroom doesn’t, for example, include any ability to apply targeted adjust-
ments to your images. I therefore think of Lightroom as a basic tool that provides enough adjust-
ments for you to share your images with clients, but in some cases not the deeper features that
will enable you to produce an image that you feel is truly ready to be considered final.”
As a result, I feel that Photoshop still has a significant role in any workflow, even with Lightroom.
I cover the details of an image-optimization workflow in Photoshop in my book Photoshop
Workflow (Sybex, 2007). Although Lightroom is a very powerful tool that allows you to process
your images with great flexibility and efficiency, it is still first and foremost a tool for managing
your images. You’ll still often find the need to apply more-sophisticated adjustments with Photo-
shop. Think of Lightroom as providing an image-management workflow with some optimization,
and Photoshop as providing an image-optimization workflow. The two work together to help you
stay organized while producing the very best images possible.
Fortunately, Lightroom makes it easy to open images in Photoshop when the need arises, so
the workflow stays cohesive and efficient even when Lightroom doesn’t provide all the features
you need.
We’ll have to wait to see what the future holds for Lightroom. It is certainly conceivable that more
image-optimization features will be added, and that Lightroom will become more of a competitor
to Photoshop. In the meantime, the two work together to provide powerful solutions for digital
photographers.
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