Today, photography captures our lives better than any other medium available to us. It is considered as art and also happens to be the most democratic mode of expression. It captures moments so you can safely keep them for a lifetime. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that photography is the closest that we have ever gotten to freezing time.
A photograph is essentially an impression made by light on film. It has now evolved to be captured and stored in digital memory. Even motion pictures that consist of film and video fall under the umbrella of photography. With the way that technology has evolved, we are now able to edit and manipulate these photographs to better suit or needs.
Adobe’s Photo Editing Tools
Two of the most popular photography tools developed by Adobe are Photoshop and Lightroom. When Adobe first released Photoshop, it would allow us to purchase Photoshop and Adobe’s other editing software independently. However, Adobe has now grouped its software into various categories, so if you wish to use an application, it’s more economical to purchase the whole package.
Photoshop and Lightroom are clubbed together in Adobe’s photography subscription. So if you decide to use one, you’re likely to end up with both. Once you have access to both the software, you’re likely to wonder which one should you use? The answer to that largely depends on what you wish to do with your photographs.
Lightroom or Photoshop?
Photoshop was released by Adobe back in 1990 when digital photography was on the rise. Lightroom was introduced much later in 2007. So why did Adobe decide to launch a second photo editing software? A lot of people believe that Lightroom is essentially a more compact version of Photoshop, which mind you, it is not. The two software might have a lot in common, they are built to perform very differently.
Lightroom is more like light treatment, while Photoshop is capable of performing surgery. Most issues can be taken care of by light treatment, some require surgery, and some may need a bit of both.
What Can You Achieve With Photoshop?
Photoshop is a much more complex software that is also able to do a lot more than just photo-editing. It is used not only by photographers but also by graphic designers, artists, architects, fashion designers, animators, and the list goes on. It is one of Adobe’s most versatile software and has a lot of users that rely on it heavily. When it comes to editing photographs, Photoshop can do everything that Lightroom can do and much more.
You could cut out objects from your image and shift them or even remove the distracting elements from your photograph completely. You can edit your portraits to remove blemishes and dark circles. You could change the color of your subject or anything else in the image. You could stretch multiple images together to create a panorama. There is no end to what you can accomplish with this software. However, what you can achieve with Photoshop largely depends on how skilled and experienced you are with it. If you know Photoshop well enough, the sky’s the limit.
If Photoshop Can Do Everything, Why Use Lightroom at All?
Lightroom is very different from Photoshop since the main function is to edit photographs. If you only wish to do some light editing and don’t have the time and energy to invest in mastering Photoshop, Lightroom will work just fine for you. Here’s something that Lightroom can do better than Photoshop; Lightroom is capable of editing and organizing a large number of images at once. This function alone is reason enough for most photographers to use Lightroom.
Lightroom, unlike Photoshop, is database driven. It is built to read your images and sort them for you. It even lets you tag your images (edited or not) with the help of keywords. Now any experienced photographer knows how cumbersome the task of sorting images can be. So in terms of image sorting capabilities, Lightroom takes the cake. Along with managing your data, Lightroom also enables you to upload your photographs directly to other platforms. It is also much simpler to use than Photoshop and will let you edit your photographs in batches.
Verdict
If this is your first time using Adobe’s editing tools, Lightroom would be the better software for you to begin with. It is the simpler one of the two, and it will be easier for you to get the hang of. Starting with Lightroom will also make using Photoshop much more comfortable. Now that we have established how the two software serves different functions, Adobe has made life pretty simple by clubbing the two together. Both the software have their respective strengths, so why limit yourself to one? Photoshop is essentially an image editor, whereas Lightroom is an image manager with limited editing tools. Through Adobe Bridge, you can open and work on your images on both the software and get the best of both worlds!
No comments:
Post a Comment