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Has Lightroom replaced your ACR?


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My budget limits me to Elements, so my ACR isn't nearly full-featured. For 300 bucks I've got PSE 5 + LR and all my RAW work is done in LR. I also find that the more I shoot, and the more I learn about LR, the less time I spend on local adjustments in PSE.
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It is nice to do as much as you can with the raw image, but as a rule you can not do local changes with them. Lightroom does have a tone curve, but it is not selective. If you want to adjust some of tones of a certain brightness, but not others, I don`t see how to do it.

 

I will probasbly upgrade CS2 to get the Lightroom raw converter.

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Yes.

 

I use Lr 1.1 to do everything, form cataloging, development..well basically to do everything it does! I still use Bridge when i work on file, just to select them and see them bigger when working on a project. I dont catalogue my PSD in Lr. Personal choice only.

 

Im also curious why Al dropped Lr for Bridge?

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Lightroom was one of those things I didn't think I would find any use for. ACR and bridge make a great combo. But I have to admit, just like previous posters I do 80% of my work in Lightroom. It is just such a simple tool to use. I now have a ton of photos that never go through bridge to PS3. I'm looking forward to when the SDK becomes available for Lightroom that should enhance its functionality so I have to say I, yes, I do use Lightroom more than ACR.

 

Joe

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Yes, I too find the combination of LR and PSE5 to be an ideal combination for me. I hardly ever use PSE anymore but I realize I need SOME sort of selective editing on occasion.

 

What I'd like to see is for Adobe to take the PSE editor and modify it to work as an optional add-on module for Lightroom, so I wouldn't need to export the photo to PSE. Instead, it would be just another module.

 

Then my life would be complete!

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There are many things about Lightroom that make it easier to use than Bridge/ACR, but I still use the latter in many cases.

 

Lightroom can be a PITA since you must "import" images rather than simply open a directory in which they reside. Secondly, directories set up under Bridge/ACR are portable if you cache the Bridge information in the same directory. You can move them to another drive, the contents to another directory or rename the directory and use them in Bridge without fuss.

 

With Lightroom, you must jump through hoops to "find" the images once they have been moved. You can't simply re-import them without deleting them from the existing data base.

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I think the question should have been;

 

 

Do you need Lr in your workflow? As for me Bridge is not enough to do what i need, or at least not design as simple as Lr i should say. ACR or Lr is almost the same, i still prefer Lr for is quick way of saving preset and applying them.

 

Could i live without Lr? not anymore since i know it well, but i could have live without it for sure if i didtn see what he can do. Bridge and ACR serve me well for years, i just find that Lr is more darkroom/production oriented.

 

Im curious to know from those who still use ACR and Bridge, what is your main reason? $$$? speed? need? thanks.

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ACR is out of my workflow completely...All Lightroom all the time. Adobe nailed it. I still use CS2 when necessary, but 80% of what I need to do from a RAW processing perspective and asset management can all be done in Lightroom.
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I'm a PSE3/ACR user who tried the Lightroom 1.0 trial for the full 30 days, then passed on it.

 

I'm looking for a tool to replace or integrate with PS, not just augment it. Unless/until Lightroom includes the ability to launch plug-ins (I use Noise Ninja and PT Lens) and the ability to pass the image directly to PS, it's not for me.

 

I also tried the 30-day trial of PSE5 since Adobe has elected to freeze PSE3 out of any further ACR updates, but the removal of certain icons I use constantly turned me off. (Maybe they'll fix that in PSE6?)

 

I did enjoy LR's interface, though.

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I downloaded a trial copy (v 1.0) off the Adobe website last week in order to try it out. I am quite happy with my previous setup - I was using ACR with CS2. I wanted to check out the improvements to ACR as I believe they are also built in to LR.

 

Well, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with LR. it was incredibly slow. What drove me nuts was the delay in image clarity when I moved sliders. In CS2 the image adjusts instantly to slider changes using WB, shadows, exposure ect. In LR the image became fuzzy as I moved the slider and took half a second to become clear and focused again. Reminded me of a copy of RawShooter Essentials I test drove last year. This time lag is simply intolerable when trying to do fine adjustments.

 

My rig is plenty fast enough to handle LR - it's duo core E6600 with 4 Gbs RAM.

 

LR converted the RAWs quickly - it just had unacceptable lag times with the images that I was trying to make adjustments to. I've since read about changes certain display preferences as well as noticing a new release just came out. I hope to give the new version a whirl, if I can. I deleted LR from my machine earler this week as it was crashing too frequently. We'll see if I can download the newer version again.

 

I really like CS2's ACR. If the improvement to LR 1.1 is not significant I'll probably just upgrade to CS3. I'd read so so many great reports about LR - probably the MAC version or the PC beta version. I was hoping the RAW engine would be an improvement over the already good ACR 3.7 in CS2.

 

I am praying the new release works out better for me.

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  • 2 years later...

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