Hi guys Im looking into some software for my photos and videos. DB has the most photographer Detailers IMO, so hopefully you guys can help me out. Im looking into lightroom or photoshop. but I dunno the difference b/w the two. help me choose one? Im getting more and more addictive to photography. because it's fascinating, fun, and helps with my business. I have a full time job, a detailer and starting on photography. Im just trying to stay busy, so I can take everything else in life that bothers me ( out ) and do stuff that makes me happy. So which ever is easier to work with? which offers the best image editing? etc.. TIA Franki
I use both, but I use Lightroom for 90% of the time. Lightroom is good at organizing your files and can do most of your edits. Photoshop does the real detail editing and creative editing. Well at least for me. Also keep in mind a new version is coming out shortly for both softwares.
Simply put, the best of the best is Photoshop. It is the benchmark on which all others are rated. If you've never had experience with photo editing software, then there will be a learning curve on all of them. If you do have previous experience, then you know what you like and it's pretty much guaranteed Photoshop can do it. Keeping in mind how popular Photoshop is, you can also easily find tutorials online to guide you step by step to do virtually anything. Lightroom is an "aftermarket" branch of Photoshop which helps manage and edit images, but the regular photoshop will be more than enough unless you get heavily into photo editing (at which point I can't help ) I have Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop 5.1 and I have no issues using them to do anything. I edit all my pictures with them and they do everything I need them to.
I downloaded a free trial of lightroom and here is the results im getting Before After I want to do something like this
For presenting your detailing results its much better to not mess with them. Anyone with an eye for retouch or knows what to look for can pretty easily see some of the better known detailers(no names here) have clearly given their photos a thorough going over. I think its much better to just leave them alone.
I want to make it clear that im not retouching it for detailing showcase, more like for prints or customers viewing pleasure. I know a lot of people are against photo editing, but I see some of us have wallpaper of ( photoshop edit pictures ) inside our garage. Thats what I want, edit a photo, print it and let the customer keep it ( as memories )
Please don't adjust photos when you're doing a Show 'n Shine. But I would recommend Lightroom if you're just messing around.
I'd recommend both, but I use Lightroom 3 more than PS. I'm also on a MacBook pro. Lightroom is easier for color correction, which seems to be what youre looking to do, based on your sample shots. Lightroom is also very good at organizing your files. If you'd like to try Photoshop, I'd suggest taking a look at Photoshop Elements. Its under $100, and can do just about as much as the full PS.
In that case check out Aperture. Thats what I use along with Photoshop. Although I don't need to use photoshop very much. I downloaded the trial of lightroom and really don't like the UI, but many people swear by it. Perhaps I'm just too familiar with Aperture. It does everything I need and now it's very reasonably priced in the App store ~$80. For a cheap "photoshop" look at Pixelmator, its very good value. My goto setup would be Aperture and Pixelmator if I wasn't already committed to Photoshop.
Im planing to do more video detailing showcases instead of images. so maybe it can show what work I really did, and won't be accused of photo editing hehe. Like I said : I doing this for customers, as a memory so they won't forget who detail their ride. hopefully they walk pass that picture everyday on their walls, instead of a business card in their pocket.
Adjusting photos for exposure, color correction, etc. is fine for detailing. If you were using film you would be doing the same thing, but with chemicals. Now if you are cloning things out, that's a different story.
I use LR3 all the time to alter exposure mistakes or white balance, but that's pretty much all I do. Oh, since I shoot RAW I also use LR to convert my files to JPEG. It's a little tricky to adjust flasy photography in LR (Especially if you are lazy like me and just hit "auto" and sync all the pictures. Keep in mind that when you use flash to light a subject your main concern is to light up the subject, and most of the time everything else is/will be underexposed, so when you hit the auto button in LR it tries to "fix" everything else that is underexposed in the picture, it's a little annoying at first but you just need to play with exposure a little bit in LR to get what you want.
Mike, from what you just said, I gather that you can pretty much use a "preset" in LR to give the same basic adjustment to all your pics if they are all opened with LR at the same time? Is that correct?
Yup, I have a custom user preset that's basically auto adjustment. So what I do is I select all photos, load user preset, which auto adjusts everything, and I quickly skim through all my pictures to see which ones need exposure/whatever other adjustments. 200 or so pictures usually takes me less than half an hour from beginning to finish lol (not counting the time it takes to convert from RAW to JPEG)
