Picassa vs Lightroom

[R. Wethereyet]

I am a long time Picassa user and I have recently purchased Lightroom 4 (LR). So far I have mixed feelings about Lightroom. I have heard/read many great things about LR, and as I work with it I see there is a huge amount of flexibility within the program.

 

My issue is that is is dreadfully slow and not overly user friendly (I have a few decades of experience figuring our complex software). I think once I spend enough time with it and learn the few hundred keyboard shortcuts, I will grow to like it more. When I compare it to Picassa, which is really good at all the basics - LR just seems like a lumbering, gadget laiden, Cadillac vs a lean mean Nissan 350Z. I run both programs on my laptop with 4G ram & 1.6Ghz AMD processor and lots of HD space.

 

I really want to get to like LR so I guess I will continue to watch the many LR tutorials on YouTube (B&H Photo has a terrific number of videos on how to use LR effectively). In time maybe I will be a LR guru, but for now I cringe when it pops up as it recognizes that I just plugged in an SD card with more photos to import.

 

Okay, now that I am done with my rant of frustration, how have other people found this software. I see from reading that some of the members have used LR3 for quite a while and I am sure that makes the transition a lot smoother.

 

Anyone care to share how their workflow proceeds from SD card to finished photo?

 

Thanks,

David

[pierces]

What are you running it on? I find it a bit pokey on my laptop with files from the A77 and NEX 7 (24mp) but it runs quite nicely on the desktop where I do most of my post work. It took me a month or so of playing with it to get used to the flow but after I got used to the layout and only a few keyboard shortcuts, I have found its tools able to eliminate probably 95% of my visits to PS or Elements. I also appreciate its ability to adjust RAW and JPEG using the same toolset. Now I have even less use for RAW than I did before. The non-destructive editing was good in theory but off-putting at first since all of those lovely corrections couldn't just be uploaded to PBase or Zenfolio without exporting a copy (Zenfolio has a plug-in but its a bit clunky). After I came up with an easy process of exporting to a temporary area, uploading and then deleting the local exports, I now find it easier than Picasa.

 

File structure was also an issue at first. Picasa is great for virtual collections and I became a bit lax in moving folders physically after moving them to their Picasa collection, so I spent several evenings reorganizing my files into folders and sub-folders that made it easier to find and track images in LR. Picasa's search feature is simpler and very powerful but LR has a pretty good metadata search that found all of my Picasa tags after I set Picasa to store tags in the EXIF. I do wish that LR would auto-scan the directories and add photos and metadata changes like Picasa does.

 

As a long-time Picasa user, I still appreciate it for its strengths and continue to use use Picasa for adding comments and for its terrific facial recognition feature for tagging.

 

As the best camera for all situations is two or three cameras, it seems to also be true for photo management software.

 

 

Dave

[TheRoff]

I have become a dedicated user of Lightroom. I used the Picassa software a couple of years ago, but haven’t even installed in on this newish computer.

 

When LR4 came out around March 2012 there were squawks of slowness all over. Apparently some people experienced it; others (myself included) did not. I haven’t read any recent gripes. You might check the Adobe forums for any recent issues.

 

For the most part, I don’t use the keyboard short cuts in Lightroom. I have found use of the sliders and adjustment brushes to be fairly intuitive. The learning curve is certainly less steep than say mastering the use of layered adjustments in Photoshop.

 

Workflow: I have a flash card reader built into my Dell. LR opens automatically and I bring all photos (RAW) into one LR catalog. I set the software to download them to my currently in use external hard drive. LR defaults to loading them into files by date and that works fine with me. If the photos are all of one subject, I tag them with key words as they are imported. I add key words as necessary later.

 

I would say that I can do 80% of the final processing using just LR. One can associate other editing software with LR so right clicking in the develop module will kick them into that software, but not change the original LR edits. I use Photoshop’s CS6 and Color Efex Pro mostly. When you save a file from the external editors, that image will be imported back into LR.

 

An extremely useful function in LR are the presets in the develop module. You can create your own and they immensely speed things up. I recently shot an event and had over 2000 images shot at an ISO of 800. They all needed the same noise reduction and sharpening, and that took 4 clicks max.

 

LR’s export function is very flexible. If the images are going to the web, one can set the size and export them to another file. If one is printing a photo, LR has an excellent print module with soft proofing to ensure you get the colors you think you are getting.

 

An excellent source of free Lightroom tips and information is “Lightroom Killer Tips,” If you are willing to spring for the cost of membership; the National Association of Photoshop Professionals is an excellent source of helpful tutorials and assistance.

 

Whew, that was long………..

 

Larry

[Crew News]

I find the sliders to be very easy to master and with just a few keys, you can pretty well do most anything. The option to preview printed images allows you to make adjustments to the video view to improve the printed copy.

 

Adobe Bridge is my choice to assign file names, keywords, and initial culling while aboard ship. Although I have LR on my accompanying laptop, I usually wait to improve my images with LR on my PC.

 

I subscribe to Lynda.com for $250/year to take all of the software training that I could ever want. The Lightroom and Photoshop courses are taught by working photographers. I also use Lynda.com for business software training. The Lynda.com course on WordPress made me comfortable enough to use Wordpress for my new website.

[chipmaster]

You need a new laptop 8GB minimum and of course dump the AMD chip!

[R. Wethereyet]

You need a new laptop 8GB minimum and of course dump the AMD chip!

 

Thanks for the advice Chipmaster... :-) I will check my budget on that option - that would probably solve a lot of my issues.

 

Thanks Dave, Larry & Crew for the detailed feedback. I will explore the links and options for additional training. I can see there are many advantages to LR, so I will stick with it and get a better understanding of the application.

 

Appreciate you comments.

David

[awboater]

If you have a marginal computer, LR will be a dog.

 

I ended up buying an iMac just for LR as my PC - vintage 2007 - was slow.

 

You just cannot beat a big screen like the iMac (or even PC desktop) provides for photo processing. You can buy a big screen for many laptops, so that might also be a solution.

[dileep]

You need a new laptop 8GB minimum and of course dump the AMD chip!

 

LR works fine on my quad core Intel processor and 64-bit Windows.

Caution: I am a former Intel CPU architect and current Microsoft engineer! :D

[pierces]

LR works fine on my quad core Intel processor and 64-bit Windows.

Caution: I am a former Intel CPU architect and current Microsoft engineer! :D

 

LR runs on Win 8 x64 just fine too...been using it on the laptop (i5, 8GB) for the beta and consumer preview and will be upgrading soon on the desktop (i7, 12GB). Very pleased with performance and compatibility.

 

As for monitors, it is true that big is better I have a 24" main with a 20" as a secondary in portrait mode. Lightroom lets you dedicate the second monitor to the image you are working on and it really helps during editing where you can have one view zoomed and see the effect of an adjustment. I am looking to move the 24" to the arm that holds the 20" and replace the 24" with one of the new Nixeus 27" monitors when they are shipping (pending reviews).

 

After a year of working almost exclusively on the laptop, I have fallen back in love with the big machine!

 

Dave

[Keith1010]

I do think you are much better starting on Picassa and using that for a while before trying other photo editing tools.

 

Keith