Post-Production Software
I have been trying a few different applications for post-production of late - Picture Project just is not up to scratch and Picasa is only marginally better. The problem is that all the evals I'm trying, which incidentally all seem to be from Adobe, are timebombed for 30 days. I have recently tried Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, followed by Adobe Photoshop CS2 and I have been playing with Adobe Lightroom beta (that was available for download & feedback on labs.adobe.com) since it was released for Windows mid-2006 (I think it was v3.0 beta back then). Unfortunately a commercial version Lightroom (version 1.0) has just been released and so the beta (4.1) is due to expire tomorrow (end of Feb 2007). So, of course, I installed a trial version of Adobe Lightroom 1.0, which (surprise, suprise) is timebombed for 30 days. <sigh>
I have to say the new version of Lightroom (1.0) is quite a bit better than beta 4.1. With the late beta I had huge issues with speed degradation when I got too much metadata in my library. I thought it was initially the number of photos in my library so I started culling the old ones that I had processed and didn't need in the library any more. However, this was extremely slow & painful (due to my speed issues at the time) and made no apparent difference. So then I started culling keywords (I was up to about 400 or so). This was also a desparately slowly process and seemed to make little difference. So when I got down to about 350 keywords & < 100 photos I thought "stuff it - I'm going to install the trial version 1.0 anyway, so I may as well try an 'upgrade' install and if that doesn't fix it then do a fresh install and start my library from scratch".
As it turned out the upgrade install went very smoothly and the speed issues I had on 4.1 beta instantly went away. Yipee!! And what's more, Adobe added a few more nice features to Lightroom, such as a Clone/Heal tool a la Photoshop. Very nice. I still miss the ability to play with layers but Lightroom is an excellent alternative and is much cheaper than the full blown CS2 (I think the initial commercial release of Lightroom is slated to go for about AUD$350 whereas the full Photoshop CS2 is about AUD$1,200 RRP...or at least somewhere in that ballpark - too rich for my blood).
There were a few things I liked & disliked about the various products. I loved Adobe Bridge, which comes with Photoshop CS2 (also came with a couple earlier versions of Photoshop I think). The way you could manage your metadata was great (and fast, unlike the Lightroom beta). However, it didn't allow you to zoom in more than the confines of your window (it didn't like adding scrollbars to an image window)...pfft! I also tried iView MediaPro (once again a timebombed trial - 21 days this time), which has recently been bought by Microsoft and is soon to be released as Microsoft Media Expressions, and I loved it. The way you could zoom in to 100% (or more) and compare the same viewpoint on 2 shots simultaneously was great - excellent for culling bad (or at least "worse") shots. However, iView was solely for cataloging & metadata, not editting. But it did a fantastic job at it. Since playing with Lightroom 1.0 though I see Adobe has improved the comparing mode of the library module so that you can do the same thing as iView in terms of zooming in nice and close and comparing 2 images side-by-side with the same viewpoint. Also, Lightroom allows you to see a variable number of shots in the viewing window at the same time with some pretty cool automatic image sizing & placement.
I got very used to playing with layers in CS2 and in particular using layer masks to reveal only bits of my upper layers (or lower layers even). The more I played with layer masks the more indispensible I found them. And then, when my trial copy expired and I installed Photoshop Elements 5.0 (trial) on my home PC, I discovered that you could apply layer masks in Elements to adjustment layers only! NOOOO!!!! What about layer masks on my other layers; for example, when I copy a layer, sharpen it and then use a mask to smoothly reveal only part of the sharpened layer (ie. selective sharpening)??? D'oh!
I have to say the Elements UI was much more polished than the CS2 UI. That's probably my biggest gripe in CS2 - the user interface. You get used to it but if you see PSE 5.0 then you think "why couldn't Adobe just polish up their CS2 interface to make it look half nice???". I have yet to download & install the Photoshop CS3 beta trial, mainly because it's only a 2 day trial (if you're not a registered Photoshop user) so I'm waiting for when I have a couple days to play with it to get the most out of the eval. Hopefully they will have polished the UI a bit more. Lightroom probably is the best in terms of metadata & workflow as I can catalog, rate, cull, tag & edit a 200+ image shoot much faster than I could with Bridge + CS2 or Photoshop Elements (by the way, the Photoshop Elements "Organizer" sucks big time!). If Photoshop Elements shipped with Adobe Bridge then it would be a much more viable product, although for the price (about AUD$150 I think) it's very hard to pass up as it contains very similar functionality to the core of CS2, albeit missing a couple fundamental bits such as layer masks (on all layers, not just adjustment layers).
So, do I go Lightroom + Elements (for about $500), or Lightroom on its own (for about $350) and abandon the idea of the very flexible editting of Photoshop, or Lightroom + CS2 (for a very painful $1500 or thereabouts), or CS2 with Bridge (for a slightly less painful $1200) and just go with the less efficient metadata/cataloging workflow, or fork out the money for iView + CS2 ($1400-ish) or iView + PSE 5.0 ($400-ish)? Or do I hope that a long lost distant Aunt with a castle in Scottland dies and leaves me a wad of cash? Or do I conceed that I'll never be able to afford any of them and keep plodding along with Picasa (which is a great product for what it costs (free download from Google) but is such a disappointment after playing with Photoshop & Lightroom)? Do I trial the Nikon editors (how can they rival Adobe's offerings?)?
So much to buy, so little money... Seems to be the way with me - I have a list about $10,000 long of Nikkor lenses alone that I also want to buy, not to mention parts for my home PC, a better Nikon body, a good LCD screen for home, a good inkjet (such as an Epson Stylus Photo R2400) for home, a few extra bits such as a battery grip, Manfrotto tripod & ball head, etc., etc. And there's always the usually bills to pay, food to buy, kids to educate, ... <sigh> <mumble>...<mumble>...<mumble>...
I have to say the new version of Lightroom (1.0) is quite a bit better than beta 4.1. With the late beta I had huge issues with speed degradation when I got too much metadata in my library. I thought it was initially the number of photos in my library so I started culling the old ones that I had processed and didn't need in the library any more. However, this was extremely slow & painful (due to my speed issues at the time) and made no apparent difference. So then I started culling keywords (I was up to about 400 or so). This was also a desparately slowly process and seemed to make little difference. So when I got down to about 350 keywords & < 100 photos I thought "stuff it - I'm going to install the trial version 1.0 anyway, so I may as well try an 'upgrade' install and if that doesn't fix it then do a fresh install and start my library from scratch".
As it turned out the upgrade install went very smoothly and the speed issues I had on 4.1 beta instantly went away. Yipee!! And what's more, Adobe added a few more nice features to Lightroom, such as a Clone/Heal tool a la Photoshop. Very nice. I still miss the ability to play with layers but Lightroom is an excellent alternative and is much cheaper than the full blown CS2 (I think the initial commercial release of Lightroom is slated to go for about AUD$350 whereas the full Photoshop CS2 is about AUD$1,200 RRP...or at least somewhere in that ballpark - too rich for my blood).
There were a few things I liked & disliked about the various products. I loved Adobe Bridge, which comes with Photoshop CS2 (also came with a couple earlier versions of Photoshop I think). The way you could manage your metadata was great (and fast, unlike the Lightroom beta). However, it didn't allow you to zoom in more than the confines of your window (it didn't like adding scrollbars to an image window)...pfft! I also tried iView MediaPro (once again a timebombed trial - 21 days this time), which has recently been bought by Microsoft and is soon to be released as Microsoft Media Expressions, and I loved it. The way you could zoom in to 100% (or more) and compare the same viewpoint on 2 shots simultaneously was great - excellent for culling bad (or at least "worse") shots. However, iView was solely for cataloging & metadata, not editting. But it did a fantastic job at it. Since playing with Lightroom 1.0 though I see Adobe has improved the comparing mode of the library module so that you can do the same thing as iView in terms of zooming in nice and close and comparing 2 images side-by-side with the same viewpoint. Also, Lightroom allows you to see a variable number of shots in the viewing window at the same time with some pretty cool automatic image sizing & placement.
I got very used to playing with layers in CS2 and in particular using layer masks to reveal only bits of my upper layers (or lower layers even). The more I played with layer masks the more indispensible I found them. And then, when my trial copy expired and I installed Photoshop Elements 5.0 (trial) on my home PC, I discovered that you could apply layer masks in Elements to adjustment layers only! NOOOO!!!! What about layer masks on my other layers; for example, when I copy a layer, sharpen it and then use a mask to smoothly reveal only part of the sharpened layer (ie. selective sharpening)??? D'oh!
I have to say the Elements UI was much more polished than the CS2 UI. That's probably my biggest gripe in CS2 - the user interface. You get used to it but if you see PSE 5.0 then you think "why couldn't Adobe just polish up their CS2 interface to make it look half nice???". I have yet to download & install the Photoshop CS3 beta trial, mainly because it's only a 2 day trial (if you're not a registered Photoshop user) so I'm waiting for when I have a couple days to play with it to get the most out of the eval. Hopefully they will have polished the UI a bit more. Lightroom probably is the best in terms of metadata & workflow as I can catalog, rate, cull, tag & edit a 200+ image shoot much faster than I could with Bridge + CS2 or Photoshop Elements (by the way, the Photoshop Elements "Organizer" sucks big time!). If Photoshop Elements shipped with Adobe Bridge then it would be a much more viable product, although for the price (about AUD$150 I think) it's very hard to pass up as it contains very similar functionality to the core of CS2, albeit missing a couple fundamental bits such as layer masks (on all layers, not just adjustment layers).
So, do I go Lightroom + Elements (for about $500), or Lightroom on its own (for about $350) and abandon the idea of the very flexible editting of Photoshop, or Lightroom + CS2 (for a very painful $1500 or thereabouts), or CS2 with Bridge (for a slightly less painful $1200) and just go with the less efficient metadata/cataloging workflow, or fork out the money for iView + CS2 ($1400-ish) or iView + PSE 5.0 ($400-ish)? Or do I hope that a long lost distant Aunt with a castle in Scottland dies and leaves me a wad of cash? Or do I conceed that I'll never be able to afford any of them and keep plodding along with Picasa (which is a great product for what it costs (free download from Google) but is such a disappointment after playing with Photoshop & Lightroom)? Do I trial the Nikon editors (how can they rival Adobe's offerings?)?
So much to buy, so little money... Seems to be the way with me - I have a list about $10,000 long of Nikkor lenses alone that I also want to buy, not to mention parts for my home PC, a better Nikon body, a good LCD screen for home, a good inkjet (such as an Epson Stylus Photo R2400) for home, a few extra bits such as a battery grip, Manfrotto tripod & ball head, etc., etc. And there's always the usually bills to pay, food to buy, kids to educate, ... <sigh> <mumble>...<mumble>...<mumble>...
posted by Mike Hodgson | 16:12
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4 comments
