On my current tour, only one session of the entire day is about post processing. It’s called “Scott’s 7-Point System for Lightroom” and before I start that session, I always ask the crowd for a show of hands to let me know who is already using Lightroom. Doesn’t matter which city, or which country, nearly every single hand goes up in the room. So I then ask, “OK, who is NOT using Lightroom?” and it’s literally just a handful of people out of 300 or 400 photographers in the room.
Usually during the break between classes those folks come up to tell me they don’t see the advantage of Lightroom, and to them it just looks like a replacement for the Bridge and Camera Raw, which they’re already using. It’s hard to really explain how much better Lightroom really is, especially workflow, but I thought this two-part message I got on my Facebook page is kind of eyeopening. I hope it helps those “last of the Lightroom Holdouts” realize that there’s a whole lot more to Lightroom than they realize. Here’s the note:
“…I just purchased your Adobe Lightroom book and I’m trying to decide what to do. I have both Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC (it came as a package deal), but I can’t decide why I need Lightroom when I’m doing everything I need to do in Photoshop. I’m comfortable with Photoshop so I’m wondering why I should learn how to use lightroom. Am I not understanding something here?? Is Lightroom sort of a professional version of Elements but not quite Photoshop? I just don’t get it. Can you explain this to me? “
“Ok, now I get it. I’m on chapter 8 of your “Lightroom CC for digital photographers” book and I have completely embraced Lightroom. I love it more than Photoshop now. Thanks for your book, it has been a great help.”
I talked with a woman at my San Francisco seminar on Wednesday who said the exact same thing. She just doesn’t understand why she would want to use it, even though she has Lightroom as part of the Adobe $10 a month photography bundle deal. I sent her to an online class I did called “Learn Lightroom CC in One Hour” and after that hour, she’ll be up and running. She might not have that “ah ha!” moment during that one hour…but it’s coming.
Lightroom is something you just have to jump into with both feet, and before you know it you’ll have that moment where it all suddenly clicks, and you’ll realize what you’ve been missing for many years now. You’ll wish you had gotten on board sooner. It’s like that.
A moving target
This morning I’m just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee doing a keynote presentation at The Great Smoky Mountains Photography Summit, then I’m off to the airport to head to Kansas City. You know what I could use? A day off. LOL!!! No rest for the weary! :)
Hope you all have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday. Hope to share some photos with you then.
Scott, I have been reading about people having trouble with Lightroom being slow or lagging with the newest update. Should I wait until this is resolved before jumping into Lightroom?
Hi Scott,
First off … What happened to Down and Dirty Friday? :-) Second, I have just the reverse reaction to PS and LR. I jumped into LR with both feet and after soooo many problems with it not working, slow, you name it; and it just gets worse with each update! I loved it in the beginning and have all your books and listen to you, Matt and RC, but man it’s a log around my post processing neck. So, I’ve jumped into PS-CC with both feet, and I love ACR. All the sliders work, its fast, I can go back and forth because of the ACR filter in PS-CC, and not add another photo to my folder. My workflow is much faster and I have fun … not screaming at the monitor because the slider doesn’t work or waiting to redraw after I’ve done something. I have an iMac with 32GB of memory and 2.9Ghz processor and a 7200rpm 1TB HD and it takes 30 secs for LR-CC to start. I’ve talked to Adobe, Wacom, reset my preferences and nothing changes. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Anyway, I love your books and seminars and I’ve learned a lot from you and have improved my photography and post processing tremendously!
Thanks,
Dennis