I have over 30gb of travel photography after about two months abroad.
Should I pirate lightroom to go through them with relative ease (cropping a bit, picking favorites) or just sort manually by making forlders and shit and just deleting what I don't want?
use bridge first
>>2777231
my preferred combo is a total commander + irfan view, I haven't found anything faster than this yet
>>2777231
It won't matter what you do with your photos, cause youre not famous
like me
So you can afford a vacation, a nice camera bit are to cheap for 10 bucks CC. Absolutely degenerate
>>2777546
Not OP but in his defense I am a "if it ain't" kind of photographer and don't often read up on tutorials, software or even gear (although I do gear faggot out and binge every now and then).
I was still using PS CS3 and LR4 up until quite recently and only upgraded when LR5.6 was out. I've never really had a need to upgrade as my system hasn't had any catastrophic failure.
If I had to start again (say new computer build or something) I would probably fork over some cash. I pay for Netflix after all and have been leeching of Adobe since PS7!
>>2777231
My workflow is Lightroom + AlienSkin Exposure and done. Lightroom can be a tad slow because of the bells and whistles but I find it to be a complete solution.
But the thing about LR is this personally, to get the most out of it you have to make it part of your 'workflow'. When I first started using LR I was young, stupid and didn't really have a work flow. If you develop good habits (come home, upload photos into well organised folders, PP where needed) LR will be a really complete solution.
If you make the mistake I did and try and use it 'casually' I'm sure you will just be irritated at the needless complexity. Lightroom is what got me back into photography in some ways as I admired to step by step "Development Modules" laid out in the top bar (Exposure, Develop, and a pretty cool import module). It forced me to be meticulous and orderly and get my shit together. Less clutter means more time having fun taking pictures.
>>2777622
As a benefit the non-destructive means of editing is really excellent. I can right click a photo and have LR automatically generate a .tif based copy attached to the original for me to edit in Photoshop. Once the edits are done, close PS and the edits populate the LR workspace immediately (really nifty). By storing minor edits in a metadata file and major edits in separate copies you really can be assured of the integrity of your work (and if you like, the property of your clients). This is a really nice piece of mind when shooting paid work!
Lightroom also has really robust batch-exporting functions built in. So if you want to give your photos to someone or want to DVD backup your photos (but at smaller and more sensible JPG sizes) you can really customise your level of digital output quality. When uploading photos on various websites with different submission criteria (especially for technical photography) this can be helpful. If you watermark your images this batch processing can take care of that.
One super important thing I forgot to mention, if you set your camera dates correctly LR can automatically search and sort by EXIF data. Cool, right? It allows you some freedom (if you so choose) to adopt more creative and memorable file naming conventions (or forgo them completely)! If you found that you liked throwing photos into named folders rather than by date you could do that! If you ever DID need to find photos from a particular date you could just search via EXIF data, all streamlined into the interface. This point only holds true if you make sure to always set your camera data. Remember what I said about LR forcing good habits?
So in summary, Lightroom is a fucking awesome bit of software. But its benefit only comes if you are disciplined to use it to the fullest!
wait casuals actually buy Lr?
a y y
>>2777231
Use Darktable or Rawtherapee instead.
>>2777759
Darktable masterrace
>>2777767
Just a tip, don't use Darktables color fringing remove module. It will dull out the colors in your photos.
>>2777773
thanks man
>>2777231
You can seriously afford camera gear and to go travel for two months, but not Lightroom?
It's easily the biggest bargain of any software.
>>2777231
It's $10 a month, dude, plus you get photoshop and all of the mobile apps, just buy it.
>>2777306
who is this new trip/meme
>>2778305
it's a novelty trip
>>2777264
Why?
LR is a better replacement for Bridge.
