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Thread: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

  1. #1
    Do or do not. There is no try.
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    Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    So now that I'm getting this shiny new scanner (V750 Pro) I need to get some software. I doubt I need a full CS, but am thinking Lightroom ought to suffice for retouching old family photos (my wife's mainly, not commercial), basic adjustments on my to-be-scanned LF negatives, and simple editing of our travel digi-snaps. Maybe someday I'll scan my old 35mm slides, too, and her old color negs.

    I see B&H currently list Lightroom 3 for $240 and Lightroom 4 for $145. It seems a no-brainer, am I missing something?

    Oh yeah, WinXP if it matters.

  2. #2
    Luc Benac lbenac's Avatar
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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    Steve,

    I beg to differ. I found that CS5 is a blessing for its content aware spot healing brush tool. For cleaning a scan negative it makes life a lot easier. I found that I have my routine recorded as actions in CS and do not use much of LR editing tools outside of the split toning. My 2 cents.

    Luc
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  3. #3
    Corran's Avatar
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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    No brainer? Correct because Lightroom 4 DOES NOT WORK on XP.

    However, like lbenac mentions Photoshop is a much more capable piece of software for editing of scans, in my opinion anyway. Lightroom is for "digital developing." They really live happily together for different tasks.
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  4. #4

    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    Lightroom stinks for working with LF scans; it's way to slow compared to Photoshop. Lightroom doesn't use a scratch disc like PS, so you'll need a fast processor and LOTS of RAM to work on those files. It's also constantly making new preview files for you as you edit, and because it doesn't use a scratch disc, it's writing/reading to your file storage drive constantly while you edit. NOT FUN.

  5. #5
    Do or do not. There is no try.
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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    Wow! I'm glad I asked! I guess it'll have to be C$something, which costs almost as much as the scanner. Sigh...

  6. #6
    Corran's Avatar
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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    Try Adobe Elements. It might be just fine for what you need to do.
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  7. #7

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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    My laptop is about a year old (Intel i7 processor with 8GB RAM) running Windows 7. My 4x5 scans from my V700 are about 30MB (4494x3551) and Lightroom 3 is excellent with these images. I recently upgraded to Lightroom 4 and it's just fine!

    My vote is for Lightroom.

  8. #8

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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    I am running lightroom 3 and I think it works just fine. The only thing I use CS5 for is spotting for dust. You don't need a scratch disk if you work with a guide file. Check Ken Lee's site for a tutorial on working with guide files. His write-up is for photoshop, but the concept is exactly the same for lightroom. You simply two files for each image. One high res and one low res. You make all your adjustments on the low res image then copy and paste then to the high res image. Really easy to do and really efficient. In lightroom everything transfers perfectly.

  9. #9

    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    J - try 600MB to 1.4 GB files...it's a different story.

    Dexmeister, I'm a big advocate of using the guide file approach when you can, however it falls down if you need to start doing things like Apply Image in PS (not even available in Lightroom), or if you need to do roundtrips to different color spaces (also not something available in Lightroom). All of the develop module is available in PS through ACR, and there's a ton of really powerful tools that aren't available in Lightroom.

  10. #10

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    Re: Lightroom 3 vs. Lightroom 4

    I completely agree that photoshop is greatly more powerful than lightroom, but for what I do, lightroom with a guide file works wonders. FWIW, my scans come in at >500 mb and my guide file is >40 mb.

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