Photoshop or Lightroom Training Courses?

Photoshop or Lightroom Training?

Posted on 16th February 2020 by Greta Powell

Photoshop or Lightroom Training?

The question is exactly what do you want to do with your image editing software. Obviously you want to edit photographs but when making the choice between Photoshop or Lightroom training you need to be a little more specific. Do you want to simply edit images, do you work with large amounts of images, want to create graphics, design social media images and animated GIF’s the list seems almost never-ending.

Which do you choose? The answer to that is it really depends on is what you need to do and the particular project /s at hand. So this is a post listing the key parts of each piece of software and their use in certain projects.

In this post we take a look at both pieces of software and way up the pros and cons. Incidentally Adobe provide a number of different subscription options over on their website you can choose from.

What is Lightroom?

Again it depends on what you want to do but anyone looking to work with photography should seriously consider looking into it. If you shoot in RAW, have a huge amount of images to process then this is the software tailored towards both amateur and professional photographers. It includes many of Photoshop’s tools which are custom to modern photography.

Do you have large collections of photos?

If you work with large amounts of photos then this is the choice for you because Lightrooms ability to deal with image management is quite astounding. It will help you to import, manage and find your photos within it’s own visual image database known as a catalogue. It might be worth noting here that unlike Photoshop Lightroom is a none destructive image editor so you don’t need to worry about saving as any edits are automatically stored in the Lightroom catalogue. It is a full on database of your work, edits and workflow history.

Benefits of using catalogues in Lightroom

In fact the latest versions of Lightroom take full advantage of Adobes Sensei technology. The following quote is taken from Adobe’s website.

“Looking for shots of your cousin or favorite trips to the water? Adobe Sensei machine learning recognizes people and themes, making it a snap to find a photo or create an album?

Lightroom CC for mobile

Lightroom is also available as a mobile app which gives you the option of processing images out in the field as you work. When you subscribe to the you get access to both Adobe Classic CC and Lightroom CC Mobile for your digital devices. There is actually little difference between the two in the way they work but with the mobile app all images are stored on the Cloud which means you have a round-trip access to all your photography. These can then be synced via the Cloud and opened, edited and published from different devices.

Lightroom Camera Feature

Lightroom Mobile also comes with a camera feature which to be fair is better than many of the default device cameras. Known as Professional Shooting Mode it allows you to shoot in DNG (Digital Negative – open, lossless RAW image format) and also provides Manual Focus, Focus Peaking and Exposure Compensation.

Lightroom Retouching & Enhancement Tools

Of course Lightroom would be of little use if you couldn’t actually edit your photo’s would it? Its selection of tools are second to none and the Develop Tap lets you enhance your photography quickly and easily. As can be seen from the screen shot below you can adjust tonal curves, change colour, enhance colour and apply sharpening. It also does a very mean job with Split Toning which is quite a popular technique at the time of writing this.

I know what the next question is and what is Split Toning?

Basically it lets you apply toning values to different parts of an image based on their luminance which gives you the ability to add individual saturated colour to both Highlights and Shadows.

Note! – We cover Split Toning on the Lightroom Course

Lightroom Adjustment Brushes

Contrary to common belief it is is possible to use Lightroom to isolate individual areas of a photograph which can then be edited and manipulated in the same way as a complete photo. This is done by using Lightroom’s Adjustment brushes – for anyone interested in the brushes there is both a graphic & video tutorial here – Lightroom Adjustment Brushes

What is Photoshop?

So lets take a look at Photoshop which is probably the most famous piece of software across the globe. It’s very name evoking image manipulation and editing on a grand scheme. Once known solely for its photo editing prowess it is now used by graphic designers, content creators, web publishers and photographers amongst many. It is more than just a photo editing tool alone, today it has the power to create & edit video, animations, create web banners for social media and the list goes on – it is a full on visual creative tool.

Perhaps it should be known as the image editing graphic design tool?

Photoshop Basic Recolouring

As with Lightroom you can recolour images as shown in the example below where we are just working at a very basic level using Hue & Saturation Adjustment Layers.

Note! Adjustment layers are part of Photoshop’s none destructive workflow and another part of the Photoshop Course.

Photoshop Layers

Photoshop is a bit of all things to all men and if you are looking at combining your photography with some design or fantasy elements then this is probably the best choice. Photoshop’s main feature is layers. Everything happens on its own individual layer – including text, colour manipulation, image restoration and collages. You could describe them as sheets of transparent acetate and if transparency (opacity) has been applied see the layers below. Layers can be moved to reposition or resize content or their opacity changed to give the transparent areas.

You can see an example in this short Basic Layers in Photoshop Tutorial on Youtube. Basic Layers Photoshop Video Tutorial

Photoshop Animation & Video

Photoshop also possesses the wonderful Timeline and supports both animations in the form of GIFs and full video creation editing tools. It is not Premier Pro but if you want to create quick action videos for social media or the web then it does a more than reasonable job.

What is Photoshop?

Photoshop or Lightroom Training?
which is it to be?

If you are an amateur or professional photographer looking to edit, retouch and catalogue large, or small then really Adobe Lightroom is the one of the for you. But anyone wishing to create and edit designs and photograph such social media graphics, add text, design flyers or create animations /video then Photoshop would be the better option.

What does Greta Powell Training offer?

There are wide range of image editing training courses on the site all of which can be tailored to suit you. For example if you chose Adobes Photography Plan then you could opt to combine parts of the Lightroom Course with Photoshop to create a unique course for yourself or choose one of the dedicated training courses onsite. My specialism is tailored training courses so if there is a particular route you want to follow then please get in touch via the contacts page to arrange a call back to discuss further

You can view all our Adobe Training on our courses page here

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