What it is
Lightroom is Adobe's application for organising and developing photographs. It reads raw camera files and edits them non-destructively: exposure, white balance, colour and lens corrections are stored as instructions, and the original file is never changed. Edits can be synced across many photos at once. That makes it practical to grade a whole shoot to one consistent look.
It comes in two forms. Lightroom is cloud-based and syncs across desktop, phone and web, while Lightroom Classic keeps a local catalogue on the computer. Both handle keywords, collections and presets, and both hand images to Photoshop when a photo needs pixel-level retouching. Exports can be resized and sharpened for the web in one step.
How I use it
- Part of the in-house photo side of my work, next to Photoshop.
- Photos for client websites, prepared by the same person who builds the page.
- Keeps a large set of photos consistent in colour and size before they go on the web.
Lightroom is the right tool when there are hundreds of photos to sort, grade consistently and export at the right size. I keep it in the toolkit because photos for client sites are done in-house, and a batch of shots needs to look like one set rather than a pile of separate images.
Questions
What is the difference between Lightroom and Photoshop?
Lightroom organises and grades whole sets of photos. Photoshop is for detailed work on a single image, such as retouching or compositing.
Can you supply the photos for our new website?
Yes. Video and photos are done in-house, by the same person who builds the page.