Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory

Goodbye Photoshop?

Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: Gunnar Kallenberg
Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:57 pm (PDT)

I've used Photoshop since version 2.5. The first thing I ever did was a 10x13 NASA calendar, inside B/W but cover of course full color. Scan from service bureau here in LA. - I had 8 MB of ram and a hard drive (Maxtor) of 1.3 gig. The ram served both Photoshop and the system (Mac, sys 7) I always felt Photoshop was a "great" program in that it was powerful and did allow you to do almost anything. But I never felt it was "elegant" or "outstanding" as a tool for adjusting or polishing PHOTOGRAPHS or scans as the case was for me. It was a great image editing package.

Early this year i finally went from film based photography to digital and the choice to go with Nikon was easy because I already had a couple of lenses I knew I would be able to use. But there was another thing that attracted me greatly to Nikon as well and that was the raw (file) processing package that would come with the camera - Capture NX.

Finally, an entirely new way of dealing with digital pictures was available - and THIS way is supremely elegant (in my opinion) and amounts to a truly new paradigm. many think the program is unintuitive, but only if one expects a Photoshop like environment, which it certainly does not provide. Capture NX enables an elegant way of working with PHOTOGRAPHS. And what you save is non-destructive and always adjustable - without a single layer or mask added...!

But the thing is also that the pictures I get from the camera are so fantastically good that very little needs to be done. And what little needs to be done is accomplished with superb elegance and simplicity with Capture NX. Only one thing is missing for me - a clone brush...and for this reason I am forced to save as TIF and visit Photoshop. But not for long - I'm still using version 1.3.4 and there is now a Capture NX 2 which includes a type of cloning tool - and with that it really will be "goodbye Photoshop".

This is great news for all, because without meaningful competition Photoshop has been allowed to "linger" in the past with only superficial changes to its fundamental functionality, but admittedly substantial improvements in other areas - just my opinion. Once there was ColorStudio and there was competition, but ColorStudio - by some thought to be the better program - was "defeated" and there was no "real" competition left. - There was Live Picture, but they almost apologized for any impression that they were out to "kill" Photoshop. So they too became Adobe's roadkill.

Capture NX isn't perfect by any means - it's slow, sometimes very slow...but there is so very little I need to do that it doesn't matter much. I will continue to use Photoshop for creative purposes, but not for processing digital photography. it's a great feeling.

gunnar kullenberg
la, ca
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:10 am (PDT)

Gunnar,

The recent version of Lightroom has many people adjusting their workflows and expressing thoughts exactly like yours.

Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "David Story"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:10 am (PDT)

Hi Gunnar,

Glad to hear you've successfully made the switch to digital. I have to say that working here at Adobe, we also felt that the new world of digital requires new solutions. This includes both the minimal-as-possible, non-destructive "darkroom-like editing" of both JPEGs and RAWs, and dealing with the ever-growing mountain of digital images. Because digital capture is "free," many more photos get made. Sometimes it's like finding a needle in a haystack to get them back, and dealing with variations on a single image is a hassle.

Above all, we all want more speed and power, with elegance and simplicity. You mention those above, and I'm glad you're happy with your current solution.

I just wanted to point out that there are other solutions available, including both Aperture and Lightroom. I'm biased having worked on Lightroom, but I really love the tools and the philosophy of Lightroom, and there are lots more folks out there who feel the same.

Lightroom was designed from the ground up NOT to be Photoshop, but to deal with digital the way a photographer wants to do it. Quickly, elegantly, powerfully...finding, rating, printing, and sharing, all with the best image processing possible. Lightroom 1.0 shipped last year, and Lightroom 2.0 shipped this month.

Lightroom has all the features you mentioned, plus a real Healing Brush, plus local adjustments -- sort of like we used to dodge and burn, but nondestructively, re-adjustably, and both powerful and easy.

OK, if that sounded like a sales pitch, it's because I really, really like using Lightroom, and I've used them all: Aperture, Bridge, Capture NX, iView Media Pro, Photoshop Elements (especially the windows Organizer), RAW Shooter, the list goes on...

I'm glad you're happy with NX, but if you start looking for more, or start dealing with organization and editing in higher volumes such that speed really matters, I'd offer you to check out Lightroom.

Here's a URL for it:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

Cheers, and good shooting!

Dave Story
Adobe Systems
___________________________________________________________________________ .

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Jim Donovan"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:24 am (PDT)

Sounds good. I have a 100% cmyk end result work flow. Can it create cmyk seps?? Can it control dot gain,GCR and black plate generation??? That is the only way I could even consider using it. If an image has to go back into photoshop to generate cmyk seps it will not work for me,it will just add another step to the limited time I have to work on photos. Curious and thankful for any info that can be provided on the cmyk issue. Thanx! Jim Donovan
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Eric Vogel"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:24 am (PDT)

David,

Very interesting on the Lightroom philosophy, but it begs an important question. Since so much functionality is moving into the realm of the RAW converter, just where is Photoshop going to go? Assuming that adding huge feature sets to RAW converters is more than a marketing gimmick, then it would seem that Lightroom will inevitably, and perhaps by design, cannibalize the PS market. A classic problem in large companies with separate P&Ls.

Can we expect to see Adobe's vision for PS to begin to emerge in PS CS4?

BTW - I haven't used Lightroom, but I have used LightZone, and although it certainly isn't an image manager, I think it does a superb job of the photographer style adjustments. Adobe ought to buy them and pick up their Zone tool and Relight function. Personally, I'd like to see it ion PS.

Eric Vogel
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Jeremy Schultz"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:03 am (PDT)

Working with Lightroom and Photoshop, I find they are two different beasts even with the common Camera Raw converter. I just wrote a tutorial on creating watercolors in Lightroom, and I find that you can achieve some things with it but Photoshop and Painter are in a different league in this regard. Same with what Jim Donovan said about CMYK, seps, dot gain, GCR, and other factors for print. Lightroom is good with printing photos on an inkjet but I wouldn?t send an image straight to a press.

OTOH, Photoshop has no comparison to Lightroom?s digital asset management features and I think Lightroom has the upper hand when it comes to creating slideshows, prints and web galleries. The markets they serve are similar but not the same, and the tools are different as a result.

Jeremy Schultz
Design and illustration for print and the web

1502 Nine Iron Drive
West Des Moines, Iowa 50266 USA
(515) 306-4348
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Jim Donovan"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:13 am (PDT)

Thanx for the great answer Jeremy!! So I take it Lightroom has no cmyk capability what so ever?? All cmyk work must pass through photoshop?? Doesn't sound like it is possible to go from lightroom to press. Jim Donovan
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bob Smith"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:10 pm (PDT)

On Aug 13, 2008, at 12:11 PM, Jim Donovan wrote:

So I take it Lightroom has no cmyk
capability what so ever??

At this point there's none at all. I LOVE Lightroom but to me that's one of it's biggest shortcomings. Version 2 makes the trip into Photoshop for specialized editing quite convenient and seamless... for everything except a CMYK conversion. Even if the conversion is done in Photoshop, LIghtroom can't handle the resulting CMYK image in its database just for organizational purposes. That fact devalues Lightroom's excellent organizational abilities considerably. I'm still a slave to Expression Media (formerly iView Media Pro) for organization as it can catalog virtually any kind of file. I would love to dump it in favor of just Lightroom. What Lightroom does, it does very, very well but it still has some big gaps in its capabilities.

Bob Smith

Accurate Image • Bob Smith Photographer • Waco Texas USA
http://www.accurateimage.org
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bruce Albrecht"
Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:14 pm (PDT)

I don't think there is any doubt that Adobe is hoping to develop Lightroom into the primary workflow tool for most photographers. And while LR 2.0 has made significant strides towards that objective, there are still some critical elements missing from the application's toolset, most notably--

--file management for CMYK,
--per-channel color corrections and curving,
--sophisticated masking tools/alpha channels,
--tethered capture,
--export watermarking, and
--plug-in filter capability.

I don't mean this to turn into a laundry list of Lightroom's shortcomings, but it is frustrating to see the application come so close to being the bees knees for most photographic applications yet miss the mark in a few critical areas. I know I don't stand alone in being impatient in waiting for the application's maturity.

Bruce Albrecht
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop - still love ya...
Posted by: Gunnar Kallenberg
Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:47 pm (PDT)

Thanks for the illuminating comments about Photoshop etc.

...The recent version of Lightroom has many people adjusting their
workflows and expressing thoughts exactly like yours.
Lee Clawson

...cool - i did not know that. I have read about people being frustrated with Lightroom, but I have zero knowledge of the program myself, so I can't judge...

(Dave Story:)
....OK, if that sounded like a sales pitch, it's because I really, really
like using Lightroom, and I've used them all: Aperture, Bridge,
Capture NX, iView Media Pro, Photoshop Elements (especially the
windows Organizer), RAW Shooter, the list goes on...

I'm glad you're happy with NX, but if you start looking for more, or
start dealing with organization and editing in higher volumes such
that speed really matters, I'd offer you to check out Lightroom.

Here's a URL for it:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
Cheers, and good shooting!

Hi Dave - yes, "organization and editing in higher volumes" is definitely an important issue... I'm not good there yet - there are quirky aspects to Capture NX's filing and naming conventions that I am just now beginning to get comfortable with. Will definitely check out the link, Thanks.

(Donovan:)
....Sounds good. I have a 100% cmyk end result work flow. Can it create cmyk
seps?? Can it control dot gain,GCR and black plate generation??? That is the
only way I could even consider using it. If an image has to go back into
photoshop to generate cmyk seps it will not work for me,it will just add
another step to the limited time I have to work on photos. Curious and
thankful for any info that can be provided on the cmyk issue. Thanx!

Capture NX does allow you to save in CMYK - that is, convert to CMYK, but as far as I know it won't allow you to work in CMYK. I have abandoned the CMYK worry - in the 90's (and early "00's") I was very concerned with CYMK quality, but times have changed and my focus on stock makes CMYK almost irrelevant...I try to "steer" my images towards a goal just slightly outside the CMYK gamut So many devises exist today that are capable of taking advantage of a larger space than CMYK that I don't want to cripple a pict for no good reason. I have a lot of ...aah..."opinions" about CMYK that are better left for another time :)

For me Photoshop has been kind of a "picture factory" - since I often produce what I like to call "hybrid images" (and that term is in fact used in the movie biz), so I often create multilayered files from which a dozen or whatever final picts are generated. For this type of work Photoshop has no equal (that I know of.)

Thanks all for "kewl" comments and insights,
Gunnar Kullenberg
LA, CA
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Jeremy Schultz"
Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:12 pm (PDT)

Yes, Lightroom can?t even put a CMYK image into the database, let alone work with an image on a channel-by-channel basis. I?m sure the development team felt it didn?t have to, since images coming from a camera (both RAW and JPEG) are in RGB format.

Jeremy Schultz
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bruce Albrecht"
Sun Aug 17, 2008 7:38 am (PDT)

Yes, one gets the feeling that the dev team has a narrow view of what a photographer's workflow should be. I completely understand the desire to avoid the complexities of multiple channels, colorspaces, etc. but the reality is that as a professional such things are unavoidable. What pro doesn't ever have to send an image to be printed using 4C process inks? The popularity of Dan's work proves otherwise, IMHO. If the LR dev team wants to see their fantastic application become the de facto workflow manager in the market, they'd be well served to work on the inclusion of these critical tools ASAP. Until then, we're going to be stuck discussing what percentage of our workflow Lightroom handles. My 2 cents.

Bruce Albrecht
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "merlot3000"
Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:07 pm (PDT)

I tend to disagree. There are so many kinds of photographers it's hard to generalize but a high percentage of photographers I work with are happy focusing on shooting while others want to do a first level retouch. In my experience those venturing into the kind of work discussed here are more focused on post production and printing. LR I think strikes a good balance and makes it easy to drop onto PS when needed.

David Barrack
___________________________________________________________________________
.
Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: Michael Jahn
Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:07 pm (PDT)

@ Bruce

Okay, not so fast there matey !

While I am a marketing type (yes, "lies in Public!" who works for ISV (independent Software Vendors) in that risky "product developer/product launch" world...

- I will do my best to remove my "vaporware hype" skull cap i hide under my "prepress developer" construction hat - and explain why I think Lightroom will never (or "should never") have a CMYK component.

1. until all camera can capture a Macbeth Color Checker identically, that is, until the engineers make colorimeters out of all digital image capture systems, we will never be able to even agree what RGB value recipes make up all the little color squares

(go to google image - images.google.com (no www, just the http:// and search for "macbeth color checker" - funny how that same item looks so very different !)

2. even AFTER that happens, we still have a MAJOR problem - since there are a several ways to write that macbeth color checker to a single set of RGB values !

brucelindbloom.com/index.html?ColorCheckerRGB.html - just add the www

3. So, at some point we might have moved away from the notion that LAB color space is going to save us (it will not!) and that that source profiles were as useful as jumping at that last second when the elevator is plunging at 32 feet per second squared - okay, now lets "flash" to the future (yes, PUN INTENDED) so, we still have no such concept of CMYK (never mind that tiny 16.7 million possibilities of RGB, in CMYK this become 4.2 billion possibilities) - well, in case everyone had not noticed...

try opening a simple CMYK jpeg image in

Adobe Buzzword -- (unfamiliar with Adobes online Google docs like document
authoring app -
mix.epicfu.com/profiles/blog/show?id= 699622%3ABlogPost%3A121257 -- just addthe http://

Adobe Photo Express -
picasaweb.google.ca/michaelejahn/Color_Items/photo#5182600784972814946 -just add that http://

Adobe Lightroom (well, you already KNOW that problem)

As an image in any Adobe Flash application

As an image in Adobe Scene 7

in case you noticed, the idea of making CMYK conversion upstream is a horrible idea !

Adobe is probably saying "please don't do that here!"

Look at us all fighting like sea gulls over a french fry - no one is listening and no one is right.

--
Michael Jahn
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bob Smith"
Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:15 pm (PDT)

On Aug 17, 2008, at 12:30 PM, merlot3000 wrote:

LR I think strikes a
good balance and makes it easy to drop onto PS when needed.

absolutely, but the CMYK issue is a different problem. I don't give a flip if Lightroom ever has the capability to do a CMYK conversion or edit a CMYK file.. there are plenty of other good tools for that job... but it ought to at least be able to display and catalog one. Lightroom doesn't do panoramas or HDR images either, but it allows an almost seamless trip into Photoshop to create such things and then it renames (optional), displays, and catalogs the resulting files automatically. I would argue that doing that with CMYK images is at least as important as panos or HDR files (and I shoot a lot of panos)

Bob Smith

Accurate Image • Bob Smith Photographer • Waco Texas USA
http://www.accurateimage.org
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Andrew Webb"
Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:40 am (PDT)

Here's a link to Ian Lyons' workaround for CMYK in Lightroom.

<http: //www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_cmyk/lr-2-cmyk.htm>

It works, but it sure isn't elegant.

What do you mean about not being able to handle panos? v2 will handle files as big as 30k pixels x 30k pixels.

As far as HDR/32bit/float images, no, not yet. They're aware of the growing demand for this capability and have said so publicly.

/andrew

Andrew Webb

Creative Director
Serious Retouching & Color
303.682.9119/303.819.0480
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bruce Albrecht" t
Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:40 am (PDT)

@Bob Smith

...I don't give
a flip if Lightroom ever has the capability to do a CMYK conversion or
edit a CMYK file.. there are plenty of other good tools for that
job... but it ought to at least be able to display and catalog one...

...was my intended point. I'm certainly not asking that Lightroom become a CMYK processor any more than I would ask it to apply hokey brush stroke filters to make my photographs look like watercolors. But if it is going to be the foundation of my workflow as the DAM, than I don't think it too much to ask that it at least be able to catalog the CMYK files I've prepared for print. To have to use another app or method to find, access, and keyword the final files I made for my clients for a 4C process job is seriously inconvenient and leaves me considering alternatives that will. There *are* other modules in there besides the develop module, right?

I don't think there is any question that there is going to be lots and lots of reasons for photographs to make the trip into Photoshop, CMYK being one of them. I believe the origin of this discussion was about how much of the work can be done before that trip is made--if it is made at all.
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bruce Albrecht"
Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:23 pm (PDT)

Andrew,

Thanks for the link! I found it quite fascinating, and will certainly ponder whether it is worth the effort involved.

I feel it important to note that a lot of the shortcomings mentioned above can be addressed with some sort of workaround, whether it be LRMogrify, droplets--even the CMYK Trojan Horse! But it remains a "workaround" and not a proper solution which is awkward for an application that prides itself on its elegant simplicity.

Bruce Albrecht
___________________________________________________________________________

Re: Goodbye Photoshop
Posted by: "Bob Smith"
Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:21 pm (PDT)

On Aug 18, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Andrew Webb wrote:

What do you mean about not being able to handle panos? v2 will handle
files as big as 30k pixels x 30k pixels.

It handles them very elegantly but it doesn't actually create them. It goes into Photoshop for the actual creation. I wish CMYK conversions worked equally as well.

Bob Smith

Accurate Image • Bob Smith Photographer • Waco Texas USA
http://www.accurateimage.org