Lightroom, Lightroom Classic or ACR?

[Butlerkid]

Like Tim Grey, I only have one catalog. You can create one when traveling and then merge it to your main catalog, but I don't want to waste time dealing with images when traveling. I back up my images (twice) on external HD's and then work with them when I get home.

 

[EricBowles]

The Lightroom Queen also has a lot of very good information, both in books and online.

I use LrC very different than some folks.

If I'm back from a major shoot with thousands of images, I use either Photo Mechanic to sort and cull. Normally I just bring images onto a specific folder on my PC and use Bridge to rate. Three stars and up get keywords. Among the 3*s and up, I select ones to processing using first ACR and then moving into PS for the final processing as necessary, including creating a jpg.

THEN I review to photos with NO stars. I may "save" one or a few. But then all non-starred images go to the trash.

jpgs get uploaded to my website.

THEN I import the folder to LrC to take advantage of the catalog features.

I've use the process successfully for years. No stress about working on images or moving them outside of LrC until the very end. And even then, I can re-sync a folder if I need to.

My workflow is very similar. I use Photo Mechanic for the front end, keyword-caption-and apply metadata in PM, trash the lowest rated images, and idnetify selects to be edited from my top rated images, then only import my Selects to LRC.

This workflow is the same regardless of which downstream editor I use. I normally use LRC, but can use NXStudio, Topaz PhotoAI, or other products for individual images. In the end, if using another tool I same the final edit as a format I can import to LRC to use the catalog.

One more idea - I have a master folder called Web Post - and subfolders per year. Any image I need to resize for web use or posting on social media is saved here. The files are small and watermarked - but easily accessed for searching or reference. I synch this folder with my iPhone and iPad so they always have my favorite images. The entire folder with over 2500 images is under 2.5 GB.

 

[Butlerkid]

My workflow is very similar. I use Photo Mechanic for the front end, keyword-caption-and apply metadata in PM, trash the lowest rated images, and idnetify selects to be edited from my top rated images, then only import my Selects to LRC.

This workflow is the same regardless of which downstream editor I use. I normally use LRC, but can use NXStudio, Topaz PhotoAI, or other products for individual images. In the end, if using another tool I same the final edit as a format I can import to LRC to use the catalog.

One more idea - I have a master folder called Web Post - and subfolders per year. Any image I need to resize for web use or posting on social media is saved here. The files are small and watermarked - but easily accessed for searching or reference. I synch this folder with my iPhone and iPad so they always have my favorite images. The entire folder with over 2500 images is under 2.5 GB.

Except I do not use LrC to process my images. I use Bridge/ACR/PS. Only after all the work is done do I import to LrC to only take advantage of the catalog features.

 

[macwalter]

I didn’t see this tutorial but I can say that Ben Wilmore recently did a tutorial on this topic and explained at least to me tha advantages of each pretty clearly. I intend to stay with LRc as well but he did point out that LR was adding more items to bring it closer to LRc in terms of functionality and it has some advantages in terms of getting thing out online etc. my wife for one would prefer LR while I prefer the greater power of LRc and PS and third party software. I do use ACR at times if I’m in PS but lately I tend to go back to LR for those issues as it’s easier to modify later.