Lightroom is an image management and editing program also developed by Adobe, the same folks who created Photoshop. Using Lightroom, photographers are able to work through their images from import, to sorting and organization, to processing, and finally all the way to export and sharing on the web.
Strengths
PROCESS RAW FILES
At the heart of Lightroom is the same Adobe Camera Raw engine you find with Photoshop and Bridge, only it’s presented in an interface with far better design.
You can quickly make adjustments to settings like exposure, contrast, and saturation. You can also perform sharpening, noise reduction, add vignettes, crop, add split toning and even apply creative dodging and burning effects with the adjustment brush.
EFFICIENT WORKFLOW
Lightroom covers nearly every step of the post production process. You
can import your images, sort through selects, tag images with keywords, organize collections, perform RAW processing, create slideshows, print photos, create web galleries, and even share directly to Facebook & Flickr! Adobe managed to pack a ton of practical features into one program.
PRESETS
Lightroom has presets, which are similar to actions in Photoshop. The difference is that instead of saving a sequence of steps for how an image should be processed (like actions in Photoshop), Lightroom presets record how all the adjustment sliders are configured.
Presets are less flexible in that you cannot easily control opacity like you can with Photoshop actions. However it’s easy to make individual adjustments to sliders to fine-tune the look.
It also takes far less time to apply a Lightroom preset to a batch of images than it does to apply a Photoshop action to a batch. Since actions are based on steps, Photoshop has to carry each step out individually, on each image individually. With Lightroom, presets can be applied to multiple images simultaneously, making it far more efficient.
NON-DESTRUCTIVE
Whether you’re working with RAW files or JPEGS, Lightroom does not edit the original files. When you make adjustments to an image what you’re actually doing is creating a set of instructions for how Lightroom should save a copy of the file. These instructions are stored in the Lightroom catalog file, or in special sidecar files known as XMPs.
You don’t have to worry that you might accidentally save over the original—which also make it easy to experiment without fear!
EASIER TO LEARN
Lightroom is a more global program (focused on making adjustments to the whole image) as opposed to the the pixel level control found in Photoshop. Because of this, Lightroom is more straightforward and easier to learn. The interface is also designed to help you work through images in a logical manner.