Ever since I’ve been shooting digital I have used the Bridge CS4 + Photoshop combo for all of my photo managing and editing needs. Since I work as a designer, I know my way around CS4 and Photoshop pretty well, and didn’t particularly want to have to teach myself a new software and workflow. Plus I tend to do a lot of post-processing, and love the control that working with masks and layers in Photoshop offers.
I’ve always kind of regarded Adobe Lightroom as a glorified iPhoto, but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to give Lightroom a whirl. All I can say is that if you have been on the fence between Bridge or Lightroom… go with Lightroom. It’s a no brainer. Lightroom really shines by letting you organize and classify photos without having to create duplicates. Which when you are dealing with lots of RAW files, is a huge space saver. Additionally, it makes it effortless to tag photos and export to a number of different formats, including uploading straight to Flickr.
I could go into a more detailed pro vs. con scenario, but there’s already plenty of analysis available by using your friendly searchbox. Just take it from a fellow photog that whether you’re a pro or amateur, Lightroom is a great tool for managing photos and making minor adjustments, and it plays well with Photoshop. Lightroom does everything Bridge can do and when combined with Photoshop is a necessary tool for the digital photographer.
