My basic workflow is LR into PhotoFX and back. Since Studio is the future, I’ve been experimenting with a LR into Studio workflow. My goal is to learn how to do all I’m used to doing in this new workflow. I still find things a little confusing, but thankfully I’m learning a lot from my small experiments.
Nothing too special here. Just a simple background replacement created with Impression. It took me quite a bit longer than in my normal workflow, but that’s fair as I’m so new to Studio. The important thing is I’m getting pretty confident that I’ll definitely be able to make the switch from PhotoFX to Studio in my workflow. In the end, I think my new workflow will be better and have more capabilities. So I encourage others in a similar workflow situation to get experimenting with Studio!
The catalog, keywords, and other Library features are good, but I think I could give those up for a single system like Studio.
However, the basic slider panel in LR since version 4 - I currently use LR 5.7 - is very good. The core sliders are exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks. In combination, they do a great job allowing highlight and shadow recovery.
Prior to LR 4, the core sliders were similar to those in Studio and other programs - exposure, contrast, highlight, shadow, and brightness. Note the lack of whites and blacks sliders. This was a big deal when Adobe made this change; they overhauled how the entire set of sliders work together. I have not been able to get as good of results in this area with Studio or Affinity, which has similar sliders to Studio.
Other things are the incredible visualize spots slider widget in the spot removal tool. It makes spot removal much less work and often finds very hard to see spots. The chromatic aberration tool is very good. I also like the export tool; it’s very easy, fast, and does a consistently nice job with output sharpening and resizing.
Those are the main things that will keep me in LR. The builtin sharpening and noise reduction is also quite good.
I totally agree with you about this - I have used Lightroom to adjust the basics in all of my photos before i send them to Topaz. It will be nice in the future if Topaz Studio has a RAW converter that rivals Adobe…
I certainly agree that the basics in LR and C1 are way beyond what is available out there and the only one that comes new is ON1 Photo RAW.
The biggest test of any RAW converter is what happens when you use the Shadow/Highlight recovery options and get a grey tint overlay or you get a change in saturation and there are really only those 3 I mentioned that do it correctly.
I guess the effects are simply not tuned to perfection.
A few years ago, I used DXO version 7. Its RAW conversion was quite good, but I never came up with a workflow I enjoyed. I’ve found LR more efficient and enjoy both using it and its results. Like @KenKv mentioned, it would be nice if Studio someday gets RAW conversion that rivals Adobe, but for now, I’m content with my LR - Topaz workflow. And if I do want to work outside LR, the addition of RAW conversion to Studio is a nice plus.
