Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan




I've been using strictly Photoshop CS3 for a very long while, and while functional, I really wanted to start shooting RAW on my A6000. I quickly discovered that I needed a solution that would work with Sony's RAW files (Fun fact: CS3 does not support them.) and also a solution that would let me quickly categorize, cull, and adjust photos. I've used Lightroom before, but mostly just played with it. When I saw that I could get the latest Lightroom and Photoshop for 10 dollars a month (USD), I decided to jump on it and give it a try. I have to say I'm really happy I did! Although I was initially after the new version of Photoshop, Lightroom has really impressed me and has become very essential to my workflow. I can shoot a lot, import to my file server, cull what I don't like, and quickly edit and compare. Anything heavier that needs to be done can be brought into Photoshop (IE: Exposure blending, blemish removal, etc). All the basics like color correction, exposure/sharpness/noise reduction/lens correction/cropping can all be completed in Lightroom, while saving your original image.

I have a lot of learning to do still, but I pick up new things every time I use the software. My only real complaint is that both pieces of software are pretty big resource hogs. I understand working with RAW files is a bit memory intensive, but CS3 was never this heavy, even with large projects. I never thought I'd need more than 16GB of RAM in my desktop at this point in time, but Creative Cloud is proving me wrong. I look forward to seeing how my notebook handles it, considering it's a lightweight compared to my desktop.

I still have some exploring to do - Lightroom Mobile is seemingly powerful, the 20GB of online backup feels like it could disappear quickly with RAW files, and I'm not sure on Behance yet, but even with just Photoshop and Lightroom, I'm happy with the money spent.

Creative Cloud Photography Plan