Is PIEware pushing PS out?

[soniak]

With a workflow that includes Bridge/ACR/LR and M.E.....it looks to me that the need for Photoshop is dwindling to the point almost of being superceded by these other Apps. 

Let me ask the junior and senior forum members:  Is Photoshop no longer actively being used in your workflow?

[peterkrogh]

Sonia,
For me personally, there is a lot that can be done parametrically, including many things that had to be done in Photoshop previously. Fill light and the HSL controls do so much. 

But the best images still generally need to be finished in Photoshop. Sometimes that's final sharpening, oftentimes that may be some form of pixel editing (fixing skin blemishes, etc).  But not always.  I recently made some nice prints for my house.  I batched everythign out to Photoshop as usual, figuring there was something I'd need to fix. When I opened them in Photoshop, for most of the images it really did not need *anything* and went straight to the print server.

It's very easy to see the trend, if you think about how things have changed over the last 5 years.

(Image compositing still requires Photoshop, of course)
Peter

[danaltick]

Photoshop is an absolute must for really serious and special work.  For example:

1) Photomerge for Panoramas
2) Third party filters like those from NikMultimedia or OnOneSoftware
3) Lens correction
4) Serious retouching
5) Serious masking and selectiing
6) HDR
7) Content aware scaling
8 ) Extended Depth of Field through blending
9) Any type of design work such as Layer Styles or Pattern Fill layers
10)  Working in the LAB color space
11) Serious Sharpening
12) Adding noise and blur
13) Liquify
14) Vanishing point
15) Much better targeted color control utilizing full color wheel rather than integral sliders with limits

In otherwords, for serious Master files there is no substitute for Photoshop; and the good news is, it keeps getting better right along with ACR.

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
Keep in mind there are a lot of photographers who really want their digital photography to emulate the film experience - they don't want to do anything to the pictures except find the right color balance, and get the basic tonal corrections done. - No compositing, retouching, pixel editing, etc.

For many of these people, Photoshop may be mostly unnecessary.  For many of them, Elements, or a much older version of Photoshop may do just fine.

Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

True.  Probably a poor choice of words.  You can definitely do some serious work in ACR now; especially with the localized adjustments.  Lots of new presets exist for different effects now too.  I would just about say 90% of most work can be done in ACR or LR now, and that's awesome because it's non destructive.  If you can do it ACR, that's defintely where you want it done.  However, as an architectural photographer I don't think I would ever go without Photoshop.  I really need the perfect image that only Photoshop can give me.  It is nice now though being able to take a much better and more prepared image into Photoshop.  I guess it just depends on what your market is.

Dan

[danaltick]

In actuallity, I wouldn't say so much that I'm looking for the perfect image as much as I am the perfect exposure.  I find myself many times blending multiple exposures in Photoshop for both interiors and exteriors.  I also like to see how the image might respond to the LAB color space.  Sometimes they respond well, sometimes not so much.  If I don't need to blend or use LAB, many times I can actually get away with just ACR.  I do like how its negative clarity can really soften window light, and of course a little blue desaturation really helps the color balance in a mixed lighting situation.  I really hope Adobe will add the HSL sliders to the localized adjustments.  That would be really cool.  Fun stuff!

Dan