Lr 6 vs Lr4 + ACR + PS

[dreed]

Whilst I'm trying out the latest versions of Lr & ACR/PS, it occurs to me that there still isn't a reason to upgrade beyond Lr4.

What's my thinking?

- New camera profiles are in ACR
- Merge to HDR is in ACR
- Merge to panorama is in ACR
- Facial recognition isn't that important for mountains, etc.
- GPU use? Don't know about that one...

Sure, there's some new slide show thing but ... what am I missing?

[luxborealis]

If you have the latest PS with ACR, you are correct - perhaps you don't need LR6/CC.

But, logic dictates that if you have the latest PS+ACR, then you must have CC, and if you have CC, and have "upgraded" to the latest PS+ACR, then why wouldn't you upgrade to LR CC as well and get all the things you've listed all in one package rather than having to go back and forth between LR and PS+ACR?!?

IOW, wouldn't it be a time savings simply to upgrade LR CC? Or am I missing something?

[Simon Garrett]

Summary of new features from v4 to v6:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_Lightroom#Version_4.0

I find a number of the innovations useful in the last two versions useful, but of course I don't "need" them.  I don't "need" Lightroom at all.  It's always going to be a personal call. 

I've got the CC package, so get all the upgrades anyway.  But before I subscribed, I tended to keep Lightroom up to date, and use an older version of Photoshop.  That was in the good old days when you could update Photoshop every 3 major updates.  Ah, those were the days!

[MirekElsner]

It depends. LR6 has good enough editing features that I am able to entirely remove PS from my workflow, which saves time.

[jjj]

Every new version of LR, PS, ACR has made my life easier than it was before, not necessarily through big headline features. Even minor tweaks and refinements of tools, things that you do not necessarily realise how good they are until you go back to a previous version and realise how clunky/slower it is in comparison can be a good reason to upgrade.
An extreme example of that would be ACR vs LR. ACR's interface was designed before digital shooting really took off and it shows. LR was developed to move on from that older paradigm of working and because of that LR makes for a much faster workflow.
However if you are not the type to spend time with a new version of some software and learn all the new tools and tweaks, then there's never any point in upgrading.