What can Photoshop CSx do for me which I absolutely can't do in Lightroom 1.x or 2.x?
Incidentally, I don't really have an interest in manipulating shots at the pixel level, just in "developing" and printing good photos.
I use LR for 95% or more of my work, but there are things I need to go to PS for.
Here are some differences that come to mind, there are more, but these seem the most commonly missed features:
- Perspective correction -- if I photograph some tall trees and their tops converge, very occasionally I'll use Photoshop to correct them to be more parallel in Photoshop, no way to do this in LR.
- Correction for barrel/pincushion distortion. I have very good lenses, almost never do this but occasionally I can barely notice a straight horizon become curved. PS can correct this, LR can't.
- Better healing tools. There are a few things I like better about the heal tool in LR 2.x, but the PS healing brushes work a lot better for removing defects that aren't simple spots, like removing a thin branch.
- Putting together print files for the service that makes my prints. The service provider I use has some fairly fussy requirements it's difficult to replicate in LR, and moreover LR doesn't have soft-proofing. (Soft-proofing uses color profiles to simulate and preview how the image will look when printed based on what the printing technology can actually produce.)
- CMYK ("4-color") print work. When I produce postcards and greeting cards from my images I make my own "CMYK separations", PS can do this, LR can't.
- Photoshop has tools for panorama stitching, LR doesn't (making a larger higher-resolution image out of multiple small images. LR does have good integration with PS to do this if you have both, though.)
- Photoshop has tools for "focus blending", LR doesn't (taking multiple images with limited depth-of-field and merging them to get, in effect, a deeper depth of field.)
- Graphic design tasks
None of these are that essential for the vast majority of photographic needs.
