I downloaded the beta and am a diehard adobe bridge/cs3 user. I find it much easier to browse my files in bridge and process in CS3 using ACR than using Lightroom so far. Lightroom seems much slower to me. Just took me 20 minutes to process one image.
I am going to mess with it more and see if it gets better as I learn more but for me, CS3 seems much easier and more versatile. Did anyone else feel this way when first using LR?
HI Steve
It sounds like you might be missing the point rather. (or possibly I'm missing your point).
Presumably using CS3 you open the files using ACR, then make any adjustments and save them as TIFF or JPG files?
Forgive me if I'm being stupidly obvious, but so many people I've talked to just use Lightroom or Aperture as a converter program in their same workflow.
The idea is that you only convert the files when you actually need them, so you leave the files as raw, if you need to send a bunch of files to a client, you export them, burn them to a DVD, and then delete them - if you want web output you output as a web page.
When I was using photoshop, I used to have 4 or more folders:
1. original RAW
2. Print output files (after conversion)
3. web output files
4 thumbnails
One of the major problems was that if you revisit a raw file, then you have to decide whether to make another lot of versions (for instance for a black and white copy)
Nowadays I have one folder
1. originals
If I need web output then I do that, similar for printing - it means that the 'corrected' version is always based on the original RAW file.
If I need a 'fixed state' (for instance for a wedding) then I'll make up an album and put 'versions' in the album (but they still only reference the original raw file).
The point is that lightroom IS slow if you are using it in the same way as CS3 . . . but not if you make the adjustments and versions, and only do the output when you need it for a purpose.