Lightroom vs. Bridge

I've been beta testing Lightroom and find it a very useful product. However, I don't get were it fits into the Photoshop line. Is it designed to compliment photoshop or to be a reasonably priced alternative to photoshop? Bridge and camera raw in the upcoming CS3 seem to do everything that Lightroom does and more. Is there a good reason to pay $199 for it given that I am now happily running CS2 and will most likely upgrade to CS3 when it becomes available? Your thoughts and insights are appreciated.

I have been using both. I can't see any reason to purchase Lightroom if you are going to run CS3.

I believe Lightroom is Adobe's answer to Apple's Aperture. PS CS is a multi-featured program and is usually used by graphic artists and the like.

But as Kah mentions, if you are going to buy CS3, there's no point in buying Lightroom.

It seems to me that LR is supposed to replace Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge. I don't believe you can just use LR to process RAW files. The ability of PS to do layers and many other adjustments mean that it cannot be eliminated.

I am trying to decide if LR really offers me that much more than ACR for initial RAW processing.

Nick, I hope this article from NAPP (Natl. Assoc. of Photoshop Professionals) titled "Where Does Lightroom Fit In?" helps answer your questions as much as it helped me; it talks about all of your questions: Article

Interesting article, though I do find it curious that he claims Lightroom is faster than Bridge. That had not been my experience, at least with the beta version.

Guy

Guy, I agree with you - Lightroom doesn't see to be faster than Bridge, the seem about equal to me, but it's definitely way faster than the beta version, which about drove me nuts with it's creeping slow speed.\

Nancy

I did not use the beta and have only downloaded the trial version to play with but one universal comment I heard was that version 1 is extremely fast at least compared to the beta.