If you’re close to the photography field, whether or not you’re a photographer, you’ve probably heard of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. These two programs are both part of the Photoshop family, but serve different purposes. 

So what do these programs do? Do you use them together or separately? How are they different? And, which one should you use on your next big project? The short answer is that it depends on what you want to accomplish! Read more about each program and the major differences below to help you decide. 

What is Photoshop? 

Adobe Photoshop is the industry-standard photo editing software.

Photoshop users who know how to use the software can edit existing digital or digitalized photos (also called raster artwork), combine multiple images, and even create digital paintings. More advanced users can create GIFs—the brief, looped moving images you often see on social media—or even edit simple videos. 

The most common use for Photoshop is digital image correction. Photoshop allows you to do anything from correcting color to changing the background to adding or removing people from images. It’s become such a common practice, there’s even an action named after it: “So-and-so Photoshopped that image.” If you can dream it, you can probably do it in Photoshop. 

Professionals across almost every industry use the software, and the key components are: 

  • Retouching tools
  • Adjustment tools
  • Compositing images
  • Masking & special effects
  • Layers
  • Creating Animated GIFs

What is Lightroom? 

Adobe Lightroom is a popular application for organizing and editing photos. With abilities to store, organize, and edit photos quickly but professionally, the program is a must-have for photographers. 

Although part of the Photoshop family, Lightroom was designed specifically for photographers with a focus on editing images, not designing creative artwork. There’s a desktop app, Lightroom Classic, and a newer cloud-based program called Lightroom that have similar features. 

Lightroom Classic is the original desktop version professionals often use because of the ability to store photos locally, and the additional features. Lightroom is the newer, more streamlined version of the app. This cloud-based program is essentially a pared-down, completely web-based version of the app. 

Photographers are the primary audience for Lightroom, but it can be used for photo editing within any industry. If you need to edit a large number of photos, or want to edit photos but don’t need all the bells and whistles Photoshop offers, Lightroom may be the ideal tool for you.

The essential components of Lightroom include: 

  • Photo library organization
  • Photo development
  • Batch photo processing
  • Non-destructive editing
  • Integration with other Adobe applications

Major Differences between Photoshop & Lightroom

Photoshop and Lightroom are part of the same family of software. Many photographers use both programs, depending on the services they offer, because they work well together and complement each other. 

The programs were designed for different purposes, though, and both bring considerable features and functionalities to the table. These are the three primary differences between Photoshop and Lightroom.

Artwork v. Photography

One of the most important distinctions between Photoshop and Lightroom is what they’re made to do. 

Photoshop is a photo editing software, but it’s more than that. There are so many features and nuances that it's really an artist’s tool. It’s meant to support creativity and create beautiful artwork. You can create almost anything, and although you can definitely do photo editing, you’re not limited to that functionality. 

Lightroom, on the other hand, was designed for photographers. It’s about the photos, and intentionally has less artistic capabilities, so professionals can focus on organizing their photos and editing them. This is its specific goal, and it shows within the program. 

Functionality

Many photographers use Photoshop and Lightroom together, which makes sense because they’re both great at what they do. The functionalities complement each other, but are distinct. 

Photoshop is excellent at image manipulation, including simple edits like red eye removal and spot healing. You can use it to “clean up” your photos to your heart’s content. 

That being said, Photoshop has more advanced features, too. It’s great for compositing images (combining multiple photos together to create a new image), “hiding” parts of an image with layers, working with filters, and adding special effects.

Meanwhile, Lightroom was made for editing and touching up photos. It’s not meant for design work or more creative endeavors. It has a strong set of editing features such as red eye corrections and spot removal. But you can also use it to adjust a whole host of other photo-specific assets like white balance, vibrance, saturation, cropping, and exposure (to name a few).

Lightroom is also an organizational tool. You can upload all of your photos, no matter how many there are, and give them searchable tags and even star ratings to denote which ones you feel are the best. This is exceptionally helpful when you want to find specific photos and/or work with a group of photos, and isn’t a functionality Photoshop offers. 

Workflow

Each program is meant for different tasks, which means it presents a different way to organize your workflow. 

Within Photoshop, if you’re editing photos, you’re generally working with one file at a time. You can edit this file as much or as little as you like, and you can bring in elements of other photos with compositing features. 

Lightroom allows you to import and organize many files at once. On top of the ability to tag and rank photos, you can also edit multiple images at a time and in groups. For instance, if you have a set of photos that all need the same edit, such as a change in brightness or contrast, you can perform the edits to all of those photos at once instead of one at a time. 

Being able to bulk organize and edit is incredibly helpful for photographers dealing with sometimes hundreds or thousands of photos at a time. 

For those using Photoshop and Lightroom together, you can make bulk edits to a group of photos, and then identify which one(s) you want to work on further. You can then put them into Photoshop and continue on. 

Which Program to Use

Which program you want or need to use largely depends on your end goal. 

Here are some questions to help you decide which program might better suit your needs. 

  • Which program is easiest to learn first? Lightroom.
  • How many photos will I be editing? If there are many, Lightroom. 
  • How will I organize my photos? Lightroom can help you easily organize all of your photos, no matter how many there are.
  • What do I want to do with my image? If editing only, Lightroom may be a good choice. If designing or creating artwork, Photoshop is what you want to use. 
  • Do I want to do advanced editing and retouching? If yes, Photoshop is the better choice. 
  • Do I want to composite photos together? Photoshop.

Photoshop may have more features and creative tools, but not everyone needs all of those benefits, especially if they’re looking to stick mostly to photo editing rather than creating digital artwork. 

In the end, you may want both, or you may decide that one is better than the other for your work. Each photographer has their own workflow and since the tools are meant to make your job easier, it doesn’t make sense to choose one that doesn’t suit your needs well. When you get to know the tools better, you’ll be able to determine what workflow and which program(s) work best for you.

How to Purchase Photoshop & Lightroom

To use Photoshop and Lightroom, you’ll need a subscription from Adobe. There are several package options, or you can subscribe to the apps individually.

Adobe offers two Photography packages which include Photshop, Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, the Lightroom mobile app, and cloud storage space. You get the same applications in each package. The difference is the amount of storage. For $9.99 per month, you can get 20 GB of storage included. For $19.99 per month, you can get 1 TB of storage. 

These packages are ideal for professional photographers because they cost less per month than purchasing the applications individually (or with the 20+ Adobe applications in the all apps package) and you get access to the two powerful photo editing tools you’ll utilize most. 

You can choose to purchase Photoshop on its own. It requires a subscription of about $21 per month for the desktop app. There’s also the option to purchase Lightroom on its own for $9.99 per month. It comes with 1 TB of storage and is the cloud-based version—not the desktop program. 

If you need other Adobe applications in addition to Lightroom and Photoshop, the Creative Cloud subscription may be a smart choice. At about $53 per month, the investment may seem costly at first; however, if you use several tools on a regular basis, the all apps plan will save you money in the long run because you won’t have to pay separate subscription fees each month.

How to Learn Photoshop & Lightroom

Want to learn Photoshop, Lightroom, or both? 

Noble Desktop offers several great Photoshop courses in-person at their campus in New York City. 

Some of the most popular classes are:

  • Adobe Photoshop Bootcamp (18-hour deep dive course)
  • Photoshop Advanced Retouching (18-hour specialty course) 
  • Photoshop in a Day (6-hour fundamentals course)
  • Graphic Design Certificate (72-hour comprehensive set of courses, including Photoshop)

If you’d rather learn from the comfort of your own home or office, Noble also has a Courses Near Me tool that compares reputable training programs hosted live online. You can look for live online Photoshop courses from training schools offering similar classes. 

Noble also offers paid Lightroom Classic training. The most popular options are: 

  • Adobe Lightroom Classic (12-hour fundamentals course)
  • Photo Retouching Certificate (48-hour set of courses, including Photoshop & Lightroom)
  • Digital Photography Certificate (90-hour comprehensive set of courses, including Photoshop Bootcamp & Lightroom Classic training)