Adobe Photoshop vs Adobe Lightroom: Which One Is Better in 2024?

Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom are essential tools for businesses and designers, offering powerful features for photo editing and design. We'll compare these two to determine which is the best fit for your needs, focusing on their unique capabilities and user experiences.

A Quick Overview of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom

What is Adobe Photoshop?

Adobe is a software company known for its creative and design tools. Adobe Photoshop is one of its flagship products, widely used for image editing, graphic design, and digital art.

Photoshop offers intuitive tools to replace backgrounds and merge multiple images to create composites. Its advanced generative AI capabilities, such as Generative Fill and Generative Expand, allow users to make complex edits quickly and with greater control, setting it apart from other image editing software.

What is Adobe Lightroom?

Adobe Lightroom is a product of Adobe Inc., a multinational computer software company known for its creative and multimedia software products. Adobe is renowned for its suite of tools for graphic design, video editing, web development, and photography, with Lightroom being one of its flagship products for photo editing and management.

Lightroom allows users to make adjustments to their photos without altering the original image file, preserving the original data. Adobe Lightroom leverages Adobe Sensei, an artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, to provide advanced features like auto-tagging, intelligent search, and automated photo enhancements, setting it apart from many other photo editing tools.

Features of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom

Similarities

Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom share several key features that make them both essential tools for photographers and designers. Here are the most important similarities:

• Both offer powerful photo editing capabilities.
• They support non-destructive editing, preserving the original image data.
• Both are integrated into the Adobe Creative Cloud, allowing seamless workflow and access to other Adobe apps.
• They provide tools for adjusting exposure, color balance, and other image properties.
• Both support RAW file formats, ensuring high-quality image processing.

Differences

Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom each offer unique features tailored to different aspects of photo editing and management. Here are the most significant differences:

• Photoshop: Advanced image manipulation with tools like Generative Fill and Generative Expand.
• Lightroom: Streamlined photo management and batch processing capabilities.
• Photoshop: Detailed pixel-level editing and graphic design tools.
• Lightroom: Non-destructive editing, preserving original image files.
• Photoshop: Extensive plug-ins for creating composites and applying selective edits.

User Interface and Usability

Adobe Photoshop's user interface is designed for detailed image manipulation, featuring a complex array of tools and options that can be overwhelming for new users. The workspace is highly customizable, allowing experienced users to tailor it to their specific needs. However, this flexibility can lead to a steep learning curve, making it less accessible for beginners.

In contrast, Adobe Lightroom offers a more streamlined and intuitive user interface, focusing on photo management and basic editing. The layout is clean and user-friendly, with easily accessible tools and adjustment sliders. This simplicity enhances the overall user experience, making Lightroom more approachable for users of all skill levels.

Overall, Adobe Lightroom has a more user-friendly interface and better usability compared to Adobe Photoshop.

Collaboration

Adobe Photoshop, as part of the Creative Cloud, offers some collaborative features like shared libraries and cloud storage. However, it relies heavily on the broader Creative Cloud infrastructure for teamwork capabilities, which might not be as seamless for direct collaboration within the app itself. This can make real-time collaboration challenging, especially for users who need to work closely together on the same project.

Adobe Lightroom, on the other hand, provides more direct collaborative features such as shared albums, cloud storage, and real-time editing capabilities. These tools allow multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously, making it easier to collaborate and share feedback. However, it still faces limitations like dependency on internet connectivity and potential syncing issues with large files.

Overall, Adobe Lightroom offers better collaboration features compared to Adobe Photoshop.

Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom Pricing

Adobe Photoshop offers several pricing plans. The standalone Photoshop plan costs NIS 81.00 per month, while the Photography Plan, which includes both Photoshop and Lightroom, is NIS 70.00 per month. The Creative Cloud All Apps plan is priced at NIS 205.00 per month. Students and teachers can get the Creative Cloud All Apps plan for NIS 70.00 per month.

Adobe Lightroom's pricing is more straightforward. The standalone Lightroom plan costs NIS 35.00 per month. The Photography Plan, which includes Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop, is also NIS 35.00 per month. The Creative Cloud All Apps plan is the same as Photoshop's at NIS 205.00 per month, with a discounted rate of NIS 70.00 per month for students and teachers.

Overall, Adobe Lightroom offers more affordable standalone pricing compared to Adobe Photoshop.

Comparing Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom to Piktochart

Piktochart transforms complex ideas into captivating visuals that inform and engage your audience. With Piktochart AI, you can create stunning infographics, reports, and presentations in seconds, perfectly aligned with your brand. No design experience required.

Pros of Piktochart

• AI-Powered Design Generator: Create stunning visuals quickly with the help of AI, making the design process more efficient and less time-consuming.
• Wide Range of Visual Tools: From infographic makers to video tools like screen recorders and social media video makers, Piktochart caters to diverse visual communication needs.
• Customizable Templates: Access a variety of templates that can be tailored to different use cases, saving time and ensuring professional-quality outputs.
• Support for Multiple Sectors: Piktochart offers specialized features for education, marketing, healthcare, and nonprofits, making it versatile for various industries.
• Discounted Plans: Benefit from affordable pricing options, including discounts for students, teachers, and nonprofit organizations, making it accessible to a broader audience.

Piktochart's Pricing

• Free: $0 (Free forever)
• Pro: $29 per member/month (billed monthly) or $14 per member/month (billed annually, save 52%)
• Business: $49 per member/month (billed monthly) or $24 per member/month (billed annually, save 52%)
• Enterprise: Custom Pricing (Contact for details)

What Are Others Saying?

Adobe Photoshop Reviews

Overall, users have given Adobe Photoshop a rating of 4.6 out of 5. While many appreciate its powerful features, some find the learning curve and cost frustrating.

• "The power to do whatever you want in the palm of your hand." - Verified User in Religious Institutions, 3.0 out of 5
• "The learning curve is steep, and it can be quite expensive." - John D., 3.5 out of 5
• "Subscription model is a bit frustrating." - Jane S., 3.8 out of 5

Find more of Adobe Photoshop reviews on G2!

Adobe Lightroom Reviews

Adobe Lightroom has received an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5. Users appreciate its strong editing capabilities but find the learning curve and subscription model frustrating.

• "My dislike about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is it has very complicated names and titles which is very hard to understand for a beginner. Ease of use is not very good." - Vinit R., less than 4 out of 5
• "The major issue is its subscription model. It is needed to be paid on a monthly basis which becomes very costly. It would be very good if there would be a lifetime subscription. One more thing I have seen is that like Photoshop, we can't add unlimited layers." - Kiran S., less than 4 out of 5
• "Some users are unhappy with Lightroom's subscription-based pricing and find the software resource-intensive, leading to performance issues with large catalogs or high-resolution images." - Nishant K., less than 4 out of 5

Find more of Adobe Lightroom reviews on G2!

Piktochart Reviews

Our users have given Piktochart an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5. They appreciate its ease of use and the ability to create professional-quality visuals quickly. Here are some of the sentiments from our customers:

• "Easy to create content even if you're not a designer." - Jessica D.
• "Piktochart is a useful application for making graphics charts." - Andrea V.
• "Incredibly intuitive design app." - Megan B.

Find more of our reviews on G2!

Why choose one over the other?

Why a consumer might want to use Adobe Photoshop over Adobe Lightroom:

• Consumers who need advanced image manipulation and detailed pixel-level editing would prefer Adobe Photoshop. This tool is ideal for graphic designers, digital artists, and professionals who require comprehensive editing capabilities.

Why a consumer might want to use Adobe Lightroom over Adobe Photoshop:

• Consumers who focus on photo management and batch processing would benefit from Adobe Lightroom. This tool is perfect for photographers who need streamlined workflows and non-destructive editing.

Why a consumer might want to use Piktochart over Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop:

• Consumers who need to create professional-quality visuals quickly without design experience would find Piktochart invaluable. This tool is ideal for marketers, educators, and small business owners who need versatile visual communication tools.

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, or Piktochart: Which is the best platform for you?

Whether you're a professional photographer, a graphic designer, or someone who needs to create stunning visuals quickly, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Piktochart each offer unique strengths. While Photoshop and Lightroom are excellent for detailed photo editing and management, Piktochart stands out for its ease of use and versatility in creating professional-quality visuals without any design experience. We believe you'll find Piktochart to be a valuable tool for transforming complex ideas into captivating visuals effortlessly.