Photoshop or lightroom for landscape and nature photography?

Question

I have canon 500D with 18-55mm and 70-300mm lens. I have lot of interest in landscape and Nature photography. I need to purchase some software to assist me with post-processing my photos. Which one is better for landscape and nature photography. Will Photoshop or Lightroom do, or are there any other tools better suited to processing this type of photography?

Answer

Photoshop and Lightroom are photography tools, not Landscape photography tools or Portrait Photography tools, etc. Either will do fine for Landscape photography. Each tool has different strengths and weaknesses; many pros use both tools since they each excel in different areas.

To decide with tool you need requires you to determine what you want to do with your digital darkroom? Do you need digital asset management? Do you make basic corrections such as brightness, whitebalance, perhaps curves? Do you frequently make use of filters, find you need to dodge and burn or mask out objects or sections of images? Do you work with RAW or just JPEG? Do you frequently print or do you send your images out for reproduction? Are printer profiles and proofing important to you?

By the way, here are my answers if you asked these questions above: (L=Lightroom, PS=Photoshop): L,L,PS,L,L or PS, PS.

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