I have never used Photoshop. I have used GIMP on and off for years, and mostly used Apple iPhoto for basic photo editing.
Last year, on a whim, I bought a copy of Lightroom. I have rarely been so impressed with a piece of software, and was immediately more productive, and generating better results.
I had a similar experience. I had tried to find a decent set of tools for working with my images, and I was not along [1].
At some point I caved in and downloaded the LR trial, and it was clear that they had put a lot of effort into making it easy to do your workflow. And having the import/culling, undestructive basic editing, and library functionality in one tool won me over.
before I bought my D750, I was shooting with my bridge cameras (panasonic fz series), purely JPG. for this kind of work, irfan view is LIGHTING fast, miles and miles and miles ahead of anything else I've encountered. Autopano giga for panoramas (again, faster than anything else I saw on the market, including photoshop, and tons of options).
after this, started with RAWs, and I started using Lightroom. There are things I like a lot (quick interface for stuff intended, ie lens corrections, playing around with sliders). the thing is - I am not buying into Adobe's workflow totally. I don't want to load and edit all the files I take, meaning easily 100-300 from a weekend. First step is selecting interestin gones, maybe 20%.
I select few interesting quickly (irfan is still MUCH faster than doing it through lightroom), separate panoramas (Lightroom/Photoshop has very primitive interface without much control, plus their alghoritms are archaic and don't work so well compared to what Autopano brings on), and then work in Lightroom on selected ones. I HATE the way Lightroom's process is done - no flexibility outside of a narrow path.
You don't want to use Catalog and manage things on your own? Don't worry, we'll keep annoying you every single time you start it.
You want to just export result into a normal format that doesn't lose so much quality (ie PNG)? well get an external plugin, because who supports exotic formats like PNG in 2015, right? Are you effin' kidding me? this is THE software to process photos, and I cannot export a photo into most of the formats?
You actually want to join panorama, ie the most basic functionality expected from expensive software? well till now some versions just pointed you to expensive photoshop, if you had it. if not, bad luck, pay more! panorama joining feature is still pathetic in 2015, cropping out parts of photos without good reasons. Autopano just works, all the time.
Picture management is a joke, rotation, crop etc don't feel like a primary tool. again, freeware tool brings much more productivity, not only because I am so used to it. It seems to me marketing guys were the ones designing this product.
Did I find something better for processing RAWs photo by photo (or in batch?). Nope. But for many other steps necessary for the process of shooting -> final ordered set of photos from the event, there are better, faster tools out there. And yes, LR is SLOW, on fast i5, 16 gigs or RAm and fast SSD. Irfan is so much faster when working with RAWs, it's shameful.
Another vote for Lightroom. I just started using it and I am surprised how quickly I became productive with it. Wish I had converted to Lightroom years ago.
Last year, on a whim, I bought a copy of Lightroom. I have rarely been so impressed with a piece of software, and was immediately more productive, and generating better results.