Not sure what to choose

Hi,

i'm thinking of buying either Photoshop Elements 9(+) or CS5. I own Lightroom already but i think i need one of the 2... As a Student i could get both for a very good price (the PSE is ca 60EU and CS5 will be at 230EU). But i'm not sure if the "large" Photoshop CS5 is really what i need... What would you recommend? Has PSE(+) enough power to process photos? Or should i go for the full version?

Cheers

Michael

I think you are in the wrong forum here Michael as this is the video section. Perhaps someone can move you to somewhere more appropriate where people know about Photoshop?

ups,

seems to be in the right Forum now - thanks for moving...

Hi,

 

i'm thinking of buying either Photoshop Elements 9(+) or CS5. I own Lightroom already but i think i need one of the 2... As a Student i could get both for a very good price (the PSE is ca 60EU and CS5 will be at 230EU). But i'm not sure if the "large" Photoshop CS5 is really what i need... What would you recommend? Has PSE(+) enough power to process photos? Or should i go for the full version?

 

Cheers

 

Michael

What do you think you want to do that Lightroom doesn't do? Unless you are going to be making illustration type art rather than straight forward photos I think LR is more than sufficient.

Bill

seems i didn't knew enough about LR - i thought some things are easier in PS. I just found a great tutorial page for LR and i think i have to get used to LR a bit more.

close this thread pls...

seems i didn't knew enough about LR - i thought some things are easier in PS. I just found a great tutorial page for LR and i think i have to get used to LR a bit more.

I found Lightroom much easier to use than PS Michael. There is a wonderful set of videos here; http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/

Have fun,

Steve

I found Lightroom much easier to use than PS Michael. There is a wonderful set of videos here; http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/

 

Have fun,

Steve

Thanks for the link (i would share my link as well but i think videos in german language are not useful for most of you guys :-) )

I found Lightroom much easier to use than PS Michael. There is a wonderful set of videos here; http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/

 

Have fun,

Steve

Just had a look at this Steve and its all starting to make sense now. Ive only watched the first episode " Getting Started in LR3 " and its answered so many questions. It certainly looks like a very powerful tool.

Glad I made the purchase now.

Of course I am sure there will be occasions when I have to go back to CS4 but I am going to have a lot of fun with this.

Stew

Hi Stew,

Once you work your way through the Adobe site, another site that's a permanent fixture on my favorites list is Matt Kloskowski's http://lightroomkillertips.com/. I check it a couple of times a week for interesting techniques. He has all of his tips videos there too; http://lightroomkillertips.com/category/lightroom-videos/

Great way for us visual learners to improve.

Have fun,

Steve

Hi folks,

Another great source for Lightroom related info is the Lightroom Forum.

I think most people find LR very intuitive once they get used to it. Photoshop is a graphic design package, and as such is way overpowered for us photogs whereas Lightroom is designed as a photographic tool specifically. I reckon I do 95% of my photo related work in LR now.

Lightroom has a dedicated following and for very good reasons. But I'm a CS5 (extended) man and have followed Photoshop in its various incarnations since the original 'CS'. For me, the workflow of Bridge, Camera Raw and CS5 is unbeatable. I also like the way plug-ins from Nik integrate. Just my tuppence worth. One day, someone will show me this 'Lightroom' thing and I'll probably come kicking and screaming into the fold...

Either, enjoy. Tim

One day, someone will show me this 'Lightroom' thing and I'll probably come kicking and screaming into the fold...

Tim, old buddy, you owe it to yourself to checkout LR. A lot of people forget that the full name is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Starting with CS4 the PS development team incorporated a lot of the nice features in LR into PS. If you like the image development tools in CS5, you are already using some of the LR tools and algorithms. In the best scenario we learn to use them together.

PS excels at manipulating pixels, you can’t do content aware fill in LR, for example. PS is the best out there for applying creativity to our images. Want to put multiple images on one sheet for an Ad to put up in your dive shop? PS is the way to go;

Want to organize all your images, manage your workflow? Sort through your thousands of images from the dives in the Red Sea, quickly? Find your favorites from two years ago instantly? Apply RAW conversion sharpening and WB to those 300 images on your card on input to your computer, all at the same time? Remove that bubble on your dome from all the images you shot on the dive with one click? Compare your image enhancements side by side with the original? Send 20 images out to the web or your printer with one click? ……. Lightroom is the answer.

Oh yeah, Lightroom is non-destructive and will save you huge amounts of memory. Of your many great images, how many copies do you save of each one? An original version, a couple of big tiffs with different processing, a small jpg, a full size jpeg, a 16x9 format for video use, an 11x14 for your printer, it goes on and on. In Lightroom you are only saving the instructions to create those different versions, the original remains as virginal as the day you shot it.

Lightroom is much easier to learn to use than PS. CJ will pick it up in 10 minutes.

If you have both they are very well integrated in the CS5 / LR3 versions but if you can only afford one to start off LR is less than half the price of PS.

Tim, check out the videos linked above and go get a copy.

Cheers,

Steve

One of the greatest things about Lightroom is the organization it brings - if you are not so good and organizing and versioning your photo files this will really help you find things in the stack. Be disciplined about using at least a few key words every import. It also integrates with stuff you do in PS to the photo so you can use both tools with ease.