Lightroom2 or Elements

[Tighearnach]

Im hearing really positive reviews for Lightroom 2. While its over two times more expensive than Elements is it very good. Can each program do the same level of processing or is one capable of more?

Thanks for any help....

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[Big Mike]

Lightroom is capable of some editing, and they added quite a bit for version 2.0...but the real strength of Lightroom is it's non-destructive workflow and it's ability to work with a large number of images.

Photoshop (regular or Elements) is for editing images and give you just about every tool you could want...but it may not be the best for working with a lot of images, in a quick and efficient way.

They are not meant to do the same job, so they shouldn't be compared directly like this. If you can only get one, you should decide what is best for you, better editing capability or better workflow.

[Tighearnach]

Thanks Mike.

Well I use GIMP at the moment and my knowledge of editing/processing is seriously limited. At the moment I crop/rotate, adjust white balance apply some increase/decrease in saturation/contrast and then some unsharp mask. Thats pretty much it. Would Lightroom 2 be capable of doing all this????

[tsaraleksi]

LR2 would be more than capable of handling those adjustments. The main thing it that is less capable of is selective edits like cloning out blemishes. However, pairing it with Gimp would make for a fairly comprehensive solution.