Photoshop or Lightroom?

Big Mike · Apr 4, 2012

Version CS6 of Photoshop is currently available for free...but it's the Beta (pre-release/test) version.

So you could try it out for a while. Also, don't save up for CS5, because it will have been replaced by CS6 by the time you've saved enough.

I agree with the suggestion to use LR and Elements.

KmH · Apr 4, 2012

Image editing in Photoshop Lightroom is done in the Develope module. The Develope module's edit rendering engine is Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). Photoshop Lightroom 4 uses ACR 7

Elements 8's Camera Raw has a truncated version of ACR 6. Photoshop CS6, currently in public BETA testing, will also have the full version of ACR 7.

Plus, CS5/CS6 includes Bridge, which is used for image organization and management. While Lightroom is a database management application, Bridge is a browser.

ACR first appeared in Photoshop 7 (CS5, is Photoshop 12). Photoshop 8 was the first Photoshop to be called CS, but it was called CS, not CS1. PS 8 (CS) used ACR 2

Photoshop 9: CS2 - ACR 3 - Bridge 1
Photoshop 10: CS3 - ACR 4 - Bridge 2
Photoshop 11: CS4 - ACR 5 - Bridge 3
Photoshop 12: CS5 - ACR 6 - Bridge 4
Photoshop 13: CS6 - ACR 7 - Bridge 5

Lightroom 1 - ACR 4
Lightroom 2 - ACR 5
Lightroom 3 - ACR 6
Lightroom 4 - ACR 7

greybeard · Apr 4, 2012

If you can efford it, get both as they do work well together. In my opinion, if I could only have one it would be Photoshop. Lightroom is great front end for PS and is very strong at organizing your photos but has a rather limited number of editing and effects features. Photoshop when used with Bridge is really pretty good at organizing. Photoshop has endless editing capability which I love. If I play around with PS from now on I don't think I will ever learn all there is to know about this program. It is that big.

MReid · Apr 4, 2012

Upgrade your Elements program, should be all you need. The newest versions should do what you are missing now.

cbl · May 6, 2012

The fact that this question is even up points to the fact that Adobe is having huge problems with product features and positioning. Shouldn't Lightroom be Elements+?
Nice of them to quietly kill the geotagging and Smugmug integration out of Elements 10, by the way.
Steps backward, not forward.

Buckster · May 6, 2012

cbl said:
The fact that this question is even up points to the fact that Adobe is having huge problems with product features and positioning. Shouldn't Lightroom be Elements+?
Nice of them to quietly kill the geotagging and Smugmug integration out of Elements 10, by the way.
Steps backward, not forward.

I wouldn't stand for it, if I were you.