Aloha!!!!!! Photoshop elements 10 or lightroom 4?????

amg · Apr 26, 2012

Aloha Everyone

Just got back from a amazing trip from Maui probably took 1000 pics

Seriously sad to be home to the rain and cold wish I could have stayed.....

So I am in the process of uploading pics and noticed that my lightroom trial has expired (love lightroom 4) but to be fair I am as we speak downloading a free trail of Photoshop Elements 10 everytime I upload pictures to the site I keep hearing ppl say photoshop is better because of layers and they dont use lightroom at all.... I have a feeling I am gonna be spending alot of time reading and googling layers (I didnt bother with free trail of cs5 cause I cant afford it anytime soon) so if anyone can give me some good advice or send me in a good direction for articles etc.

So I am gonna give elements a 30 day trail and decide which one I want to buy (lightroom 4/ Ps elements 10) but I am a bit curious to see what your choice would be and why? This is a big choice cause I really want/need a new lens but decided I should get a editing software first so I am gonna steal a little bit from my lens money to make it happen!!!!! So I would love to hear what you have to say and then I can explore the whys and make my choice after my trial

Thank you everyone

MReid · Apr 26, 2012

If you are doing 1000 pics Lightroom. Turbo fast.
If you are doing 4 pics Photoshop is fine. MUCH slower than Lightroom.

There are things you can do in Photoshop you can't do in Lightroom....having said that they are not critical things for the normal processing of photos.

If I had to pick one thing I could/would not do without it is my Lightroom program.....much love.

Dao · Apr 26, 2012

Most of the POST work can be done with just Lightroom and it is quite easy

Cropping
Exposure adjustment
Curve
Color saturation
Black, White, Highlight adjustment
Sharpening
Noise reduction
Lens correction (i.e. distortion, CA)
Spot / Red eye removal

However, once in a long while if you need to do more such as remove a tree, smooth the skin but still leave some skin texture, dodging or burning ...... plus many other stuff, you need to use other editing tools such as Photoshop CS.

KmH · Apr 26, 2012

A lot of those same Lightroom tasks can be done in Camera Raw, since Lightroom's develope module and camera Raw are essentially the same thing ACR - Adobe Camera Raw.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons Elements is inexpensive is that it has a truncated version of Camera Raw.

If I had to pick 1 image editing application to discard, it would be Lightroom, because I already have the same batch, parametric editing application - ACR - that CS5 has, and CS5 can do a lot more editing wise, like layers, precise selections, advanced masking, more advanced text capabilities, actions, scripts, droplets, pixel editing blah, blah, blah, than Lightroom can do.

2WheelPhoto · Apr 26, 2012

Derrel · Apr 26, 2012

If you must pick only one, pick Lightroom.

KmH · Apr 26, 2012

If you must only pick one, pick Elements 10, so you can do all the types of editing. While Lightroom can do a lot, it has limits.

As mentioned having both is what Adobe intended when they designed Lightroom. Lightroom is a suppliment to Photoshop, not a replacement for Photoshop.

2WheelPhoto · Apr 26, 2012

OP, you can download both free and play with them for a month.

DiskoJoe · Apr 26, 2012

cs5 ftw!

I would go lightroom from the two you posted but cs5 is the way to go.

shmne · Apr 26, 2012

It depends on the editing you like to do. If you ever want to do any kind of compositing (cutting multiple pictures into one) then you are much better off with Photoshop, but if you plan on sticking to very basic edits Lightroom will be your best friend.

Also for basic file management, Lightroom is nice.

amg · Apr 26, 2012

I already had my free trail of Lightroom 4 and I LOVED IT!!!!! Was really easy to use!!! Was playing around with Elements not so easy to figure out...... And no I am not editing all 1000 pics just a good handful of my faves that I plan on printing for a album...... I never print all my photos the rest will just sit on a flash drive that I will look at once in a blue moon

Anyone have some good photoshop articles I cant seem to find my way around theh software. And how do these layers work?????

MTVision · Apr 26, 2012

amg said:
I already had my free trail of Lightroom 4 and I LOVED IT!!!!! Was really easy to use!!! Was playing around with Elements not so easy to figure out...... And no I am not editing all 1000 pics just a good handful of my faves that I plan on printing for a album...... I never print all my photos the rest will just sit on a flash drive that I will look at once in a blue moon Anyone have some good photoshop articles I cant seem to find my way around theh software. And how do these layers work?????

Lightroom is way more intuitive then photoshop (elements or cs6). But I love photoshop!

This website is helpful - I think it's for photoshop but most can be applied to elements.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/layers/

shmne · Apr 26, 2012

Honestly it sounds to me you are just looking for some basics, my coin goes in the lightroom bucket ^_^ chances are you will never get into the juicier parts of photoshop, and would just let a lot of the program go to waste. While I think with lightroom you will use most if not all of the functionality.

Photoshop is not just for photos

there is a lot of function for graphic designers, web designers, 3d designers, and animators as well.

ZapoTeX · Apr 26, 2012

The free alternatives to Photoshop (GIMP, even the humble Paint.NET) are not the same as the original, but they are pretty solid.

On the contrary I'm not aware of any valid alternative to Lightroom.

Personally I use Lightroom 4 on all my pictures and, when I need layers, clone brush, etc... I export to tiff 16 bit, open in Paint.NET, do my stuff, export Jpeg.

Lightroom is designed on purpose to manage tons of photos, store them, etc... Editing 1000 pictures will be a pleasure. With any other program I've tried (including Photoshop) it would be a pain.

Bye bye!

sovietdoc · Apr 26, 2012

Photoshop is not the best tool for working with photos. If you use photoshop to retouch your photos it's like using a $60,000 dollar video camera to film your little kid growing up. It can do that just fine, because it can do everything, but it's not really meant for that.

That's why there is Lightroom.

Don't use "all-in-one" tools to do a job. Use a specialized tools for each job instead.