Editing Apps

[Vipor]

So, personally, I want to start getting into editing photos (I have never dabbled in this aspect of photography). Based on what I have read on many of these threads, it looks like LR3 is thought to be a user friendly app that is sufficient for anyone wanting to do minor editing. As I have never used any of these apps, would someone please chime in on whether my understanding is right?

If I understand correctly,

LR3 - photo organization, minor color enhancements.
Elements - LR3 on steroids. Organization, color enhancement, minor manipulation.
Photoshop CS5 - Edit galore. Full blown manipulation.

Am I right? If one was barely starting off with photo editing and had access to either of the apps, which would be recommended?

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I'd get your feet wet with Elements first.

There's also GIMP, which is free.


Your understanding is basically correct, 'cept Elements is more like Photoshop Lite.

 

[Overread17 5]

If I understand correctly,

LR3 - photo organization, minor color enhancements.
Elements - LR3 on steroids. Organization, color enhancement, minor manipulation.
Photoshop CS5 - Edit galore. Full blown manipulation.

Am I right? If one was barely starting off with photo editing and had access to either of the apps, which would be recommended?

Slightly mistaken. Lightroom is primarily focused at library management and non-destructive (RAW) editing in a single program, which also sports some commonly used photographic editing tools. It will do a lot of work that does not require selective editing (ie most of its editing applies to the whole photo).
Lightroom is geared toward photographers and is intented to be used alongside a full editing program such as Photoshop Elements or CS5.

The organising features in Elements are not as steam lined nor as powerful as those in Lightroom and this program is very much aimed at being a toned down version of CS5, however it still offers most of what a photographer needs and is also compatible with most photoshop 3rd party plugins.


In general I would say that if you're starting out Elements is the way to go, with a view to adding Lightroom next (no point jumping for the library software when you've yet to get any form of mass of photos).

 

[Vipor]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated. I went ahead and installed Elements9 in my PC and will start playing around with it. Hope to get some feedback from members here once I feel comfortable with posting any work I do. Thanks again.

 

[WesternGuy]

If you are starting with PSE9 which I would agree is a good place to start, you might be interested in this site: Photoshop Elements Techniques, Tutorials, Downloads, Video Tips, Newsletter and more - Photoshop Elements User if you don't already know about it. Some of it is only open to subscribers to Photoshop Elements Techniques, but a lot of it is open to the general public, particularly the forums, where there is a very good knowledge base for questions: Elements Village - Powered by vBulletin . HTH.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

 

[KmH]

So, personally, I want to start getting into editing photos (I have never dabbled in this aspect of photography). Based on what I have read on many of these threads, it looks like LR3 is thought to be a user friendly app that is sufficient for anyone wanting to do minor editing. As I have never used any of these apps, would someone please chime in on whether my understanding is right?

If I understand correctly,

LR3 - photo organization, minor color enhancements.
Elements - LR3 on steroids. Organization, color enhancement, minor manipulation.
Photoshop CS5 - Edit galore. Full blown manipulation.

Am I right?

What you have stated is gross over simplification.

Photoshop Lightroom, and it's Apple equivelent Aperture, are PIEware. PIE = Parametric Image Editor. PIEware cannot edit pixels, which is also known as non-destructive image editing. No changes are made to the actual pixels. All edits are XML line commands stored with the image metadata, usually in a 'sidecar' file. Lightroom was designed as a compliment to CS for photographers that routinely produce a lot of images.

Photoshop Lightroom's Develope module (editing) is the Raw converter Adobe Camera Raw 6 (ACR 6). ACR first appeared with Photoshop 7 - 10 years ago this month.
Photoshop Lightroom first shipped Feb 19, 2007, and uses ACR 4.

Photoshop Lightroom 4 uses ACR 6 and is currently in Beta testing.

ACR 6 has a variety of editing tools, panels, and functions:

Tools - Zoom tool, Hand tool (used when zoomed into the photo), White Balance tool, Color Sampler tool, Targeted Adjustment tool, Crop tool, Straightening tool, Spot Removal tool, Red Eye Removal tool, Adjustment brush tool, Gradient tool, Image rotation tools.

Panels- Basic, Tone Curves, Sharpening/Noise Reduction, HSL/Grayscale, Split Toning, Lens corrections, Effects, Camera Calibration, Presets, Snapshots.


Photoshop Elements 10 is consumer grade software includes an image organiser, a truncated version of ACR 6, and the de-featured version of Photoshop CS5. Elements has some features not found in CS5, but only has about 30% of CS5's total capabilities.

Adobe offers 2 versions of professional grade Photoshop CS5 (Photoshop 12) - Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended. The Extended version of CS5 has 3-D and Scientific tools, functions, and capabilities.

CS5 includes an image browser/organizer - Bridge. Bridge works with most of Adobe's software applications. CS5 also includes Camera Raw (ACR 6), the same Raw Converter Lightroom 3 has.
A big advantage of CS5 is being able to edit in a 16-bit depth. Elements is limited to 8-bit depth edits.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I'm all for gross over simplification. It conserves more energy.