Is Elements enough for me vs Photoshop?

[Kinchi]

Hi! I'm a stay at home mom that would like to learn to take professional quality pictures for my family. I currently use Lightroom for my editing. I like the batch editing to adjust white balance and other basic fixes to groups of similar photos. I find the mask overlays to be a bit of a hassle, but I use them. I've never used Elements or Photoshop, and I'm wondering which one would be better for me, or if I should just stick with Lightroom. Examples of the type of thing I would like to do more easily: editing out skin imperfections, fun effects like snow falling, getting rid of distracting objects. Thoughts?

 

[goooner]

I only use LR at the moment, but plan to get PSE 13 next year. PS is just too expensive for me. I want PSE13 so I can do stacked focusing and stitch panoramas together. Have no idea how the features are that you want to use.

 

[jaomul]

I would think if you have Lightroom that combined with elements it's more than enough for most users. Obviously I can't speak for you personally

 

[KmH]

I agree that PsE and LR should be sufficient.
The only issue is that PsE is pretty much limited to doing 8-bit depth edits.
Photoshop CC 2014 can do 16-bit depth edits.

If you want to make professional quality image edits you would want to be able to make 16-bit depth edits.

PsE 13 is $60 -
Adobe Photoshop Elements 13

Adobe's Photography Program subscription that includes LR 5 and Photoshop CC 2014 is $9.99 a month ($119.88 per year) - Adobe Creative Cloud

 

[pixmedic]

if you dont mind the monthly fee, photoshop CC is only $10 a month and that gets you the latest photoshop and lightroom versions. Ive been very pleased with it so far. 95% of our workflow goes through LR, and the newest LR 5 has a much improved spot removal tool over LR4.

 

[Kinchi]

What a drag that photoshop is a monthly fee now. Would have liked to have a 1 time expense and be done with it for a long time. Can't you still buy a copy to download if you are a teacher or student?

 

[wyogirl]

I've been a Photoshop user since high school (like 1995 or so) and have a BA in design/marketing. If you haven't taken a class, then I really recommend Elements. Photoshop is a great and powerful program but for the user who isn't trained, it can be overwhelming and hard to figure out. Elements will do what you need especially if you are already using Lightroom. I use Lightroom only on about 98% of my photos anyway.

 

[Alexr25]

I have never been able to get my head around Elements. I have no trouble with Lightroom or full blown Photoshop but Elements and I just don't get on. The simplest task that would take seconds in PS turns into a saga in Elements as I hunt around for wizards to perform the task, and usually end up performing it badly.
In 98% of your editing you can do what needs to be done in Lightroom but when you do need to the power of PS you need the full thing not some dumbed down version that has only partial support for 16 bit processing. I would be looking at the $10/month subscription version of LR&PS.

 

[KmH]

Can't you still buy a copy to download if you are a teacher or student?

No. Just a Student/Teacher subscription.

 

[AlanKlein84]

Why not download a trial version and see what works for you. I use Lr and Elements. Don't know about snow, but Elements has loads of art filters to play with. If you want exciting and great shots of your family, shoot closer and lower. The processing program won't make much of a difference in your final results. Great photography starts in the camera. If you don;t get it there, Photoshop isn't going to help much. Your chasing sales myths. If you get it in the camera, you won't have to do much in the computer.