Which Photoshop program???

[ziggy84]

Hi everyone,

So I own Photoshop Elements 8 and I've been using the demo of Lightroom 4, but I also know there is CS6. On another post of mine I brought up photo magazines and KmH brought up NAPP. From what I've read, they use CS6 in a lot of the workshops/tutorials, etc. Now I was planning to buy Lightroom, but should I? Or should I just buy CS6? What do you think I would benefit most from?

Also, is Elements a more advanced program then Lightroom? For me, Elements is a bit difficult to use compared to Lightroom.

THanks again

 

[Light Guru]

Yes photoshop and Lightroom do a few of the same things but they are fundamentally different. Lightroom is a photo organizer that also does some basic photo editing. Photoshop is for advanced photo editing and manipulation it does not do any cataloging or organizing.

 

[Rahb]

Look at it this way:

Photoshop: Ability to edit a photo, and even drastically change what the photo is if you want
Light Room: A digital dark room to "develop" your digital "negative" (RAW file). You can do pretty much everything you could do in the days of dark rooms. If you want to put a picture of you super imposed on the moon though, you will need photoshop.

I look at it this way, I am by no means a good photographer, I'm a hobbiest. I try my best to get the photo right "in the camera" I then use lightroom to develop the raw file and make minor adjustments to make the photo pop.

I haven't been on ThePhotoForum since I was a beginner back with my Canon300D, I've improved, and looking forward to participating in the community again.

 

[nola.ron]

I personally use both, but I do 90% of my work in LR4. The very least I do in photoshop for each image is output sharpening. LR4 can do this as well but I find that CS6 smart sharpen produces better, and cleaner results. I would work toward both. My personal recommendation is to start with LR4... it's cheaper, easy to learn, and has some advantages for organization and such that PS does not have. However, I would quickly start working to get PS though because you will eventually need it, especially when you want to clone things out, transpose images, dodge/burn, etc. To get you by you could use Gimp and that will give you more advanced editing than PSE is currently giving you... and it's free.

You could do completely without LR4 and just use PS Camera Raw for the same editing, but IMO LR4 gives a great workflow and fantastic organization.

 

[ziggy84]

So what is the difference between Elements and CS6?

 

[Light Guru]

So what is the difference between Elements and CS6?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+the+difference+between+Elements+and+CS6

 

[nola.ron]

So what is the difference between Elements and CS6?

Short answer - a hell of a lot more power and tools/function in CS6.

 

[KmH]

Lightroom is a photo organizer that also does some basic photo editing. Photoshop is for advanced photo editing and manipulation it does not do any cataloging or organizing.

Lightroom's main reason for being is image database management. The key words there are database management.

While most people know how to use a browser, fewer know how to use a database management application.
A couple major limitations Lightroom has is that Lightroom can only open 1 catalog at a time, which also means Lightroom cannot be accessed by more than 1 networked computer at a time.

Lightroom 4 has 7 modules, only 1 of them - the Develop module - is for editing. The Develop module software is Adobe Camera Raw 7 (ACR 7)

CS 6 (Photoshop 13) also includes ACR 7, and in CS 6 it's called Camera Raw. Camera Raw has some features the Develop module doesn't have, and the Develop module has some features Camera Raw doesn't have.

I am continually surprised by how many people seem to know little about what Bridge can actually do.
I wish someone would write a book. Well, in part someone did - The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers


CS 6 also includes Bridge 5 which is an image organizer/browser. Bridge can perform many of the same image organizing functions Lightroom can, like keywording, metadata editing, image rating, and more.
Bridge can also do some things Lightroom can't. Both Bridge and Lightroom can do batch processing in ACR, and Bridge can perform other automated tasks.
CS 6 Camera Raw can be hosted by either Bridge or Photoshop. So with CS 6 and Bridge you can have 2 Camera Raw workspaces open at the same time, each doing batch processing. Or you can just host ACR with Bridge and while Bridge is doing a lengthy batch edit you can be doing other edits in Photoshop.

Bridge is designed to be used by most of Adobe's software. Consequently, Bridge can open a very much larger set of file types than Lightroom can, and many of those file types can be used with Photoshop. Lightroom is limited to a much smaller set of file types.

Many do as much as 90% of their image ediitng in Lightroom. You still need Photoshop to do the editing tasks Lightroom can't handle.
Lightroom was designed as a compliment to Photoshop, not replace it.

 

[ziggy84]

Thanks for all the info guys! I think I'll check out Gimp and see what that's about.