Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Lightroom?

[mastamak]

I am with Dave 100% in everything he says about Lightroom. I chucked out Bridge and ACR when the Adobe photographer's subscription was offered and apart from a fairly easy learning curve to get my head around the LR catalog I reckon I haven't looked back. People get comfortable with what they know and change can often be difficult. Having said that I am not too sure why anyone would still be using Elements unless they are averse to the Adobe subscription model. The thing is, with all these software options there are often several ways of doing the same task and we often get into a comfortable rut doing the same task in the same old fashion. I recall attending a workshop with a brilliant photographer who showed us how to level a horizon in PS. His method was absolutely amazing as it involved about 20 steps. I felt like putting my hand up and saying "why not just use the ruler tool, its simpler" but I was too polite
Grant

[zen]

Hi Zen,

Was your camera not supported by Elements that you couldn't process RAW? Was it ever compatible with the earlier versions? I shoot Nikon and they have a free converter (ViewNX2) that I used whenever necessary, my only concern with ViewNX2 was that it didn't have noise reduction, so there was a lot of back and forth between programs. When I upgraded my camera Elements didn't support RAW version so I had to either use ViewNX2 or use a DNG converter.

Hi Shadowman,

Actually, I had been shooting primarily JPEGs, which PSE 11 handled quite well. When I was persuaded[shamed?] to go RAW, PSE 11 DID process RAW images from my 5d3, but not from the new 6ts, which I had just gotten as a small easy to carry walk-around rig. But then I bought PSE 14, and at the same time the CC LR/PS, and now have what I think is a dynamite combination. What's more, I'm now a dedicated RAW shooter, although typically, I set the cam to record both RAW and med sized JPEGs.

So, for now, I'm satisfied, and a happy shooter! Thanks for asking, Shadowman!

Zen

[Guzzibob]

I have both. I have had Elements for a long time, and Lightroom for three years or so. (I also have Photoshop, since I bought the photographer's CC offering).

The key to thinking about Lightroom is that it is a workflow application. It allows you to manage your photos, process them, Print them and publish them - all within one product with a consistent interface throughout.

The controls and workflow are exactly the same, whether you are working with jpegs, RAW or a mixture.

As I've got to know the product better, and Lightroom itself has developed, I can do almost everything I need in Lightroom. It does not just offer global adjustments. Whilst it does not have the sophisticated mapping of the Photoshop products, a lot can be accomplished with its filters and brushes.

There are some things it doesn't do. If you want to combine images (other than hdr and panorama) it doesn't. Nor is it the place to create special effects.

One slightly arcane point. Lightroom is not a RAW converter, it is a RAW interpreter. Your RAW images stay RAW until you move them outside of Lightroom.

So it depends on your needs. If Lightroom can do what you need, I can pretty much guarantee you can do it more quickly in Lightroom than in Elements.

Finally, sorry about the long post, if I wanted something to do the sorts of things Elements can, but didn't want to tackle Photoshop, I would choose On1's Photo 10 over Elements every time (actually, I have!)

If you want want to get a quick start with Lightroom, try Victoria Bampton's free quick start guide: http://www.lightroomqueen.com

Cheers,

Dave

[Manfred M]

Sure Manfred, you and many others, for whatever reasons. I think you need either to embrace the Catalogue and the workflow that goes with, or avoid it altogether.

Dave - my issue with Lightroom is the monolithic catalogue. I and many others have lost all of their edits when the catalogue got corrupted and the nice folks at Adobe were unable to get it back. I had this happen twice to me, so it is not going to happen a third time, even though the folks at Adobe have made improvements in improving data integrity. Yes, I know that I can set it up to write the data to a sidecar file, but if this is the only thing I use Lightroom for, why would I go that way?

As for the Develop Module versus ACR; the functionality is identical, but the user interface is not and I just happen to prefer the ACR user interface. Photoshop has an ACR filter (the user interface is almost 100% identical to ACR), and this is a tool I do use, so it just makes sense to stick with the one tool. I don't use any of the other LR functionality, so it is just as easy to stick with Bridge. I also use some of the other Adobe Creative Cloud software and Illustrator, Premiere Pro and all of the other software is integrated with Bridge, so again, a very compelling reason to stick with it.

People are quite welcome to use whatever workflow that they like. In my case, I see no reason to use Lightroom and given the inherent underlying design flaw of the cataloging tool, I continue to suggest people stay away from it.

[Brev00]

There is nothing like a good free trial. Or two. I have been a regular Elements user from 9-12 and am waiting for 15 for my next upgrade. In the meantime, I have done free trials of Lightroom, Photoshop, Photo Ninja, DxO Optics 8, and more. Elements continues to be the easiest and most powerful tool of those I have tried. I liked Aperture but it slowed down my computer to a crawl and now it is obsolete. The basis of it all is the raw processing plug-in. Rob Sheppard, an excellent author, gave me the invaluable tip to do as much of my processing in the raw converter as possible. Even though I follow that advice, I have also added several plug-ins to Elements to add some features neglected by Adobe (i.e., curves). The Nik Suite is now free so I strongly recommend adding that to any software you purchase (if possible). No need for a free trial with free software (my motto).

[davidedric]

I and many others have lost all of their edits when the catalogue got corrupted and the nice folks at Adobe were unable to get it back. I had this happen twice to me, so it is not going to happen a third time,

Yes, if I'd had that experience I'd be with you (incidentally, writing to xmp keeps the final state but loses all the history processing steps, so it's only a partial solution).

However, I don't have those scars, and all (I think) of the recent reports of catalogue corruption I have seen have showed themselves as an inability to open the catalogue, so it's the folks who haven't been doing regular back-ups who are in real trouble (I do my back-up and integrity check each time I exit).

I suppose as well,,having spent my working life responsible for and dependant on data bases, it seems natural to me.

Anyway, fortunately there are choices to suit most of us.

Dave

[Manfred M]

Yes, if I'd had that experience I'd be with you (incidentally, writing to xmp keeps the final state but loses all the history processing steps, so it's only a partial solution).

However, I don't have those scars, and all (I think) of the recent reports of catalogue corruption I have seen have showed themselves as an inability to open the catalogue, so it's the folks who haven't been doing regular back-ups who are in real trouble (I do my back-up and integrity check each time I exit).

I suppose as well,,having spent my working life responsible for and dependant on data bases, it seems natural to me.

Anyway, fortunately there are choices to suit most of us.

Dave

Dave - there was a period in my career (around a decade) where I was designing enterprise MIS. None of the databases we designed had the inherent structural flaws of the Adobe catalog. If we had a system failure, we could recover virtually all of our data. The data was never stored in a monolithic data structure. The fix to the catalog system is not that difficult but it would require a major rethink of how and where the data is stored.

[davidedric]

And there I was thinking it is a properly normalised relational database

I take your point!

We never lost a database either - but I've got a few scars!

Dave

[Codebreaker]

I've been using Lightroom since the Beta days and never lost anything - but I accept that 'mileage may vary' as they say - and I'm now crossing my fingers having publicly stated this and hoping the lightning bolt wont strike :-)

But then to be on the safe side, not only do I backup all my images but also all the LR associated files specifically the Catalog and I don't just mean the backup created from within LR.

[davidedric]

That's it. If you don't use .xmp sidecars, then the images never change. Backup and forget. But take great care of your Catalogue.