Advice: Photoshop CS2 v Photoshop Elements

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HowardB

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Edit My Images
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Picked up my 30D about a month ago and have been shooting in RAW. Currently I am using BibblePro to convert RAW to TIFF and adjust white balance.

What I now need is something to ‘play’ with the TIFF image. I have Paint Shop Pro 7 which was a freebie with a box of recordable CD’s. However, I am thinking about moving to Photoshop as it seems to be the most popular and probably easier to get help on from forums such as this.

However, my dilemma is which Photoshop version should I buy – CS2 or Elements? I’m a complete novice when it comes to manipulating images and I’m not sure what I need from the software (yet). I’m tempted to plump for the cheaper Elements and get the hang of it and then decide whether I should move to CS2 or stay put.

Will I notice any shortcomings in using Elements? What will I not be able to do that I would be able to do with CS2?

Thanks.
 
Hi Howard - a right can of worms this because different strokes for different people. First off - Elements is good but doesn't match CS2, a lot of the adjustments are automated whereas, for example, CS2 has levels and curves which you can set. Plus in CS2 you get Adobe Bridge Browser (but I don't rate it) and you can use CS2 for RAW conversion. BUT - do you want to spend £300 plus.

The cheapest option is to use Rawshooter Essentials(free) to convert RAW files and then adjust in Elements. Or you can purchase Rawshooter Premium for about £45 or so. A lot of members use RSP including myself and regard it superior to the CS2 RAW converter. However, in my opinion, CS2 is the best for image adjustment.

It really depends on how much mullah you have. By all means buy Elements but you may find it restrictive later on. Certainly, I would recommend trying Rawshooter. HTH.

regards
 
Both are available as 30day trials from Adobe so why not give them a go.

Ultimately you will want CS2 but Elements isnt a bad starting point, especially if you have something that can do curves (like Rawshooter Pro).
 
thanks for the replies.

I've got quite a bit of software on trial periods at the moment - Bibble, Rawshooter, BreezeBrowser and Elements. Not gone for the download of CS yet.

I can't get on with Rawshooters interface so have decided to stick with Bibble. I think that i can do the majority of tweeks from within Bibble, however, Elements might be a good second source of tweeking.

Im thinking the best route forward is to buy Elements and a good book on how to use it properly and see how i get on.

All these plug-ins that i hear about for CS, will they work with Elements or is this another area that CS scores in?
 
Most, but not necessarily all, plugins will work with elements. Depends on whether it has the original feature to start with. I'm probably drawing dragon's teeth here but, don't give up on Rawshooter - it will all click into place and then, IMHO, it has the best interface and workflow of them all.

regards
 
stepheno said:
I'm probably drawing dragon's teeth here but, don't give up on Rawshooter
Click to expand...
Especially as Matt is putting together a set of very useful tutorials here :)
 
you may want to consider not getting the latest verion of elements btw as the previous version has more third party plugins that make it a more powerfull tool not up to cs2 but better than it normally is.

Oh and paint shop is just as good as photoshop I believe CT uses it and he gets excellent results better than alot of of us with cs2
 
stepheno said:
The cheapest option is to use Rawshooter Essentials(free) to convert RAW files and then adjust in Elements. Or you can purchase Rawshooter Premium for about £45 or so. A lot of members use RSP including myself and regard it superior to the CS2 RAW converter. However, in my opinion, CS2 is the best for image adjustment.

regards
Click to expand...

Elements uses the same RAW plugin as CS2 :)

I've been using Elements 3.0 for a year now and the only major failing with it is the lack of recording/using actions .
 
I now have the Adobe RAW converter for the 30D running in Elements, so i have that to evaluate againt Bibble and RawShooter converters.

Is there any reason now to use a 3rd party RAW converter over the Adobe RAW converter?
 
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