Elements 9 or Lightroom

T

The Chiller

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Name
Gary
Edit My Images
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Morning All
I have never used Photoshop Elements 9 or Lightroom. Which one would you recommend. Not worried about the price difference as my wife is a teacher so I can buy Lightroom off Software4students.
Thanks in advance
Gary
 
Download the demo versions from Adobe and play with them for 30 days...
 
As above, try the demos of each.

I have both (well, PSE 8) and do most of my work in LR3 but occasionally use PSE for cloning etc.
 
My wife is a teacher so nearly bought LR3 but bought E9 as it seemed better for actual editing. Def try demos
 
Depends how much editing your doing... I honestly rarely leave LE3 now, and at £65 or teachers you cant go wrong.
 
I have both, I use Lightroom 95% of the time, but go into Elements when I need content aware fill or layers.

It bois down to personal preference, so as above, it is best to try both, but as a guide, if you take a lot of images and need to sort them/process them fairly quickly Lightroom is the way to go, if you only take a few images but want to spent time processing them to perfection Elements would be a better bet.
 
Lewis,

I'm jumping in here, but it may be relevant for the OP as well, would you say it was worth getting Elements 9 just for content-aware fill? I know it created a stir when it came in on PS (v5?).

I'm a convert to Lightroom, but do sometimes need to go into PS for cloning (in an emergency only, I might add ;)), so is content aware fill that much better than previous versions?
 
jerry12953 said:
Lewis,

I'm jumping in here, but it may be relevant for the OP as well, would you say it was worth getting Elements 9 just for content-aware fill? I know it created a stir when it came in on PS (v5?).

I'm a convert to Lightroom, but do sometimes need to go into PS for cloning (in an emergency only, I might add ;)), so is content aware fill that much better than previous versions?
Click to expand...

Good question. I would like to know the answer to this because I have now gone back to :thinking: :shrug: :lol: Thanks for all the replys Bit of downloading in order I think. :)
 
If you can get them for the same price, Lightroom - no contest really. Very impressive. Does everything photographers want. Not sure that I'll ever use Elements again, though it does have a few more manipulation tricks I don't know how to work.

I also found Lightroom quite intuitive to use. I've got a book (Scott Kelby) and that's very useful, but I actually got by on basic stuff okay without, and that's saying something for me :D
 
I have both PSCS5 and Lightroom 3. I don't leave Lightroom 98% of the time.

One thing to consider is that if you're processing everything through Lightroom and shoot RAW, you only need to keep the original RAW files on disk. If, like me, you save any edits as 16 bit TIFFs, that's 14MB vs 70 MB for each image from my 5D that I process.

Having said that, Elements 9 only supports 8 bit editing, so TIFF files will be considerably smaller, but you'll still be saving a lot of disk space.

With Lightroom, you get all the other benefits of non-destructive editing, such as being able to process multiple versions of the same file with ease. And it's an efficient cataloguing tool, which makes life a lot easier when you're trying to find things a year and a half down the road, or everything taken with an 85mm lens at f/4. :)

Try the demos.
 
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Lightroom for 95% of stuff, PS Elements for everything else - version 8 will be just as good and save some cash.
 
For me the main advantage of content aware fill is where you have something like a telephone wire across a scene, rather than just a spot to clone out.
 
Personally I could live without lightroom but I couldn't live without photoshop, for me LR simply can't do the level of editing that I need. I often have to comp images together, adding lots of layers, blending in textures etc, stuff LR can't do.
That said I'd rather not have to live without LR, it is great for wedding editing and batches.
I see them as complimentary to each other, rather than replacments for each other.
 
swanseamale47 said:
I see them as complimentary to each other, rather than replacments for each other.
Click to expand...

Certainly true.

However, I don't do much PP that requires Photoshop these days, especially since LR3, which has lens distortion and perspective corrections and were the main reason I needed PS with LR1 & 2. These days it's largely just for stitching panos together.

Lightroom does most of the the things I'd have done in a wet darkroom, which is enough PP for me.

I can see if your style of photography is different though, you'd have a different approach.
 
swanseamale47 said:
Personally I could live without lightroom but I couldn't live without photoshop, for me LR simply can't do the level of editing that I need. I often have to comp images together, adding lots of layers, blending in textures etc, stuff LR can't do.
That said I'd rather not have to live without LR, it is great for wedding editing and batches.
I see them as complimentary to each other, rather than replacments for each other.
Click to expand...

I agree, whats your wedding workflow like with LR and PS together?
 
hsuffyan said:
I agree, whats your wedding workflow like with LR and PS together?
Click to expand...

Into LR for the main edit, colour, exposure shapening etc, then any that need cloning fixing etc into PS, those back into LR when they are finished, then some will have virtual copies for effects like spot colour or a sepia or something, finally export.
Some images will be ignored in LR if we have special plans for them later (hdr etc)
 
swanseamale47 said:
Into LR for the main edit, colour, exposure shapening etc, then any that need cloning fixing etc into PS, those back into LR when they are finished, then some will have virtual copies for effects like spot colour or a sepia or something, finally export.
Some images will be ignored in LR if we have special plans for them later (hdr etc)
Click to expand...

Thats quite interesting because I would have assumed that thinks like sharpening are handled better in PS?
 
I find sharpening in LR3 is excellent, using the amount slider only.

I add a little noise reduction as well after I have sharpened. A quick rule of thumb is NR at about 60% (max) of the sharpening "amount".

Maybe it's a bit crude but it works for me.....
 
hsuffyan said:
Thats quite interesting because I would have assumed that thinks like sharpening are handled better in PS?
Click to expand...

The sharpening in LR 3 is much improved and good enough for the slideshow dvd which is where the large batch images go, the album images are individually edited in ps later after they have been chosen by the B+G.
 
LR3 99% for most of my stuff.

I nip into PSPX2 for some cloning or occasional use of layers, or maybe to add a border.
 
swanseamale47 said:
The sharpening in LR 3 is much improved and good enough for the slideshow dvd which is where the large batch images go, the album images are individually edited in ps later after they have been chosen by the B+G.
Click to expand...

jerry12953 said:
I find sharpening in LR3 is excellent, using the amount slider only.

I add a little noise reduction as well after I have sharpened. A quick rule of thumb is NR at about 60% (max) of the sharpening "amount".

Maybe it's a bit crude but it works for me.....
Click to expand...

Ah I see, I havent made the move over to the LR3. I have it on download right now, as I found one of my biggest issues with LR2 was the noise it introduced when sharpened
 
Only ever use LR but I would like some of the Nik plugins one day.
 
You must download and use the trials - my advise would be to only do this when you have a coupl eof evenings or a day or so that you can dedicate to putting them through their paces.

For what it's worth, I have PSE8 and LR3 and now I am getting used to LR3 I would say I prefer this as it also catalogues my photos better for more needs.

It's a personal preference but I found LR3 not too easy to get hold of it's true strengths in the first couple of uses and found www.thelightroomlab.com a godsend in helping me get the "a-ha" moment - I like David MArx's styleof delivery and helped me pick up speed quickly - I also have Martin Evening's text book to dip into as a reference guide.
 
Thanks again for all the replies with the tips and advice. I am going to wait until I am off work so I can have a good play with both and make my mind up.
Thanks again
Gary
 
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