photoshop elements or lightroom?

kieran healey

kieran healey

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Kieran
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Hi guys was just wondering which you would recommend, i usually take landscape and sea scape shots can anybody tell me why one and not the other aswell please as i am really confused lol. Thanks alot
Kieran
 
Lightroom is great for enchancing your photos to make them look great and has a few great tools to do that, Photoshop elements is great for editing your photos, like the healing tool to taking things out of them, stacking layers for dramatic colours and skies by merging photos together, making panoramics and all sort of things.

I use both its the cheap option to owning photoshop CS5.
 
Elements does all i ever need it to do, just be aware thats there isn't a 64bit version yet though so youre limited as to how much memory you can allocate to running it.
 
Lightroom by a million miles.

Or take a month's free trial of both, full Monty versions, then decide to buy Lightoom after that ;)

Both on the Adobe site.
 
I have Lightroom 4 and Elements 10. To put it simply I use Lightroom all the time and Photoshop Elements I never use. I gave it a whirl when I bought it, but I hate the interface and the way it handles files - and that applies to all Photoshop variants, not just Elements. By comparison Lightroom is gloriously intuitive and simple to use, yet highly effective. I have Elements there if I need it, but fortunately it seems I can survive quite well without.
 
tdodd said:
I have Lightroom 4 and Elements 10. To put it simply I use Lightroom all the time and Photoshop Elements I never use. I gave it a whirl when I bought it, but I hate the interface and the way it handles files - and that applies to all Photoshop variants, not just Elements. By comparison Lightroom is gloriously intuitive and simple to use, yet highly effective. I have Elements there if I need it, but fortunately it seems I can survive quite well without.
Click to expand...
Horses for courses, i diss Lightroom with exactly the same thoughts and reasons you diss Elements

Try em both, theyre free to download trial versions
 
youre all wrong- get CS5 :lol::lol:

Its expensive but I find its worth every penny


Les :D
 
tdodd said:
I have Lightroom 4 and Elements 10. To put it simply I use Lightroom all the time and Photoshop Elements I never use. I gave it a whirl when I bought it, but I hate the interface and the way it handles files - and that applies to all Photoshop variants, not just Elements. By comparison Lightroom is gloriously intuitive and simple to use, yet highly effective. I have Elements there if I need it, but fortunately it seems I can survive quite well without.
Click to expand...

Tim, do you do any layers editing etc?

Can you do that type of thing in PSE?

Is it possible that you can send a photo to PSE from LR (after you have done your adjustments) then complete the tasks for blending/better cloning/better sharpening etc back to LR all inside the raw (xmp) and then export to your final destination, so really you shouldn't have any problems with the files as everything is being written to an xmp file?
 
Layers is the primary reason I bought PSE10, but as I hate and despise the whole Photoshop interface I really try to avoid going there. I'm sure it's not Photoshop's fault, but to my mind, which is usually quite intelligent, I simply cannot get to grips with making layers, selections and masks work for me. I've done the tutorials and it just never sticks. Whenever I come to have another go it's back to square one on the learning curve for me.

As for files, maybe I'm missing a trick, but in Lightroom I have a raw file and my finished JPEG, if/when I choose to export it. I can revisit the file at any time and I never have the clutter of heavyweight intermediate files to be saved/stored. Indeed I don't need to save anything, or worry about which format I choose to save in. My impression of Photoshop is that once I'm done editing a raw file I have to save my edits in some cumbersome, humungous file, like a PSD or TIFF, if I ever think I might want to go back and rework the file at all. Well I don't want my drive cluttered up with both the raw original and some juicy, fat, intermediate file. I like the way Lightroom works. No surplus. No waste. All the adjustments there in front of my eyes. No concerns about 8 bit or 16 bit or flattening or merging or picking one file format over another.

Like I said, maybe I've missed a trick, perhaps several.
 
Tim, I am the same with Photoshop. I understand how and why it is done like it is with layers and the advantages that brings but I just don't happen to like it. I also have no real need for it other than a quick clone out of a small bird in the sky or something like that.

Kieran, best advice on this thread is to trial them both as you get long enough to see if it is a product for you before spending any money on them. Could even trial back to back so you get a full 30 days with each seperately to ensure you have enough time to get to grips with it.
 
tdodd said:
Layers is the primary reason I bought PSE10, but as I hate and despise the whole Photoshop interface I really try to avoid going there. I'm sure it's not Photoshop's fault, but to my mind, which is usually quite intelligent, I simply cannot get to grips with making layers, selections and masks work for me. I've done the tutorials and it just never sticks. Whenever I come to have another go it's back to square one on the learning curve for me.
Click to expand...

I so agree with Tim's comment above. I thought this was just me! PSE does produce nice results and I've never needed anything more powerful but for me at least (and perhaps Tim) it is far from intuitive or a quick process.

I fully intend to check out Lightroom as well.
 
Lightroom has a clone tool, but it is quite basic, and unless you are happy only to clone with circles then it certainly has its limits. Mostly I can work within those constraints, but sometimes I have to concede defeat.

Here's an example of a bit of LR cloning....

20120620_120502_000.jpg
 
The thing is they are two different programs.

One is primarily a catalogue and raw converter.

The other is a manipulator and raw converter.

Both can do some of the jobs the other can but both cannot do some of the jobs the other can, confused?

Tim, nice image but I want that 'flying' dog for a stock image on a transparent BG....can I do that in LR? What is the nearest we can get using LR for such a task?
 
Not to my knowledge, although there are Lightroom plugins available which might extend its features, but I've not researched them. Vanilla LR has very limited pixel level editing and does not allow you to cut things out or combine multiple images. There's a reason Photoshop exists.
 
tiler65 said:
Tim, nice image but I want that 'flying' dog for a stock image on a transparent BG....can I do that in LR? What is the nearest we can get using LR for such a task?
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if you could use the adjustment brush on the background and decrease saturation and/or increase exposure until the green turns white?

OK, not quite transparent but nearly there :lol:
 
Yes, you can do that, but like you say, you won't get transparency. Also, on closer inspection, you'll find with this example that the edge boundary between dog and whitened background is not tidy at all. It would work better with a sharp boundary, but because the rear end of the dog is OOF the local adjustment brush does not cut off its effect neatly. With hard edges I think the problem is very much reduced.

20120620_143456_000.jpg
 
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I use both.
Lightroom for cataloging, photoshop for the serious editing, I don't think that LR works in layers and has masking abilities, but, I do love the way that LR doesn't actually edit the physical image, and it is totally no destructive.
They both have their uses and that is why I will continue to use both.
 
I too use LR with an editing program, in my case CS5. As said they both have their uses and advantages.
 
Actually photoshop CS *any version* can do both tasks equally well as it comes bundled with adobe bridge which is the cataloguing/organizing element with raw conversion that was later developed into the stand alone version that they called lightroom.
 
iancandler said:
Actually photoshop CS *any version* can do both tasks equally well as it comes bundled with adobe bridge which is the cataloguing/organizing element with raw conversion that was later developed into the stand alone version that they called lightroom.
Click to expand...

But if you use just PS you need to 'save' your image otherwise it reverts back to the unedited file. The only way to save all your edits is via a psd (maybe a couple of others too) but these become huge files especially when using multiple layers.

One day they will come up with a solution but cynically I think it is a sales gimmic
 
I tend to use lightroom as a genral rule of thumb.
I love the batch converter...very handy.
Though for editing...photoshop is hard to beat...and CS5 is the best.
I use CS5 when i need to get rid of something in shot or anything really more than tweaking with an image.
If you can only get one...go for lightroom, if you have the cash, go for both...if you have even more cash..CS5
 
There is a thread here - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=684360 - which has been running for over three years and is still alive and well today, which seeks to show examples of "raw conversions" without resorting to Photoshop type adjustments. Many of the examples have been prepared using Lightroom, although the occasional ringer slips in too.

I did have this Lightroom example in the thread, but it's gone missing....

Before :
20090418_135849_6093_LR.jpg


After :
20090418_135849_6093_LR-2.jpg
 
I use both CS5 and LR4. 90% of my stuff never sees CS5 and LR4 does the vast majority of edits without any issue. Now the adjustment brushes have got progressively better in LR I ten to do the majority of local adjustments there as well. Something that always used to be done in CS5. I do still use CS5 for a number of things LR can't handle

Anything that needs layers and masks. I don't think PSE can handle layer masks either
Liquify
Some B & W conversions but not all.

I also tend to use it to polish one off images that are going to be used for things such as magazine advertising, adding text or a logo to an image, and for anything I'm required to present a final image in something other then SRGB JPEG
 
tiler65 said:
But if you use just PS you need to 'save' your image otherwise it reverts back to the unedited file. The only way to save all your edits is via a psd (maybe a couple of others too) but these become huge files especially when using multiple layers.

One day they will come up with a solution but cynically I think it is a sales gimmic
Click to expand...


Not if you shoot raw.
When you develop the raw file, even if you discard it and choose not to open it in PS it saves the settings you used in ACR as an .XMP file, then if you open the raw file again at a later date those settings are recalled from the .XMP file and applied.
This is an automatic process and I think the .XMP's may be a hidden file, but my system is set to show hidden files, so I can see them.
The same thing happens when using adobe bridge and opening a photo in ACR, its saves the .xmp file and is recalled if you open the raw at a later time/date.

Of course once you get to the PS stage of processing you have to manually save and can save as a PSD, yes it creates large files but I find it rare that I need to save a PSD, its only if I cant finish working on a file at that time, otherwise the only saves I do is of the initial raw file and the finished photograph in the various sizes needed for forums, galleries and printing.
 
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