Which post imaging software

S

steve5563

Suspended / Banned
Messages
19
Name
Stephen
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi everyone,

May well have been done to death this thread but hoping that you could help with my dilema

If you were staring from scratch which software would you buy. My options and thoughts are

(1) - Photoshop CS5
(2) - Photoshop elements 10
(3) - Portrait professional
(4) - Lightroom 3
(5) - Apature 3

What makes the decision worse is that my son is interested in photography and as he is a student I can get the photoshop CS5 for around £170, or lightroom 3 for £70.

I will be using a Mac for all my photography work and editing so that is why I have included the apature application in my choices.

My main work will be portrait photogrphy and possibly wedding photography in a few years....

Hope you can all help with my decision.

Unfortunately I can only use the student discount on 1 application per year :(
 
I believe that it's your son that can get a discount on the student version for his work. It's up to him if he lets you play! ........................................... I'm only envious! Obviously the CS5 is the way to go even though it may be more intricate to use.

Good luck ............................ keep on good terms with your son!

Malcolm
 
Thanks Malcolm,

Obviously the licence will be my son's but would be a shame to not take advantage of the software whilst he is still living at home...:)

Regards

Steve
 
PS5 and PSE10 are full pixel level editing suites. They include the ability to catalogue (via a workspace in PSE10 and Adobe Bridge in CS5) and use Adobe Camera Raw to get global effects too. Elements 10 is a easier to use cataloging system and effectively has a cutdown version of PS5 included. The cutdown version is probably all you need unless you want to do more complex things.

Portrait Pro is more about enhancing portraits than an editing suite.

Lightroom 3 is a cataloging system and front end to Adobe Camera Raw together with the ability to batch export to places like Facebook or printing. Whilst I use it for 95% of my photography, there are things that it can't do and I have to resort to editing in Photoshop (content aware deletion is the key feature I tend to use in PS5). As far as I'm aware, Aperture is the same as Lightroom (not sure if it has the ability to edit at the pixel level). It does appear to be very cheap so you do get a lot for your money.

I'd say your choices were:

  • Lightroom + PS5 (although you could just use PS5 as it will do all Lightroom does, just not in as easy a manner)
  • Aperture + possibly an editing suite
  • PSE10

Adobe do 30 day trials of their software. Why not download both and spend some time on YouTube/Adobe TV with some tutorials and see how you get on.
 
If I was starting again I would go for Aperture, at £45 for pretty much the same feature set as Lightroom it is a no brainer. If then you feel restricted by Aperture I would look at either Elements, or Photoshop CS5, although from my experience Elements is fine unless you need very specific advanced features.
 
I think a lot depends on what your going to be doing, the sort of work and volume, personally in your case with mostly portraits I'd go with CS5, Lightroom and possibly portrait pro (with the defaults turned well down) but you could probablyget away with elements instead of cs5.
 
I think it's all down to how many images you need to handle. As far as Image processing is concerned then for the ease of use and the array of controls I'd opt for Lightroom, with Aperture second. The only drawback is that you have no real pixel editing options, so cloning and the like is really out of the question

However PSE10 has a lot going for it. I've been a Photoshop user since V 2.5 and to be honest I don't use 90% of what's available in the package. So I would if I only had one package I would seriously look at PSE10. CS5 is great but for the majority of users it really is overkill. I've played with PSE and find it remarkable for the price.

Download trial versions and see what you think. It also looks like the next version of Photoshop is due out in the spring of next year, so it may be worthwhile waiting until then to get CS(6)
 
Thanks everyone who has taken the time to reply.

Some food for thought and really interesting that you all have your own favourite choices from such a pretty short list of options.

I think the point I was trying to make was with the discount my son can get CS5 can be got for around £170 instead of the £650 or so.
Lightroom costs around £70 instead of £200 ish.

He is only entiled to 1 purchse per year so not sure which he would be best suited to ( and me obviously with the portrait work ). ;)

Steve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top