Elements or Lightroom?
Discussion
Does Lightroom have significantly better features that Elements? I've had a look at Adobe's website and it's not particularly obvious to me. Does Lightroom have the same/better editing tools?
I currently use Paint Shop Pro Ultimate X2, but I'm looking towards Adobe because all of the magazine tutorials I read tend to be Photoshop/Elements-orientated.
I currently use Paint Shop Pro Ultimate X2, but I'm looking towards Adobe because all of the magazine tutorials I read tend to be Photoshop/Elements-orientated.
JulianHJ said:
Does Lightroom have significantly better features that Elements? I've had a look at Adobe's website and it's not particularly obvious to me. Does Lightroom have the same/better editing tools?
I currently use Paint Shop Pro Ultimate X2, but I'm looking towards Adobe because all of the magazine tutorials I read tend to be Photoshop/Elements-orientated.
Lightroom is a very nice RAW processing and photo management program - but its meant to be used alongside photoshop. If you want pixel level editing, layers, complex masking, etc then photoshop is your choice I currently use Paint Shop Pro Ultimate X2, but I'm looking towards Adobe because all of the magazine tutorials I read tend to be Photoshop/Elements-orientated.
If you can buy Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 then awesome
..but I had to live with one i'd pick Elements(Do be aware of Elements limits at the same time - if you need specific tools such as CMYK export then you may want Photoshop CS5 in the long run
)Hope this helps.
I do a vast majority of post processing in LR only resorting to PS for healing, cloning and layers. LR also has a great library module.
I would not give up LR and have just upgraded to LR3.
Assuming you pay for it.... It can be quite expensive but if you can swing education discounts LR3 is about £70 and PS5 £160. Absolute bargain and top combination. I qualified through an £80 short course on PS at the local college. £310 all in and training too!
I would not give up LR and have just upgraded to LR3.
Assuming you pay for it.... It can be quite expensive but if you can swing education discounts LR3 is about £70 and PS5 £160. Absolute bargain and top combination. I qualified through an £80 short course on PS at the local college. £310 all in and training too!
I find Lightroom invaluable too (alongside CS5). I couldn't live without it for RAW and bulk image processing and library management. It's a very different beast from Photoshop CS5 or Elements though and I think it's Elements that JulianHJ needs if he wants to follow magazine Photoshop tutorials (unless you can wangle a student version of CS5...).
Take a look on the Adobe website, you can download full but time limited (1 month) trial versions to have a play with.
Take a look on the Adobe website, you can download full but time limited (1 month) trial versions to have a play with.
I'm not sure about the people that activated via a student course, but for myself I had to supply a scan of my girlfriend's student ID card and that was it. The email address they require can be any looking back at my records.
It was pretty fast and within 10 minutes of submission, I'd received activation instructions.
It was pretty fast and within 10 minutes of submission, I'd received activation instructions.
All that's required is a course invoice and student id; that's it! Also got discounts on imagenomics suite (use portraiture a lot) and onOne software (maskpro - not that impressed) the same way too. Microsoft do student discounts aswell. So do Apple but you need a uni/college email address or can browse their student price site from such an account.
My course was 2hr's a week over 6 weeks for £80 so Adobe isn't that stringent and as for the others I prefaced the request with telling them Adobe had granted a discount. Seems to have worked!
I also got a £1 off my cinema ticket
Its weird being a student again!
My course was 2hr's a week over 6 weeks for £80 so Adobe isn't that stringent and as for the others I prefaced the request with telling them Adobe had granted a discount. Seems to have worked!
I also got a £1 off my cinema ticket
Its weird being a student again!I got Elements 9 at Christmas as I couldn't bring my self to pay the £200 for Lightroom. 3 months on and I'm on the verge of just paying for LR3 because it just did exactly what I wanted when I wanted.
Import, organising, touching up photos and then uploading to sites just worked.
Elements on the other hand just doesn't work for me. Searching for images is a pain in certain views, editing images is a pain and takes a lot longer that LR. Uploading to external galleries, about 20% of images will fail to upload and appear stretched or the colour will be all to hell.
Maybe if i hadn't used Lightroom first I could get on with Elements but it's not my favourite app at the moment.
Just my 2 cents.
Import, organising, touching up photos and then uploading to sites just worked.
Elements on the other hand just doesn't work for me. Searching for images is a pain in certain views, editing images is a pain and takes a lot longer that LR. Uploading to external galleries, about 20% of images will fail to upload and appear stretched or the colour will be all to hell.
Maybe if i hadn't used Lightroom first I could get on with Elements but it's not my favourite app at the moment.
Just my 2 cents.
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