al248005
Contributor
Looking at buying one to enhance my diving pics. My pics are in RAW format. Opinions on which one best suit it? I do have some entry level experience in editing.
Adobe Photoshop vs Elements vs Lightroom?
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I try not to do too much to my RAW images other than remove any backscatter and sometimes adjust the white balance. I'm happy with Elements for this. I save my original RAW files to folders on my computer and my jpegs on my Flickr site so I don't really need Lightroom.
I use Lightroom on my laptop and now Lightroom CC on my Ipad. I have experience and presets for Canon Raw (G-15) and Olympus (TG-5). The most common adjustment is white balance, but I find myself using many of the "sliders" in Lightroom. Recently discovered the utility of the "dehaze" slider. I have both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CC, but very rarely use either for underwater photos.
Hoag
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I really like Lightroom and have been using it for years. IMHO, Lightroom was developed for photographers while PS was developed for graphic artists. I have a copy of PS "just in case" I run into something that I can't handle in Lightroom. The big problem though is that if you want a current version, Adobe seems to be migrating all of their products to subscription based rather than outright purchase of the license.
If you want software that you can purchase outright, look into Luminar. It is available on a Black Friday sale right now for $99CDN (about $78 US).
I just picked up Luminar and I haven't had a chance to use it to any great extent, but based on what I did see, I really like it.
If you want software that you can purchase outright, look into Luminar. It is available on a Black Friday sale right now for $99CDN (about $78 US).
I just picked up Luminar and I haven't had a chance to use it to any great extent, but based on what I did see, I really like it.
Chris Ross
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If you're buying now Adobe locks you into a subscription for LR, I have been using photoshop for many years (17 years) including Adobe camera raw but I've stopped with CS6 I don't see any need to give Adobe more money for upgrades of dubious value, even the dehaze filter can emulated in PS with levels and clarity.
The reason Adobe introduced subscription is revenues were down as people didn't see value in the upgrades and only upgraded when were forced to when their new camera was not supported by ACR. Things that would have been useful like more efficient code and threading to speed up the old tried and true tools or basic must haves like support for 4K monitors in Windows were never provided and even now in CC the old code is still there and 4K support seems to give issues at times. Make no mistake full PS is an amazing program with a steep learning curve and most people only scratch the surface, but it's also mish-mash of tools and modules slung together which limit its potential and I don't see that being addressed.
For raw conversions I've switched over to Capture One which is a one off purchase. If you don't need the DAM of lightroom, the tools in PS elements will be enough. The only thing not officially supported is 16 bit editing but there are workarounds, this link goes through what to do. 16 bit is important in initial processing setting black and white points and colour balance to avoid banding in smooth gradients like you might get in photo with a smooth gradient from dark through to bright water.
16 Bits/Channel Editing in Photoshop Elements - Photoshop Elements 10 Tutorial | PhotoshopSupport.com
What do use now for Raw conversion?
The reason Adobe introduced subscription is revenues were down as people didn't see value in the upgrades and only upgraded when were forced to when their new camera was not supported by ACR. Things that would have been useful like more efficient code and threading to speed up the old tried and true tools or basic must haves like support for 4K monitors in Windows were never provided and even now in CC the old code is still there and 4K support seems to give issues at times. Make no mistake full PS is an amazing program with a steep learning curve and most people only scratch the surface, but it's also mish-mash of tools and modules slung together which limit its potential and I don't see that being addressed.
For raw conversions I've switched over to Capture One which is a one off purchase. If you don't need the DAM of lightroom, the tools in PS elements will be enough. The only thing not officially supported is 16 bit editing but there are workarounds, this link goes through what to do. 16 bit is important in initial processing setting black and white points and colour balance to avoid banding in smooth gradients like you might get in photo with a smooth gradient from dark through to bright water.
16 Bits/Channel Editing in Photoshop Elements - Photoshop Elements 10 Tutorial | PhotoshopSupport.com
What do use now for Raw conversion?
Elements is simplest and easiest to use, latest version has many improvements and greater accuracy. PS will give you the ability to do amazing things, but you need to be an expert at it. It costs a fortune and is subscription only. I use LR 90% of the time. It took a while for me to get comfortable with it, but it has most of the tools you need for photo processing and once you learn it will make your processing and storage faster and more efficient. If I had unltd. funds, I'd get the PS subscription because you can do crazy things like replacing a messed up portion of a picture with one stroke (content aware) or add a feature to a picture (stick a diver from another picture in a nice reef shot that lacks interesting features). If you want to see some of the things you can do, go to "Go Ask Erin" online.
I use the Adobe CC with LR & PS. Simple workflow:
1. Import RAW files to LR to organize, cull, keyword, and do basic editing. Export full size Jpegs.
2. Open jpegs in PS CC to do anything LR can't do (as needed)
3. Batch re-size a smaller copy so I have full size and web-friendly.
Notes:
- This keeps my raw files 100% untouched, LR is only database entries.
- I don't keep even 90% of the shots I take, and HDD space is cheap.
1. Import RAW files to LR to organize, cull, keyword, and do basic editing. Export full size Jpegs.
2. Open jpegs in PS CC to do anything LR can't do (as needed)
3. Batch re-size a smaller copy so I have full size and web-friendly.
Notes:
- This keeps my raw files 100% untouched, LR is only database entries.
- I don't keep even 90% of the shots I take, and HDD space is cheap.
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I used to use Elements. The $100 price tag seemed so much more reasonable vs the hundreds that proper Photoshop cost. Then along came Lightroom. Managing all those images is a bear of a job. LR made my digital photography workflow so much easier.
I don't remember what the trigger was. Probably just an urge to try new things and get a little better. Whatever it was, I decided to take the plunge and give 'real' Photoshop a try. On a trial basis. That was about the time when full Photoshop was coming down in price. I bought one version at something like a $300 upgrade over Elements, before they moved to a monthly subscription model with CC (Creative Cloud).
It was a difficult at first. Confusing. Too many options. Where was my point-and-shoot post processing? A light bulb clicked, it became easier, and then it became impossible to go back. Once you've mastered the power of 'layers' nothing comes close.
That was a while ago. I for one was delighted when Adobe moved to the CC subscription model. I always ended up buying the 'new Elements' anyway. At $10-ish per month, I could have LR and real Photoshop for what I was paying each year to upgrade to the new Elements.
LR has become a much more capable editing machine than it was in the past. The new AI (Artificial Intelligence) engine behind the simple 'Auto' button offers a great starting point.
But nothing is as useful to me as real Photoshop. Especially for situations like these:
- You have a beautiful image, but you caught a bit of a buddy's fin in the corner of the photo. With Photoshop, voila, it is gone.
- You have a beautiful image, but some back scatter caused a spot on the eye of your otherwise trophy-worthy clownfish. Poof. Fixed.
- And if you're really enterprising, and you're making visual art vs. photo-journalism, you can combine images. Place a backdrop colorful reef from one photo behind your image of an interesting critter, replacing a dull, featureless grey bottom.
I think of Elements as a point-and-shoot camera, whereas Photoshop is equivalent to an advanced full-frame camera..
Just invested in the CC Photo Package, as I had to update a bunch of stuff to work with my D500 and there were too many compromises with the older programs. Plus for your $20 a month you get 1TB of cloud storage and a web page to display your stuff. We'll see.
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