# Aloha!!!!!! Photoshop elements 10 or lightroom 4?????



## amg (Apr 26, 2012)

Aloha Everyone 

Just got back from a amazing trip from Maui probably took 1000 pics  Seriously sad to be home to the rain and cold wish I could have stayed.....

So I am in the process of uploading pics and noticed that my lightroom trial has expired (love lightroom 4) but to be fair I am as we speak downloading a free trail of Photoshop Elements 10 everytime I upload pictures to the site I keep hearing ppl say photoshop is better because of layers and they dont use lightroom at all.... I have a feeling I am gonna be spending alot of time reading and googling layers (I didnt bother with free trail of cs5 cause I cant afford it anytime soon) so if anyone can give me some good advice or send me in a good direction for articles etc. 

So I am gonna give elements a 30 day trail and decide which one I want to buy (lightroom 4/ Ps elements 10) but I am a bit curious to see what your choice would be and why? This is a big choice cause I really want/need a new lens but decided I should get a editing software first so I am gonna steal a little bit from my lens money to make it happen!!!!! So I would love to hear what you have to say and then I can explore the whys and make my choice after my trial

Thank you everyone


----------



## MReid (Apr 26, 2012)

If you are doing 1000 pics Lightroom. Turbo fast.
If you are doing 4 pics Photoshop is fine. MUCH slower than Lightroom.

There are things you can do in Photoshop you can't do in Lightroom....having said that they are not critical things for the normal processing of photos.

If I had to pick one thing I could/would not do without it is my Lightroom program.....much love.


----------



## Dao (Apr 26, 2012)

Most of the POST work can be done with just Lightroom and it is quite easy

Cropping
Exposure adjustment
Curve
Color saturation
Black, White, Highlight adjustment
Sharpening
Noise reduction
Lens correction (i.e. distortion, CA)
Spot / Red eye removal


However, once in a long while if you need to do more such as remove a tree, smooth the skin but still leave some skin texture, dodging or burning ...... plus many other stuff, you need to use other editing tools such as Photoshop CS.


----------



## KmH (Apr 26, 2012)

A lot of those same Lightroom tasks can be done in Camera Raw, since Lightroom's develope module and camera Raw are essentially the same thing ACR - Adobe Camera Raw.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons Elements is inexpensive is that it has a truncated version of Camera Raw.

If I had to pick 1 image editing application to discard, it would be Lightroom, because I already have the same batch, parametric editing application - ACR - that CS5 has, and CS5 can do a lot more editing wise, like layers, precise selections, advanced masking, more advanced text capabilities, actions, scripts, droplets, pixel editing blah, blah, blah, than Lightroom can do.


----------



## 2WheelPhoto (Apr 26, 2012)

BOTH


----------



## Derrel (Apr 26, 2012)

If you must pick only one, pick Lightroom.


----------



## KmH (Apr 26, 2012)

If you must only pick one, pick Elements 10, so you can do all the types of editing. While Lightroom can do a lot, it has limits.

As mentioned having both is what Adobe intended when they designed Lightroom. Lightroom is a suppliment to Photoshop, not a replacement for Photoshop.


----------



## 2WheelPhoto (Apr 26, 2012)

OP, you can download both free and play with them for a month.


----------



## DiskoJoe (Apr 26, 2012)

cs5 ftw!

I would go lightroom from the two you posted but cs5 is the way to go.


----------



## shmne (Apr 26, 2012)

It depends on the editing you like to do. If you ever want to do any kind of compositing (cutting multiple pictures into one) then you are much better off with Photoshop, but if you plan on sticking to very basic edits Lightroom will be your best friend.

Also for basic file management, Lightroom is nice.


----------



## amg (Apr 26, 2012)

I already had my free trail of Lightroom 4 and I LOVED IT!!!!! Was really easy to use!!! Was playing around with Elements not so easy to figure out...... And no I am not editing all 1000 pics just a good handful of my faves that I plan on printing for a album...... I never print all my photos the rest will just sit on a flash drive that I will look at once in a blue moon  Anyone have some good photoshop articles I cant seem to find my way around theh software. And how do these layers work?????


----------



## MTVision (Apr 26, 2012)

amg said:
			
		

> I already had my free trail of Lightroom 4 and I LOVED IT!!!!! Was really easy to use!!! Was playing around with Elements not so easy to figure out...... And no I am not editing all 1000 pics just a good handful of my faves that I plan on printing for a album...... I never print all my photos the rest will just sit on a flash drive that I will look at once in a blue moon  Anyone have some good photoshop articles I cant seem to find my way around theh software. And how do these layers work?????



Lightroom is way more intuitive then photoshop (elements or cs6). But I love photoshop!

This website is helpful - I think it's for photoshop but most can be applied to elements. 

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/layers/


----------



## shmne (Apr 26, 2012)

Honestly it sounds to me you are just looking for some basics, my coin goes in the lightroom bucket ^_^ chances are you will never get into the juicier parts of photoshop, and would just let a lot of the program go to waste. While I think with lightroom you will use most if not all of the functionality. 

Photoshop is not just for photos  there is a lot of function for graphic designers, web designers, 3d designers, and animators as well.


----------



## ZapoTeX (Apr 26, 2012)

The free alternatives to Photoshop (GIMP, even the humble Paint.NET) are not the same as the original, but they are pretty solid.

On the contrary I'm not aware of any valid alternative to Lightroom.

Personally I use Lightroom 4 on all my pictures and, when I need layers, clone brush, etc... I export to tiff 16 bit, open in Paint.NET, do my stuff, export Jpeg.

Lightroom is designed on purpose to manage tons of photos, store them, etc... Editing 1000 pictures will be a pleasure. With any other program I've tried (including Photoshop) it would be a pain.

Bye bye!


----------



## sovietdoc (Apr 26, 2012)

Photoshop is not the best tool for working with photos.  If you use photoshop to retouch your photos it's like using a $60,000 dollar video camera to film your little kid growing up.  It can do that just fine, because it can do everything, but it's not really meant for that.  

That's why there is Lightroom.  

Don't use "all-in-one" tools to do a job.  Use a specialized tools for each job instead.


----------



## shmne (Apr 26, 2012)

sovietdoc said:


> Photoshop is not the best tool for working with photos.  If you use photoshop to retouch your photos it's like using a $60,000 dollar video camera to film your little kid growing up.  It can do that just fine, because it can do everything, but it's not really meant for that.
> 
> That's why there is Lightroom.
> 
> Don't use "all-in-one" tools to do a job.  Use a specialized tools for each job instead.



Your mentality is a bit backwards xD As a professional in the field I can say extremely confidently that Photoshop is the specialized tool for editing images. However Lightroom is the pro-sumer answer for people who just need basic edits. In fact photoshop is very much intended to be used for editing photos, it has extremely powerful photo editing tools. Things like content aware scaling that allow you to stretch images withing stretching people (say you want the photo wider, you can make it wider without effecting the person.) There is a large list of things Lightroom could never hope to do. 

With that said, I'd like to repeat what I just stated. 

Photoshop is generally for professionals who require it to do high-quality professional work. Lightroom is a pro-sumer product aimed at consumer who desire more powerful products (just like the canon 60D is a pro-sumer DSLR) 

Not trying to come off as angry or spiteful, just making sure there isn't any misinformation going around.


----------



## bratkinson (Apr 26, 2012)

I've been a Photoshop'per since a free version (pretty basic) came with my Canon G-3 when it was new (2002? 2003?). It has served me well. It was a little tricky to get it to install under Windows XP, but I managed to do it. 

I picked up Lightroom 3 shortly before LR 4 came out for $125 or so. All I can say is it does everything my ancient Photoshop LE did and a WHOLE lot more very, very easily.

This past Monday, I got an automatic newsletter email from B&H advertising PS Elements 10 for 1/2 off, one day only, $49.95. Sold! It arrived today! I'm finally in the 'big leagues' for editors.  I'll be ready for Windows 7, as the Photoshop LE definitely will not work under Win 7.

Photoshop and/or CS is just way too pricey for my needs/tastes. Although I did pick up a used PS 6 about 18 months ago for a very reasonable price. I found it just too slow for my tastes. But, I find that Lightroom is really slow on my single processor XP3200 running Windows XP. It's time to upgrade...one of these days.


----------



## MTVision (Apr 26, 2012)

Another reason to go with Lightroom over elements is because of the limited adobe camera raw plugin. ACR (adobe camera raw) is amazing and can do everything Lightroom can - like fixing exposure, fill light, contrast, sharpening, noise reduction, adjustment brush, etc. I think Lightroom has a couple more tools but basically lightroom and ACR are the same. With elements (at least version 9) the ACR that comes with it is very limited. It doesn't even compare to Photoshops ACR or Lightrooms develop module.


----------

